New low for the GPS

As you can see on the picture it's a low my trusted Emap is not going to recover from... The nifty mount I had for it on the Triumph couldn't fit on the Ducati and it was in the top of the tank bag Steve gave me to put my "essential" gear for the trip home (the Triumph tank bag fits the Triumph only and I had left it with my poor old betrayed former motorcycle).
But the Ducati shakes (more than the Triumph) and the Emap slid off while I was riding near Pocahontas (Arkansas) this morning. I think it survived the initial shock because I felt it bumping on my thigh and saw it sliding on the road. But it did not survived the pair of 18 wheelers than ran over it during the time it took me to make a U-turn to go back...
Oh well, the Emap was something like six years old, I bought it on eBay for quite cheap. The only reason I picked up the pieces is to try to recover the 156 MB memory card that could be used on an other GPS. But it's AWOL somewhere on an Arkansas road shoulder.
Anyway, I won't get another GPS anytime soon. These things are very good if you want to know where you are when you're lost. But that takes a lot of fun out of the art of getting lost which is, as every couple knows, the essence of traveling. Otherwise, I used it during the trip to know how high, or how low, data which is non essential for survival, and to get into lenghty arguments with Steve about what his GPS was showing as opposed to mine (it was the same information but his has a horizontal screen and mine had a vertical, hence the different readings...). The debate was usually solved with the help of a good old map, a piece of hardware I intend to rely on for the foreseeable future.
Otherwise, I dropped today the Ducati on its left side thinking the side stand was extended when it was not (no damage otherwise than a very slightly bent clutch lever and a nick in a side bag and a very damaged amour-propre when two guys had to come and help me putting it back on its wheels...). I also had to change the bulb for the turn signals indicator that had blown. A nice way of getting acquainted with how to "undress" the Italian beast, ie to remove the numerous fairing parts that those (beeep) engineers have put between your (un)expert fingers and the (very tiny) bulb.
BMWs are very well designed motorcycles. Everything is easy to access (but they've put so much electronics in the new models that if a bulb blows the whole motorcycle stops). With Triumph, Ducati and Japanese motorcycles, one gets the impression that the designers started with a bulb on a blank sheet of paper and built the motorcycle around it to make sure the distressed owner (or the mechanic, but he's making money while doing it...) has to dismantle the whole thing to change a miserable idiot light.
Trip wise, I am near Knoxville (where I was already on September 2nd), a little late on schedule after leaving Waco a day late and because the bulb thing wasted about two hours.
I'll have to skip the detour by the Blue Ridge Parkway tomorrow and stick to Interstate 40 and then 81 to make it to Assateague on time Friday evening. But the Ducati is the "Koningin auf das Autobahn" or rather "la Princessa della Autostrada". It goes 80 mph for hours (all right, I know the speed limit on I40 is 70 mph but Steve told me there is a 10% tolerance...) and the mileage at those speed is about 45 miles per gallon. It turns Interstate riding almost into a pleasure.
I can't believe there are only 620 miles left after covering more than 9,580 miles all across the United States since I left on September 1st (add an other 175 miles to make it from Chincoteague back home on Sunday night).
The whole trip is going to be close to 10,500 miles (16,800 kilometers). It's a big country....