I'm finally recovering from that crazy stormy final night of travel. Jet lag is still an issue. I keep waking up famished at odd hours. Last night, I finally gave in to temptation and ate a big slice of bread at 3am, then slept like a baby until 6. Is there a lesson to be learned from this?

Most of the post-tour chores are done: I washed and dried the sleeping bags, aired out the tent and mattress, cleaned up the bikes, an so on. On the home front, I had two months of deferred maintenance to deal with. In autumn, that means a lot of raking and gutter cleaning. I revived my starter and baked the above-mentioned bread. I restocked the fridge. After eating out or preparing simple meals on the road for so long, cooking and cleaning feels like an endless task. It'll get better in a few days.

We're already excited about the upcoming cross-country ski season, which should help keep us in shape, as well as take our minds off bike touring for a while. The last few days of this tour, we started to discuss our plans for 2025. The top contender so far is Land's End to John O'Groats, but nothing is set in stone yet.

Now that I have access to a computer again, I feel compelled to crunch data. For now, I've created a map overlaying our actual route over the original proposed route:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=18yDz2BowLYXHfi1XoyWevCPdBTXaX4M&usp=sharing

I thought it would be fun to look at the deviations point by point.

• We probably should have found a way to start the tour from Sapporo. However, if we had, we would've never met Yuta or Stuart & Beer. 
• I don't feel like we missed much by sticking to the coast versus going up to Lake Kuttara and Lake Toya.
• Likewise, cutting out the last bit of Hokkaido's west coast was probably a reasonable decision.
• Avoiding the mountains south of Fukushima was a good choice for us at the time. I'm not sure what we missed, but we certainly enjoyed our route when it paralleled the Kuro River. On the other hand, this route also included our most frustrating dead ends and poor road surfaces.
• No regrets concerning our choice to bail out of the alps after Matsumoto. If we were credit card touring, I might have had more energy and enthusiasm to tackle Mount Norikura. The route we took was mostly nice, with the exception of some sprawl through Nakatsugawa. Inuyama Castle was a wonderful surprise.
• We enjoyed our detour between Osaka and Himeji. It wasn't that scenic, but it was good riding.
• I would've liked trying the mountain route in Shodoshima. The course we chose was fun, too. One could easily spend 4 or 5 days exploring this island and its neighbors Teshima and Naoshima.

As far as what we did stick to, I highly recommend the following in any tourist's itinerary:

• The west coast of Hokkaido. Beautiful, easy riding, good camping opportunities.
• Oirase Gorge. It's great to visit so many viewpoints without ever having to get off your bike.
• The mountain roads between Yamagata and Fukushima. Phenomenal forest riding. Moniwatsu Lake and the macaques are also highlights.
• Zenkoji temple in Nagano

• Shodoshima
• If you like hanging out with lots of other bikers, the Shimanami Kaido
• If you like solitude, the Tobishima Kaido
• National Road 187 between Iwakuni and Tsuwano

Next up: the tour in numbers.