Home is always the hardest leg of any trip. It’s either the destination you really want because you are tired and looking for your own bed, or the leg you don’t want to complete because it signals the end of a really great trip you don’t want to end.
Or some measure of both.
We got a late’ish start and opted to do brunch in Manning Park; it seemed like a good day for some eggs Benedict and then a ride home, a shorter day than any so far.
The road from Princeton and through Manning Park was fabulous. Twisty in all the right places…straight and smooth in the best spots, and light traffic all the way. It was hard to beat and we both commented on how is it that we have never ridden this road, or 5A yesterday?
We pushed through to Hope, refuelled, and then diverted over to Highway 7 to avoid the freeway. A quick stop in Harrison Hot Springs to take a break, a stop to take a couple of photos by a cornfield, and then it was a hard push all the way home….
One thing we both noted…as Kirk was almost wiped off the road, was that the closer we got to home…the worse the drivers became. We’d spent more than a week on the road with almost no close calls….until we got back to the city and the typical terrible drivers.
And so it goes.
But we are home…the bikes need a wash…they are covered with bugs, but that can happen tomorrow….
3,040km later, we are home again and wondering where we will ride next.
And will Wall-E resurrect?
The trip had a few reroutes due to forest fires, and it ended up being a few hundred kilometres longer as a result, with a couple of too-long days, but it all went well and the Isha made it entirely under her own power this time around, no one went down, and another was left behind. We met some interesting people, rode some new and stellar roads, and only got a little bit wet at the very end of today on the way back into Vancouver, but not enough to warrant stopping to pull on any rain gear.
And below is the entire track as ridden.