2.26.2018
The town of Rio Grande was nice and clean and the hotel I stayed in was first rate. Got the bike loaded and plugged in my destination for the day, Ushuaia. It was a strange feeling and a bit of a rush to see it on the GPS.
Again the day was beautiful, clear and sunny but a bit brisk. I was excited and nervous as the grassy plains along the Atlantic slowly turned into rolling hills with small scrub-like trees that reminded me of the juniper trees in the hill country region of Texas. The ever present guanacos lined the roadside here and there as the rolling hills began to turn higher and higher, heading up into a mountain range with snowcapped tips.
My choice of brown motorcycle pants once again proved to be a stroke of genius, as one of the large guanacos suddenly decided to bolt across the road right in front of me, requiring full on lock up of the brakes and one of the reasons I love ABS. Of the thousands of guanacos I've seen, this guy was the only one who's actually tried to run across the road.
Despite the high winds of the early morning, they slowly tapered off as I got higher into the mountains. At a roadside stop for a photo, a Motoviajero traveling with his 17 year old daughter stopped to check on me. She loved traveling with her father on the motorcycle and they had explored much of the Patagonian region.
I was unprepared for the beautiful terrain of the area, having assumed that the town furthest south was simply on a flat coastal plain. Instead I found myself riding through "Colorado", on twisting roads through mountainsides and past huge lakes. The temperature dropped into the 40s in the higher areas and the landscape was a nice surprise for the last leg of the trip.
As I neared the town, watching my GPS to check the distance, it said Ushuaia lay 42 miles away and I glanced at my odometer which read 74,957. It suddenly dawned on me that the bike would hit 75,000 miles somewhere in the town of Ushuaia. What a coincidence!
The battery on my headset video was low and I can't tell you how many times the battery went dead, or the video card filled up at the worst moment, so I decided to wait until a couple of minutes outside of town to make sure I could record my arrival at the gates of the the city. The GPS showed about 6 miles left, when I rounded a curve and to my surprise saw the twin entrance towers of Ushuaia! Damb! The camera was off of course!
Surprisingly, there was no one at the tower taking pictures and I rolled up to the stop. It felt sort of strange and emotionless, but I pulled out my phone and shot a selfie for a record of the moment and texted it to my family. I set up the camera on my mini pod and snapped a few, savoring the moment.
From there I continued on to a good hotel to reward myself that I had achieved my goal! Amazingly, the odometer rolled over to exactly 75,000 miles as I pulled up to the hotel. Hard to explain, but somehow it seemed as if a final period to my trip.
Ushuaia! A beautiful sight to see after 6 months of travels
