So, we finally come to the end of this episode of Elephant's travels and this blog is simply to tie up some loose ends as we head back to an Australian summer and some more mundane tasks. We spent our 10 day break at La Manzanilla doing very little indeed. Both of us were tired by the time we arrived and it was a year since we had managed to fit in a genuinely relaxing break.

We settled into Leon and Jolanda's compound four kilometres back from the beach at La Manzanilla and passed our days in lazy lunches, margaritas and a few domestic duties. To say that La Manz was laid back would be an understatement and laid back was just what we needed.

Two days before Christmas, our friends Ken and Carol Duval turned up, as cheerful as ever despite a long hard ride down from Phoenix. Their arrival put us in great spirits and the four of us settled back and enjoyed a very relaxed Christmas. Leon and Jolanda were not so lucky and had the restaurant and bar to run at a busy time. We helped out by propping up the bar, and despite the fact that a margarita-lunch got in the way of our Christmas shopping, Ken and I managed to get enough ingredients together for some Christmas lunch salads. Jolanda and Leon had managed to get beef ribs and chicken organised despite a busy schedule so we were well set. The pictures tell the story of a relaxed Christmas spent with friends which is, in the end, the best of any Christmas.

On Boxing Day we rested up, washed and packed and got ready for a long ride back to the USA on the 27th. We even managed a (relatively) early and (relatively) sober night only to be woken at 3:00 am by a torrential thunderstorm. Rain or no, we were up before dawn and packed ready to roll by first light. Ken, Carol, Leon and Jolanda all suggested (demanded) that we abandon our travel plans and stay until the rain stopped (and the margaritas ran out) but TE takes a perverse pride in not altering its plans because of weather and rode north on the slippery roads. As it turned out, the rain kept up for another week in La Manzanilla.

Two and a half days later we had crossed into the USA about 1600 km north of La Manz. The next day we made a quick stop with our friends Bevan and Clare (and another Australian rider Craig) in Phoenix then rattled west on the mind-numbing Interstate 10 towards California. We spent New Year's Eve in Lancaster CA with a better than average dinner and our first bottle of wine for a couple of months.

NYE has always been a quiet and personal celebration for us. This one was the 40th anniversary of the night we first met and of Jo's first ride on a motorcycle. I am not sure if this is a long time or not. I know that neither of us feel any older than we did then and that if we have lost any speed over the years, we have made up for it with cunning born of experience.

On the 2nd of January we rolled into Atascadero and the home of our friends Blair and Kristin. We launched into a few days of washing and packing with practised efficiency and prepared Elephant for storage until we return in the northern summer. All that remained for us was to put the first episode of our North American adventure into perspective.

For the USA, this was a matter of comparing our 2013 experience with those of past visits. This was simple enough, but also interesting. The USA has changed. Much of that change is a version of the change that has swept every western country in the last 25 years. The beer is much better. The coffee is improving. The politics are more polarized than I remember.  The USA has a history of reinventing itself every few generations and there is no reason to believe that its constant restless change will stop nor any way to know where this round will take us. There is, however, one thing for sure. The USA remains a complex and intriguing world of its own; a place bound to our own country in spirit and blood, family for sure, but a place unique and apart nonetheless.

The United States of Mexico was a different country in almost every sense. We started with no practical experience of the place and only our prejudices, drawn from jaundiced media, to guide us. The place was a revelation. It was in part sophisticated and nuanced, industrialised and wealthy, and cultured and historically rich. Other parts, however, were mired in poverty and inefficiency and struggling to gain a foothold in the modern world. Our two months in Mexico have given us only a glimpse of this complex place but no real understanding of how the country manages its contrasting parts or the dichotomy of its economy. Perhaps this will come as our Spanish improves. We do know, however, that the common media image of the country is unrealistic to the point of bias. The Mexico we found captured a place in our hearts with such ease that we are now bound to return as soon as we are able.

After a couple of days of busy-work we secured the bike cover over Elephant and packed our few personal things in a borrowed bag. On our last afternoon in Atascadero I walked around to Blair's garage to put a last few items into Elephant's cases. It looked a lonely sight standing in the corner, lifeless without a battery. I stowed the last of our gear, pulled the cover back in place, gave it one last slap on the rump and knew with certainty that the first episode of our North American adventure was over.