This article is part of the series Postcards to Dad, a five-week motorcycle journey from Savannah to Maine highlighting the Appalachian Trail, with postcards home to Dad from each state on the trail.

K had a long day ahead and was out the door early. D and I hung out for a bit — Coke Zero, easy conversation, no particular urgency. With only 150 miles to ride, the morning had a lazy quality to it that I was happy to lean into.

Then as departure time got close, the lazy morning evaporated. Where is my Ariat long sleeve t-shirt? Where are my earplugs? I went from mellow and structured to rushed and frazzled in about ten minutes, tearing through my bags for things I’d probably packed in the first place. I found both eventually, suited up, and got the GS loaded. The frazzled hour in Birmingham, I reminded myself, was additional to the hours Atlanta was going to take away: one for a time change, another in traffic if I wasn’t careful.

The last time I rode this highway was in May, headed for this same city. It rained the whole way, a drizzle that turned into a downpour. I rode with my hazards on through construction and grooved pavement, 18-wheelers on both sides throwing spray. Getting to the Georgia state line felt like surviving something. I was mostly just trying to get through it.

Same road. Same trucks. Different speed. Different ride.

Whenever I’m in Atlanta, I go through it. I’m a connector man, not a 285 guy — last time, a service appointment in Marietta made me a liar, but that’s not my natural state. I want to see the city, even when it works against my travel plans. This trip had started in Savannah and run up through Greenville, leaving Atlanta somewhere off to the side.

Not today.

Somewhere past D’s neighborhood, the first green sign slid by and I started grinning inside my helmet like a kid on the last day of school.

It wasn’t the road. I-20 between Birmingham and Atlanta is mostly soulless freeway that doesn’t make anyone smile. It’s 150 miles of conveyor belt, and the transport trucks own it. The worst of it was getting caught between two of them running side by side — an 18-wheeler on the left, an 18-wheeler on the right, and a column of compressed air in between that knocks the bike around, even a heavy one like an R1200 GS fully loaded. I didn’t fight it. I held the line, kept loose on the bars and waited for the left-hand truck to finally pass the right-hand truck. I’ve done this WAAAAY too many times.

The air itself was something else. A light crosswind kept it fresh and moving — other than the occasional diesel cloud when I got too close behind a rig, it was about as good as freeway riding gets. This whole trip had started in the rain and stayed there for days, gray and grinding. Today was a stark contrast to all of that: clear, October-sharp, 72 degrees.

I knew where this road went. Since September I’d ridden from Savannah north through the Carolinas and Virginia, all the way up to Maine. Then back down through Providence and New Jersey, along Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, over the Dragon, into Birmingham. Thousands of miles through other people’s towns, every road pointing somewhere else. This one pointed home.

Then the highway rose, crested Six Flags Hill, and the whole Atlanta skyline came out of the October sky — and there, unmistakable, was the Bank of America tower, that gold crown shimmering in the afternoon light. I grew up under that skyline. This is home.

I did a little dance on the bike. Just a quick one, a small celebration between me and the GS and nobody else on the planet (aside from a few truckers around me). Then I smiled so hard my face hurt. Then traffic stacked up hard approaching 285, and I grabbed a chunk of front brake and reminded myself I was still actually riding a motorcycle.

Reaching Maine had felt like a major milestone in the journey. This emotion was something else: pure, giddy, unadulterated joy.

A middle-aged woman in a CR-V nearly ran me over a few miles later. I leaned on the horn. She kept her eyes straight ahead with one hand over her mouth, ignoring me like I wasn’t there, even with my very loud custom horn. Not even she could take the grin off my face.

It was Tech homecoming weekend, and a few of my college friends met me for a late lunch at Mary Mac’s Tea Room on Ponce, which has everything Southern under one roof and then some. It’s been feeding Atlanta since Mary MacKenzie opened it in 1945. At 2:30 on a Friday afternoon it had that end-of-service ease to it: tables partly cleared, the noise level dropped to something comfortable, and a pace reminiscent of sweet tea. Our waiter had time to actually be there.

Before he took our order, he handed each of us a small slip of paper and a green pencil and told us to write down what we wanted. I’d never filled out my own ticket at a sit down restaurant before. It seemed like it shouldn’t work, and then it did. I had the meatloaf, the cornbread, the macaroni and cheese, and a little fresh fruit to pretend I’m somewhat healthy.

At some point he overheard me talking about motorcycles, smiled, and came over to show me a photo of his 1998 Suzuki Katana on his phone. It’s a crazy cool bike, niche and retro at the same time. He was closing in on his first 1,000 miles, and he mentioned that my bike looked like a great one for getting to Maine.

“Hey man, your bike is great to go to Maine too,” I told him. “You just have to get on it and do it.” He couldn’t have been more than 30. Young bodies can ride sport bikes long distances. Old bodies do not, lol.

Smiles went in both directions. My college friends totally didn’t get it.

The campus looks great. A lot of good work has gone into it, and walking around, you can see it everywhere. You just wouldn’t know it from the postcard rack at the campus Barnes & Noble: a photo of the Bobby Dodd statue framed around the donating classes, and a stadium shot that caught the grass on a bad day. The place deserves better postcards.

The rest of the weekend filled itself in: a barbecue lunch at the fraternity house, the alumni reunion over in East Atlanta, dinner at a taqueria just north of campus. Somewhere in there I met Bill, who got out about three decades before I did. (Tech people don’t graduate. We get out.) He lives on the Florida Panhandle coast now, which might end up on the route when I wander down to Key West or bring the GS back west.

The house is raising money. It was renovated about twenty years ago, and some of the big components need work. I lived in the old version, before the renovation, and I know the role that place played in turning me into an adult. So I’m doing math I didn’t expect to do in a year with no paycheck. Part of me felt guilty for even hesitating. I’m still working out what to give, and how I’m supposed to feel about it.

A close friend had to be in Kentucky at the last minute, which is how I ended up with his ticket: west side, lower deck, 10-yard line, facing the downtown skyline. Good seats. I’m thankful for them. I’d have traded them to have him there. He was missed.

For a half, we looked like a team that deserved a homecoming crowd. We were winning. Then the second half happened, and we fell apart completely. At homecoming, that stings a little more.

Once it was clear how this one was going to end, I got up and went looking for postcards. I figured the Athletic Association’s fan store would have something. No luck there either. So I wandered around the stadium and saw Tech Tower from the other side, with the skyline across the field the whole time.

I never did find a Tech postcard that did the campus justice. Bobby Dodd will have to do, as Georgia Tech was the reason I’d come to Atlanta.

Good people and good times. Now it’s time to head to Savannah.