Bender

Day Thirty One: Bend

This is our second full day in Bend. Considering that we blew all of our money yesterday, we've decided to hang out at the compound today. We take advantage of the free breakfast, make coffee in the room and plan to bug the mechanic every couple of hours all day until R. Girl is ready.

The motel has a pool out back, so that's where we spend the afternoon. I bask and the Pirate posts blogs. We are determined to get caught up with this, even if it's on the last legs of the trip. I had intended to write and post at the end of everyday so that ya'll could be right here with us. It just hasn't worked out that way, and I have to let that go.

By 4:30 we get word that the Girl is finally being worked on. She's ready by 6. Apparently the spokes that were broken are just a result of age rather than an overload, which was our fear. Her new back tire is that of a sport bike. In the midst of all this, she also got a bath. I have to say, with her shiny new spokes, tough back tire and gleaming body she's quite a sight; ready for the ride back east for sure. With our two days of rest, I think we might be just as impressive.

This little adventure of ours has not been much of a vacation, as one might imagine. We are usually exhausted by the end of the day, and tend to sleep an average of ten hours a night. We are always packing, moving, enduring, seeking, searching, compromising and making due (with constant bouts of joy, enthusiasm, excitement and giddy euphoria, of course). Our experience is most certainly the journey, and never the destination, as is the case with many road trips. After riding through a beautiful desert or along a coast all day, I could easily spend the night in some parking lot, you know? When we're in a hotel, we love to catch the adventures of Anthony Bourdain. He probably spends 4 days just to get an hour of TV show. I feel the same way sometimes. There are so many hours in day, and just about a page worth of writable stuff.

Bend has one of those restaurant delivery services like Gourmet valet or Blue Ridge to Go. We decide to stay in on our last night and enjoy the TV and luxury of being half naked and eating in bed. We order from the Flat bread community oven: beautiful Sicilian meatballs swimming in a bright marinara, and the Quattro Formaggio pizza, a crisp thin crusted pizza with just a hint of pomodoro, four cheeses and hunks of fresh basil. It's the best meal eaten from a bed that I can imagine.

Tomorrow we officially head east.