Turning back

So I've decided to head back home.

In a positive light, I got this far and have seen some neat things.

Me in an old rusted truck on the side of the highway

An old couple runs this free (donation) museum

 A cart manufactured in Quebec by the Granby Carriage Company

I just wish I was as excited as this guy:

The thing is, I'm getting a bit lonely and I'm forced to go long distances to get to destinations, and I'm not really enjoying myself on the journey. I'm a strong believer in "the journey vs the destination". I don't really have time to stop when I see interesting things like The World's Only Corn Palace when I'm trying to get to the next city.

I'm never sure how far I will go in a day, hotels are expensive, campsites are often full (and full of people in RVs, which really isn't my idea of camping), and people on couchsurfing.org are not responding frequently or reliably, not to mention that my mom and aunt are not thrilled with the idea of using that service.

On top of that, I dropped and scratched my motorcycle trying to avoid running over a toad, of all things. And of course I did this in front of the cute ranger girl who has her own motorcycle and I had been talking to for the last 30 minutes.

And a light hand injury because I wasn't wearing my gloves!

Since I can't seem to keep my motorcycle upright, I've decided to park it on its side at all times, in hopes that it will no longer be able to fall over. Maybe they have training wheels for motorcycles I can get.

Motorcycle in pre-crashed configuration

Maybe I'm not as hardcore as I thought, or I am forcing myself to be someone that I am not. I really like settling into a place for a few days rather than driving hours and hours to see a city for a few hours before I go to sleep and then wake up early the next AM to do it all over again.

I have some more notes to add, but I don't have my audio recorder handy (this is how I do reminders while riding.)

I'll do some more posts about what I saw before this decision to turn back...