She said nothing as I walked away and I glanced back just once. She just sat there in a warehouse in Oakland, over the bridge from San Francisco. For three weeks she had been mine as we roared our way across the US. But now it was all over between us. She had to go home to New York and I had to fly home to London.

I don't know which is sadder - that I felt this way or the fact that I am talking about my relationship with a rented Harley-Davidson Road King motorbike. It had been a wonderful three weeks. And there had only been the occasional cross word (when the gear lever fell off).

But that was all in the past, way back in Kansas, and since then it had been sweetness and light through the western states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California, surely some of the greatest places on earth to ride motorbikes.

The ride up the Californian coast on Highway 1 from Santa Barbara was spoiled slightly by fog - not all the way, but for at least half of it. This meant we could not appreciate the beauty of riding the road clinging to the cliffs around Big Sur. This may have been a good thing because it meant we could concentrate on the road. There is a Highway One club consisting of people who have survived careering over the edge. It has very few members because it is a long and very steep way down to the rocks below.

We walked down to the small beach at Ragged Point, a motel where we stayed, just north of San Simeon. There was the rusting two-month-old wreck of a Mercedes that had not made a bend a few hundred feet above.

It was foggy too when we made the journey further north to Capitola so there was no point in taking the 17 mile drive around Monterey. But it was sunny in Capitola, a smart resort next door to brash Santa Cruz, 70 miles south of San Francisco. It was our final night on the road: the next day we swapped motel life for hotel life with a capital L.

The Four Seasons in San Francisco is less than a year old but already has the quality of laid back service and courtesy of a major hotel. Staff meet you once and remember your name.

So it was time for a bit of R&R. Alcatraz was superb. An audio tour, complete with the sounds of the working prison and the voices of former guards and prisoners, is a must. It's less than a mile from the city, so the prisoners could hear the good times rolling if the wind was in the right direction. Talk about so near and yet so far.

Then it was Fourth of July fireworks, the plundering of Brooks Brothers for new button-down shirts, a ferry ride to Sausalito, some great Italian meals and a cable-car ride.

It was time for Dr John and me to go home, upgraded by Virgin to Upper Class which is the only way to travel (I wish). And we are still good friends, having spent nearly four weeks in each other's company all of the time.

We had declared a truce in our faffing war (see earlier entries). It was a draw too in the snoring war, so much so that ear-plugs were necessary in bed as well as on the bike. We never shared bikes but did share a bed, innocently, on three nights.

But our real loves (apart from those waiting at home) were those bikes and the great, beautiful American road.