There comes a time that a tour ends. When you stop riding day in and day out and return to "normal" life. Where that means waking at 6am to feed your cats who have tried to wake you since 2:30 by walking all over you. Where that means buying a new (to my wife) Audi Q3 at Carmax because it's a decent deal. Where that means (finally) picking up a bike you bought in November and has been in the shop for three months on warranty repair waiting on parts. 

Am I thinking about getting out on the next adventure? It will take a few days. Am I happy to be here at home? Absolutely. But it does make one think about the last adventure and how I processed the last one.

Was it my favorite? No, but believe it or not, writing the silly journal kept me going. During the day as I'd experience joys and hardships and milestones I thought "how do I want to express this?" and "what rhymes with headwind?" Many nights I would be searching for the right word(s) to express in a Dr Seuss-ian tone to you all. So without any rhymes let's going over a recap of the ride.

Day-by-day rating

1. Day 6. My favorite. My longest as well, but it was just a great day starting out in the dark riding through ~30 miles before even getting to a trail, and then the trails took me along lakes and through quaint villages. Finished with a good hamburger at Red Robin (believe it or not)
2. Day 4. Small towns following the Pinellas trail into Tarpon Springs. Nice bayside riding options going from Tampa to St Petersburg (once I completed the causeway/bridge crossing)
3. Day 8. Scenic, riding north along the coast but at this point being the last day and my hind quarters sore from being on the saddle I felt the attention my rear-end was craving overrode the views my eyes were getting.

Favorite Parts (in no particular order)

• Meetup with YouTube subscribers in Tarpon Springs for dinner
• Tarpon Springs
• South Lake Trail
• Riding along the bay going into St Petersburg
• Talking with people along the way and learning their stories. There are so many good people in this country and I hope the current state of affairs won't turn people against each other

What's Next?

There's always something going on. I'm planning at least 3 more tours this year in various places around the country

• In roughly the May timeframe the zeitgeist is to return to Ohio. Yes, it means hitting part of the OTET again, but I'm not riding all of it. I'm going to detour off certain parts of it, specifically after Columbus going north, and explore new adjacent routes. Instead of heading east, I'm going to head west around the Akron area and connect with the N Coast Inland Trail and head out towards Toledo, then south into Dayton to reconnect with my lodging at an airbnb, where I plan to leave my car.
• Kath and I are also heading on a big-time ride, parking the car in Ottawa, and then riding to Mt Tremblant, Quebec City, Montreal, and back to our vehicle. This is a 3-week trip, and we have extended stays at apartments in each of the three cities we're visiting. I'm still planning on taking this trip, although with the rhetoric between the US and Canada I hope they still welcome tourists who travel across the border.
• I'm also looking at doing something over 1,000 miles this year. Most of what I ride is around 600-700 miles in length and I'm looking at a really long tour of around 1800 miles. Starting in Minneapolis, riding SE towards Madison, and then crossing Lake Michigan on the Ludington ferry, crossing the lower peninsula of Michigan, and crossing into Canada NE of Detroit. From there, head ENE towards Toronto, and then hug Lake Erie and the St Lawrence towards Montreal, and pass back into the US at Rouses Point, where I'll pretty-much follow the Empire Trail into Manhattan to catch Amtrak home.