Day 201, Friday, December 23

Today was the last day of my trip. I can’t really wrap my head around the fact that the trip is over. I’m sure I’m going to go through a huge culture shock as I try to return to the work-a-day world.
Parting from the Nusbaums, I headed over to Marietta, GA (an Atlanta suburb) for an oil change. The drive over was uneventful, but I found myself extremely annoyed at the gridlock as I headed into Atlanta. Somehow this gridlock was more annoying than the gridlock I encountered in LA. Here the drivers within the gridlock seemed to be individually worse drivers than the ones in LA. Leaving the dealership, I got rear ended by a huge delivery truck as I sat at an intersection. Needless to say I was definitely pissed off, even though the damage was very minimal (just a couple of small scratches on my trailer.) The driver claimed he couldn’t see my trailer, but he must have seen it because there was nobody in line behind me when I pulled up to the intersection. Sure he couldn’t see it when he was pulled up and shoving his front bumper into the back of it because it was below his hood line. But he damn well could have seen it if he’d been paying attention while he was pulling up behind me. Thankfully, there was absolutely no damage other than the two smallish scratches, so I gruffly told him he damn well needed to start looking for motorcyclists and drove off.
I’d hoped to get together with Mark Cederquist, see the entry from Glacier National Park, while in Atlanta, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get in touch with him so I decided to head on home.
From Marietta to my parents’ house in Brevard, NC, the drive was again uneventful, and I pulled into their driveway around 6:30. When I walked in the house, I found a note from my dad saying they’d gone out for dinner at the Pisgah Fish Camp, a nice family restaurant a few miles away. I was amazed, standing there in the front door of their house that it definitely didn’t feel like I’ve been gone for half of a year. It only felt like a weeks since I’d left.
I hopped back on the motorcycle and headed over to the restaurant to see Dad and Mom. They didn’t notice me walking in, so I was able to get all the way up to their table unnoticed. They were both very surprised when I said, loudly “Well are you just going to sit there are you going to offer your son some dinner?” It was great to see them, but exceedingly strange feeling to be joining them in a restaurant after so many days on the road.