Hello all,

It's been a while since I've posted in the touring forum. Around this time last year I was planning my cross country tour, and receiving a lot of great help from a lot of you. This year I'd like to do the route again so as to make a yearly pilgrimage to see my friends at the shore we grew up spending our summers at. This time, I'm hopefully going to be doing it on a motorcycle. It's a new hobby I'm getting in to, and now that I have a real job I won't have the time to take 2 months off for a bicycle tour.

I live in Phoenix, AZ and drove to California to visit family over the holidays. For the first 200-300 miles ,from Phoenix into Palm Springs, I was on the same route of my bike tour. Recounting my experience, for the first time after nearly 8 months, sure made the drive through the desert a lot quicker. Even the simple 200 miles of I-10 through barren desert was chock full of memories, images, experiences, thoughts, feelings, and stories to tell. If the desert can revoke so much, I wonder what the other, less barren, sections of my tour can do.

My question for all of you now is, if you've retraced a tour you once rode, what was it like the second time for you? Did you remember something you never thought you'd remember? Were you ever overcome with emotion? Were you disappointed something wasn't as grand the second time around; perhaps because you came through that certain section at a different time of day? Do you have any favorites that you would like to share here?

Look forward to hearing some good stories. Matt