I drove up US Highway 101 from San Francisco yesterday. The previous three times I'd ferried myself between here and there, I took Interstate 5's swift grey expanse. That trip sets me back nine hours, including the two five-minute petrol stops. Eight hours if I get a ticket. But yesterday, 101 carried me home. It took me twelve and a half hours, including both fuel-ups. And I'll never drive I-5 again.

The little red coup first hits wine country. Sonoma County, then Mendocino County. Admirable restraint kept me from a stop at Dry Creek's vineyard, as their '99 cabernet's tasty. But there were miles to go before I slept, so I zigged on. Next thing I knew I was in redwood groves, for which the same adjective applies. Majesty in arboreal form, then in coastline. Downshift to fourth, accelerate through the turns, and focus on not becoming part of the scenery. There's much thinking in my life these days, and that was my biggest enemy. Company helped. My hitchhiker and I fed two emus by a gas station. In a comedic replay of events in Ubud's monkey forest, wildlife nearly seized my camera. Now three species claim scratches on its face. We slowed once more - a Harley met a Buick head on around a hairpin. Emergency personnel'd just shown up, but it didn't look good for the biker. Blood from the ears. That quieted Dan and I up for the first time in the six hours he rode with me. He had his trail-mix to keep him trucking, and I had the world's second best snack pack. There's no such thing as "dusk" on the west coast. It's more like a darkening of the celestial painter's palate. With the sunset, the hitchhiker wisely decided to stop and set up camp. Perhaps as karmic payback for the paperbacks I bestowed on several of my rides in New Zealand, he handed me his last book as I turned him loose. But I myself still owe. That's only one ride I've given, and I thumbed 122 lifts in New Zealand.

Some other data from the international legs of the journey:

• Countries: 9
• Months abroad: 6
• Places slept: 88 (incl. one bus stop)
• Haircuts: 5
• Base pack weight: 23 pounds
• Base pack size: 2800 cubic inches
• Items lost: 5
• Items broken: 1 (a Canon S230 camera)
• Usable items purchased: 21
• Movies seen: 36
• Books read: 23
• Online journal posts (total): 75
• Personal journal entries: 150
• Diseases contracted: 0
• Land animal species eaten: 10
• Rides hitched: 123
• Job offers: 3
• National television appearances: 3
• Pictures taken: about 11,000 (17 gigabytes)
• Total cost: about $11,000 (USD)

This is the last post I plan for this journal. A new one will likely be at this address soon, but I'm no longer dodging foreigners, poorly or otherwise. My meandering's done, for now. From Beer Changs with spastic Brits on Khaosan Road to the arms of a beautiful girl at Lake Tahoe, I claim no regrets. In a small and temporary way, I've bucked the assembly line American life-by-numbers. Television high-school college job job job retire golf die. My current career search may land me in a cubicle from which I emerge only for the occasional canned corporate cruise. I don't want to stop, but if I do, I know that for at least a short while I continued the trend my folks started when they moved their young family to Egypt for eight years.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your support now and for becoming expats in 1984. And for that I owe another just as much. My last grandparent died the day before I returned to the States. Edward Garrett is my namesake and my inspiration. He moved his young family to Panama, Guatemala, Thailand, Egypt, and even Mississippi. A geologist and award-winning photographer, his slideshows of 1950's Afghanistan proved to me that the noble 20th century explorer exists. His sundry artifacts cinched that fact. One photograph of his sticks in my mind - that of his three girls climbing the ruins of Angkor in Northwestern Cambodia. War closed that country to visitors for the next decades, only to recently open and allow me to bicycle to those same temples - the highlight of my six months abroad. Granddad's gone, but his legacy's real. Two of those girls bookended my trip - Aunt Bobbee on Oahu and Aunt Toni in Berkeley; inspirations and adventurers in their own rights. And the third still tries to cook my breakfast now that I'm back in her basement. My family said "go" from the very beginning. And not because they didn't like me.

My international vector's been around longer than I have, and that made this sort of dalliance easy. But the truth is that there's nothing hard about it. Live beneath your means and save some money. Then quit your job and get out of town. Go far away. Become a vagabond. There's a fortuitous imbalance in travel - the cheaper a destination is to explore, the better you'll find it. Frugality has nothing to do with it. Your eyes will open wider. You learn more. You will meet people different than you could possibly imagine while sitting in a bedecked western apartment. You will like them. And if you've opened your mind enough, they'll like you too.

Even if you don't go far, or for long, take 101 instead of I-5. Chances are I'll see you there.