Route 362

Today marks the penultimate day of the riding portion of the trip.

It's bittersweet because I really want to not ride a motorcycle anymore, but there are so many roads that have been left unexplored. Also, I'm stoked that I got to use the word "penultimate", which I just learned.

The route looked a lot like this:

Admittedly, this route was overall better than Route 195, which you read about just a couple of days ago. By my reckoning, that means that I've had two of the best six rides of my life on this trip. Mind boggling.

It's late and I need to sleep, so I leave you with a photo from the end of the day. There are other photos, but they'll be in another post.

The background for this picture is that many of the rural roads in Japan have these mirrors that are meant to be used to see oncoming traffic in situations where one might not otherwise see traffic.

The first time that I saw oncoming traffic in one of these mirrors, I thought to myself: "Hm. That one looks different, because there's a big white blob in the middle of it." Half a second later, there was a Daihatsu Move coming at me. Fortunately, I'm bigger than a Daihatsu Move. In fact, most large dog breeds are bigger than a Diahatsu Move, so there was no need to worry.

Eventually, it occurred to me to get a picture in one of these mirrors. I present to you "Self Portrait in the keys of G and C":

In case you're curious, that is Mt. Fuji behind me. It is a gigantic f*cking mountain.