Well the last part of the trip was a straight shot, due to time. I still made a few unscheduled stops, they make every trip the adventure it is meant to be. One of the differences between a road trip and a motorcycle trip is your visible to everyone, so the person stopping me for road construction starts up one of the few conversations she will have that day. Every motorcycle operator in 31 degrees threw out the low peace sign signifying 2 wheels, like a fraternity of like minded or absent minded individuals. I had been following a van that was going slightly faster than I like to ride the Madura (70 mph) due to the pleasure of wind buffeting it provided. The driver caught up with me at a gas stop and confronted me. A Japanese man in his 50's approached, "You follow me?" I said yes and he continued, "You follow me!". I didn't know what he was attempting to say with that statement and my tank was full, as I suited up, he ran over to a stand and pulled some pamphlets out and ran back over, "You follow me, you come!" Pointing at a tour map to a spot a few miles down. This how I ended up on a Japanese tour as the only english speaking individual. The others appeared to be college students, I pulled to the front of the trail head and parked the bike. It was kinda warm compared to the brisk weather I was riding in earlier and I still had 3 layers on the bottom and top, after I lost the leather jacket, gloves and helmet. Everyone met up shortly after and made a run for the top of the hill, I was admiring how this gent was showing up the 20 yr old kids as I walked up. As I neared the summit of the 100 yd hill, completely out of breath I realized the key to the bike was in the pocket of the leather jacket with my wallet, laying on the seat of the bike. My laptop also strapped to the passenger papillion, the full weight of my liability before me I felt like the rural area of Page, AZ and the horrible shape I am in warranted the calculated risk. The distance covered and left to cover looked marginal and my mind never fully made up I descended to the mouth of Horseshoe Bend sick with worry. All the while the tour guide continued in broken english and excellent Japanese, pointing out plants and wildlife as well as soil condition, rocks that break in your hand, sand, soil and rock planes existing feet from each other. These things I watched not speaking fluently in Japanese. As we neared the mouth the guide asked something of the students and the only female in the group grabbed my hand, my short ego boost was blasted as I realized we were all linked together and walking in a line. The guide made a loop around a oval rock telling us to watch were we placed our feet. We stood facing him and he said to take 3 steps back. Not watching us, but watching our feet. I 2 counted steps, before he said, "won", "true"(step) "tree" (step). We looked up at him for further direction, no one holding hands now. The guide simply said, "now tuurnn round." We turned a foot and a half away from the edge of drop off. I'm not sure exactly how far down it was, but I stifled the urge to scream like a little girl and the worry of my trip faded in the shear terror of sure death after a very long fall. After a little while it wasn't so bad, I enjoyed it immensely, but I had road to cover and the ache of liability soon returned and I began my assent to the top ahead of the group. At this point the fear instilled in all of us gave us a bonding point that if I ever see them again, there will be no awkward moments and instant friends. I feel fairly close to every person in that group. I made it back to the bike and piled on most of my clothing and took off waving to the group just covering the top of the hill. This accidental 30 minute stop defined my whole trip and is why I will always leave time for things like this when I can. The rest of the trip slowly sped up as I and the bike grew together and my apprehension faded to resolved reality. The bike ran better and better as I rode and my original fears faded into appreciation for every dollar spent on the maintenance of such a fantastic machine. I originally thought that Suzuki only made the madura for 3 yrs or so, because it was a failure to launch vehicle, with no core audience it made no purpose to build, but now I believe it was so over engineered and expensive to manufacture that they had to pull it from production. A V-4 overhead valve, water cooled, 6 speed with overdrive and shaft drive, great fit and finish. The only real complaint was the bike sits this 5'8" rider directly on my tailbone making no comfortable long term riding mount. It holds 3.5 gal and gets around 40 mpg, leaving me with my 2 gal gas can simply for lazy side of the road fueling to increase range between stops, made unnecessary by the absolute need to stop every 2 hrs to give my but a break.