Great post, Kevin.  I try to revisit the old home place(s) whenever I get the chance.  It is a wonderful sensation, but somewhat happy and sad at the same time; you are transported back in time instantly, but then (and I always get this sensation), you get this feeling like you don't belong there.  It's revisiting a part of yourself that doesn't really exist anymore, that is in some ways dead, and you are reborn into it for just a moment.  So, for me, there is joy in the memory, but something eerie and disquieting as well.  There are the houses, apartments and the walls of their structure, but it is the air in between those walls, which housed so many souls, and so many memories.   So, I enjoy revisiting the old places, but when the visit is over, I am somewhat relieved as well.  Does that make any sense?   I suppose those visits encapsulate our mortality, and the frailty of our existence, subject to the whims of time.

I've had this other fantasy kicking around in my head for years.  You can revisit an old friend or relative( or pet for that matter) who has died, but only once, say for a few hours or one day.   Grandma comes over for tea, or you go for a walk , or grab a drink with a friend.   You live entirely in the moment with the person, and then, they return to the beyond, after the visit, and you can never see them again.   Thinking about it, gives me the same sort of disquieting feeling as the old house visits.  I suppose what I am saying is that the experience is like returning to the world after death and revisiting your former life.  It conjures up very mixed emotions for me. 

There are 2 songs that immediately come to mind when I was reading your post.  One is the Jackson Browne song called Looking Into You, in which the opening verses has him visiting a childhood home, and the other is one of the most bittersweet songs on the subject, I think written by Craig Bickhardt, called This Old House.  It's a gorgeous song, in which the house talks to the former owner (it's written in the voice of the house...no kidding).  I heard it on a Tony Rice album (the Rice Brothers) many years ago.  The melody is quite beautiful, but the lyrics always slay me, and sometimes make me shed a tear or two.  It talks of how they are selling off stuff in a yard sale, and then packing to move, and the chorus ends with:  Now you're packing up the laughter, and sweeping out the tears, and if this old house were built on memories, I would stand a thousand years...

Thanks for listening, now I gotta go blow my nose..

Gene

P.S. That is one incredible bike you have.  Tell me more about it sometime.