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I didn’t sleep as late as I thought I would, got up, had a soak in the tub, and started this last entry, had breakfast and headed out. When the valet brought my breakfast (ok, I ordered room service – after Saturday with nothing but energy bars (although Mary Anne and Frank did bring a great surprise with fresh strawberries) and a dinner of potato chips and someof Frank’s beef jerky AND not wanting to leave the suite, I thought I was due) he said the temperature outside was 107 at 10:30am. That sealed another decision, remembering what it was like on Day Two with Rob at 104 degrees, I decided I’d check my stuff with the bell desk and wander around the air-conditioned hotel a while before I headed out. The valet said he thought it would start cooling around 5pm.

I looked up a friend who ran a couple of the restaurants in the Rio and he provided a plate of chinese food for lunch and we caught up a little. I loaded up and started the drive to San Diego. It was hot, but definitely cooling.

Just outside of Vegas I ran into two girls with Slavic accents who were looking for directions to the San Diego airport. They had also seen the freeway signs saying that I-15 was closing at Victorville at 8pm. I used my phone with Google Maps, the GPS for a time estimate and the Harley Road Atlas to show them where to go. We both had plenty of time to make the closure, which turned out to be nothing more than a diversion down an off-ramp and back onto the freeway with the adjacent on-ramp.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. I tried to mount the video camera on the top of my suitecase for a point of view shot and switched back to my half helmet as I could use my night glasses instead of the dark lense of the fullface helment. I kept hearing this progresively angry sounding rattle. Thinking it was the camera or something hitting it, I stopped twice. It was n't until the brim of the half helmet fell down on my face that I found the source of the sound. Two of the bolts holding it to the helmet had slipped off. I tightened the remaining one and kept going.

When I got home, I pulled into the garage and left the bike fully loaded to check on the house. Opening the front door to air it out, I grabbed a beer from the fridge, took one drink, sat down and went out like a light until 3am. I stumbled out to the garage, got my gear and hit the sack for a very deep sleep, planning to rise early to get to the work to face what I knew would be a forest of emails that had gathered while I was gone.

It was a great trip, everything I'd hoped for. I was glad to be through the stress of planning and the daily road guard that trips like this make. The sign of a good vacation is when you can feel transported out of your normal flow but return relaxed, recharged and somewhat glad to be back into the routine of daily life.