July 4, 2018 - the last day on the road

this is it.  I am home after a 3 1/2 hr. ride from Wythville, VA.  I left at 6:40 and 75 degrees, a great morning to ride.  I have covered 5825 miles over the past month and it has been great.  Seen family, friends, too close a visit with deer and many states.  I loved traveling the states but it could have been cooler.  I guess this was my warm-up for my next road trip.  Coming soon!

July 3, 2018 another long day

I left Ferdinand, Indiana at 7 sharp.  This would be a long day getting to Bristol, TN.  Good news, my GPS has quit saying “EXTREME HEAT WARNING”.  It was now just saying “Heat Warning”.  A much better situation.  I had many flashbacks of Robin when I passed through Frankfort, KY where He lived for 25 years at the Stewart Home School.  That was a wonderful place for him.  I rounded Lexington and connected with I-75 heading south.  As I approached TN I got on 25E and passed through the Cumberland Gap.  It was a beautiful road, winding through the mountains.  It was a bit cooler on this road and I connected with Rt. 421.  I had a 20 mile stretch of twisties that reminded me of the Back of the Dragon.  This road has been named by VA as the “Crooked Road” it links many varied music venues together.
I was considering pushing on and maybe trying to get home but 50 miles past Bristol I knew that I was crashing.  I guess 500 miles in this heat was enough!  And there was my savior again...Comfort Inn.  I am in and tonight is the last night of unpacking and repacking in the morning.
Tomorrow will be the last installment on this trip.  It will be an early 3 hour ride home.  I hope people have enjoyed this.

July 2, 2018 - Heading home

I said my goodbyes to the Sisson’s around 8:00 and set off to deal with St. Louis.  Marsha and Tom suggested that I go south down to Jefferson City and pick up Rt. 50 which would get me out of the maddening car rush to St. Louis.  My goal was to get to St. Louis after rush hour and the Rt. 50 route did just that, it brought me in just below the city.  It was a beautiful country ride with only one hiccup.  I bought high Test gas at a small farm store and the bike let me know that it was unhappy right away.  I should have known that there would be little demand for it there and my guess is it was somewhat stale.  It ran but wasn’t the smooth running machine that I had been riding.  It sputtered to life when I hit the starter and ran ok but not good.
The roads around St. Louis look like a pile of spaghetti so I was a bit apprehensive going in.  I think I did 5 interstate changes within 5 miles and finally crossed the Mississippi River.  Hooray I am back east!
My goal for today was to get to Louisville, KY.  While I made good time at 75 mph the distance was ambitious and to make matters worse clouds were building.  It was forecast to be clear...it wan’t.  I was now on wet pavement and there were big puddles.  I kept passing hotels trying to get to my goal but then it started to rain.  A sign appeared on the horizon”Comfort Inn”, I was saved!  I barely made it to the hotel when it started.  When I got into the lobby the clerk told me that the only rooms available were $175.  Now remember, I am cheap.  I gave him the sad tired biker look and he asked if I was a veteran.  Boom, a home run.  The rate just changed to $91.  Too top it off there was a Chinese restaurant with a line across the street.  Sometimes things come together, not often, but this time luck was with me.  I got a great nights sleep.  I was just 60 miles short of my goal for the day.

July 1, 2018 More touring

I must have been tired because I slept until 7:00.  We set off for brunch at a small local place and I felt right at home with a slice of country ham and eggs, this place is ok.  Tom and Marsha were great tour guides!  The Missouri River is very impressive.

We then went to a nearby river town where the Katy Trail runs South to Louisiana along the Missouri River.  We walked the trail a but and were all suffering from the heat.

We the drove by the home of the Budweiser Clydesdales breeding grounds.  We couldn’t go in because a reservation is required.

We wrapped up our day with a walking tour of the campus and a wonderful BBQ rib dinner, prepared by Tom on the grill and Marsha in the kitchen.  

It was a full day and it was fun reliving our army days and catching up on the years since.  It is a shame we haven’t seen more of each other over the years.  We all agreed that we were very lucky to have had the life experiences that we had and we have had a very full life!

These people go to bed early around here.  Guess I better do the same. I am heading to Louisville, KY in the morning.

June 30, 2018 - Tulsa to Columbia, MO

I guess I wore out my welcome when I went through the toll booth on I-44 at Tulsa.  The road was a mess with all the pavement ground off and rough.  When I pulled into the toll plaza I raised my visor and told the lady “you know, on the east coast we build the road First then charge tolls for people riding on it!”  She just smiled.  That road recalled sucked!  It was a breeze getting around Tulsa at 4:30 am.  I picked up the toll road again on the other side of Tulsa and it was in better shape.  I doubt I will ever ride in OK again.  It doesn’t have scenic beautiful and the roads are awful!

Around 9:00 I crossed into Missouri and the whole ride changed.  My prior experience in MO was AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood so not a visit under the nicest of circumstances. I was pleasantly surprised when I turned to head north toward Columbia and it became hilly and the terrain was beautiful.  I had forgotten that Lake of the Ozarkd was here and I drove through it.  I arrived at Tom and Marsha’s house around 11:30 and I was shocked at how little they had changed.  They also had a tour all lined up to show me the place that they are so proud of.

We traveled through much of the U of MO and it felt a lot like Chapel Hill, NC.  Our travels took us to Fulton where the National Churchill Museum is at the Westminster College.  It is also under the Church of St. Mary, a Christopher Wren designed building.

This is in Fulton because after the war Churchill gave a speech in 1946 and predicted that an iron curtain would cross Europe.  It proved to be very true.  The Church was bombed out in London and was to be destroyed but the people in MO had it shipped here and rebuilt it.  It was stunning.  

Standing next to the church is the largest piece of the Berlin Wall in the US.

It was quite a shock seeing all this European History standing in Missouri. 

After dinner at Shakespear Pizza, a very good place , we headed home and retired early.  

June 29, 2018 - Tulsa, OK

I was slow this morning.  Kay Kay had the bacon on which was better than an alarm clock.  I had breakfast and we said our goodbyes.  It was strange how my memory had vividly returned and as I rode down the road it seemed to have really made my mind start racing—trying to remember more of what I had thought I had forgotten.  After all high school was 50+ years ago!  I helped it along by dialing the Sirius Satellite radio to 60’s songs.  Now I was rocking!

The ride for 6 hours was hot.  I stopped every hour for either water or an energy drink.  When I got to
I-44 and Rt. 66 the heat became too much so I checked in to a Super 8.  Next door was a steak house so I am off the bike for the night.

June 27 - 28, 2018 - Childress to Dallas

I got up at 4:30 to make the run in to Dallas in the cool of the morning.  I asked the desk clerk if the road was fenced into Dallas from wildlife.  She said there was no need to worry about animals on the roadway.  Apparently she has never driven the road in that direction,  Within 5 miles I encountered 2 deer dead on the side of the road...I was warned!  It was all clear from that point on.  I enjoyed the ride in the early morning.  I had left the motel before the free breakfast so I made a quick stop at a McDonalds for a sandwich.  I had set the GPS to avoid toll roads and since I came into Dallas after 9:00 I had no rush hour traffic.  I arrived at the home of Kay Kay and Denny Mosseller around 11:30.
I hadn’t seen them in 20+ years and they haven’t changed at all.

And in the garage was his MG with a host of memories from college!

Denny is the only person that I know of that has spent his whole working career with one company, Southwest Air in Dallas.  Now he was in the Air Force and moved around some but after that he stayed in Dallas.  We spent hours remembering our youth and amazingly I could remember many of the names that we knew.  It seems my brain was stimulated to wake up and boom I remembered a lot more than I have in 50 years.
The next morning they took me on a tour of Dallas.  I have always wanted to see the area where President Kennedy was shot.  So off we went to the Texas Book Depository.

We did the recorded walking tour of the building then walked the grounds of the grassy knoll where it was speculated that there was another shooter.  The exhibit did nothing to refute the conspiracy idea and it left you hanging. By the way I didn’t take Oswald since I didn’t think he would be welcomed.

After a couple of hours there we went to a beautiful park built over the highway and had a food truck lunch.  A very neat concept in where to build parks in a tightly developed city.  On the way back to their house we stopped at the Frontiers in Flight Museum at Love Field.  It was a very good museum and a nice place to be on a hot summer day.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in a beautiful neighborhood.
And I got the Royal tour.  It was great seeing them and spending time just talking and remembering or catching up on years we missed.   Hopefully it won’t be another 20 years before I see them again!  Maybe a football weekend can be arranged in Chapel Hill.

June 26, 2018, near Disaster! S*it!

I got up at 3:30 am pretty awake and had a couple of cups of coffee in the lobby.  No food was available.  At 4:00 I left on I-25 south.  I stayed 5-10 mph below the 70-75 mph speed limit and decided to follow a big loaded truck at some distance so I would have time to react if he hit something and it popped out in front of me.  We started the climb of Rotan Pass and it was in the high 50’s, chilly but not painful.  The truck kept slowing down to about 35 mph so I passed him.  As I approached the top of the pass my speed picked up and I was doing 60 pretty fast on the downhill.  I have always been told that my amber running lights would help me see animals around the road but I hadn’t tested it.  I rounded the curve at the top and a candle was all you needed to see 3 big bucks, 2 in the passing lane and one in the thru lane and I was clearly unable to stop!  I have always been told to aim at their ass since they typically don’t back up....but out of 3 which do I target?  I left the two on the left and aimed just right. (being on the yellow line) left of the single deer.  I pulled in the clutch to let the motor idle quietly, hoping not to spook them and shot past at 55 mph.  I was so close to the one on the right that I could have slapped him on the butt!  To say I was a bit tense is an understatement!  I glanced into my rear view mirror and I don’t know if they knew what happened.   I flashed all my lights on full power hoping to warn the loaded tractor trailer behind me.  I believe he must have hit them because he was 1/10 of a mile behind me and I slowed down but he didn’t follow.  The road was divided so I couldn’t turn around.  Maybe he saw my flickering lights and managed to slow down.  It was a very big tractor trailer with a huge load so I am sure the driver was ok but it would be quite a mess.  Maybe damage the radiator.  Not much I could do at this  point so I proceeded on down the road.

Around 9:00 it was 72 degrees and at 10:00 up to 85.  It felt great with the sun up and better vision of the surrounding area.  My good friend, Ray Hunting, let me know that I was passing by the Cadillac Ranch so I put it in the GPS and made the stop.  After all I had been to Carhenge, why not?

I was sorry they left all the empty spray cans all around but the artist that created this felt that it was also part of the art!  I don’t think so!

I rolled into Childress at noon as I planned and checked into the Quality Inn.  The temperature was 93 degrees and I need to rest.  What a day!

June 18, 2018 - Pattie arrives

I packed up and it was still drizzling so I left a little early for the Airport.  Pattie arrived about 30 minutes early.  I had left all my excess road gear with Ryan so I would have room for Pattie’s Gear.  She changed into her riding clothes and we were off to lunch at Ruby Tuesday on Pena Blvd.  The ride to Alamosa was planned to go down a fast 2 lane but I lost the route on the GPS so the leisurely ride turned into a hot, gusting windy ride down I-25.  This would be our longest day ride at 250 miles.  We stopped every 60 miles for air conditioning and water, being afraid of dehydration at this altitude and Temperature.  We got to Alamosa around 5:00 and changed.  We found this town to be really active.  There was a college and we had a great dinner in a local brew pub.  My dear lovely wife then pointed out that we were the oldest people in town😬  information I could live without.  It was very pretty countryside very different from anything we had seen before.

Ryan called at 7:30 leading off the conversation with “we are alright!”  Now I know this is bad news. I suspected a car wreck or a climbing accident.  It was a good thing we bolted from Denver!  A significant storm moved in after we left and did damage all around his apartment complex.

Both cars damaged, windows broken and bodies dimpled.  Luckily they were inside when it happened.  I can’t tell you how bad that would have been on the motorcycle.  There are very few overpasses out here where you can seek shelter..  We were very fortunate to have been a few hours ahead of this, riding in heat and wind.  Ryan and Alex are in the middle of buying a house and now both cars are damaged.
Pattie has spent 20 days on the bike all around the Canadian Maritimes and has never had to ride in rain...unbelievable.  When she arrived at the airport the clouds lifted and the sun came out.  Now in Alamosa and the forecast for our 5 days in the mountains is crystal clear with cool mornings and high 70’s in the afternoon.  The day will come but maybe not this time.

June 17, 2018 -Colorado

packed up early this morning.  Waking around 5:00, I had coffee with a couple of Harley riders going into the mountains on a 6 week ride through the mid-west.  They decided to stay in Kindall another day due to the risk of hail in the mountains.  I had a 3 hour ride to stay with my son’s in-laws. No pictures since the first half would be in fog and rain.  The road mess into Cheyenne, WY was only one hour with limited visibility and fairly light traffic.  I knew that the weather was going to turn ugly after 1:00 so the plan was to get to there house by 12:00.  In WY I connected with I-25 to Denver, wow what a race track.  It took a few miles before I slipped into NYC driver mode.  It was Sunday and what were all of these trucks doing on the road on Sunday, Father’s Day?  They should be home with their families!
I arrived at Jamie and David’s on plan at 12:00.  It was great seeing friends after 1 1/2 weeks traveling.  On schedule the rains came at 2:00!  Ryan and Alex arrived from COMICON at 5:00.

Ryan over the years has done enough with his hair so nothing surprises me any more...but Alex?  Two peas in a pod!  We had a great Father’s Day and Jamie fixed a meal fit for a king!  The beef out here sure is better than back east!

June 16, 2018 - Nebraska comes to an end!

I am sad seeing the changes in Nebraska along Rt. 20 but it is the same experienced in eastern North Carolina.  The morning started with fog but not dense enough to delay my start.  I had already decided to skip the minuteman missile museum.  Just 120 miles north of Valentine, NE it was 60 degrees and heavy rain.  I have seen that before on this trip so when I went online to see if I could get a tour and found them all booked that was it.  This change made my last 2 days much easier.  Rather than two 400 mile days I had two 250 mile days into Denver.

Time to head west.  It was another 60 miles until my first turn in two days!  I was heading for Alliance, NE.  There was nothing but a few deserted towns so there was no reason to stop.  Then I saw the perfect stop!

Wow that was good for grins!  As a friend said “at least people in NE have a sense of humor”!  Then on to my next art appreciation stop.  Carhenge!

June 15, 2018 - long hard road!

I think Iowa should do a commercial with the catch phrase “Iowa , where pool tables don’t need to be leveled”

Rt. 20 crosses both Iowa and Nebraska but is a very different experience in each.  In Iowa Rt. 20 is a very well maintained 4 lane highway.  It by-passes all the towns.  You see nothing but fields.  If you see a sign for food or gas, when you exit you will then be treated to either turn left or right 5 miles.  When you get there it may be gone or closed.  I don’t like Iowa, it’s just a nice straight road with a multitude of farms that all look the same.

Nebraska wants you to see their towns.  Rt. 20 goes through all of them so you get a feeling about the health of the community.  I traveled this road in 2014 on my G650 and it looked very healthy.  Many of those same towns are now closed up.  A gentleman joined me for coffee this morning.  He explained that in the past 5 years big companies bought up the farms and leveled the houses and barns so they could plant more.  They sweep in with enough equipment to till, plant, spray or harvest in one day then they are gone.  They don’t live in the towns or have lunch there.  The people that sold packed up and left.  This has all happened very quickly.  I asked why he was still there and he said his farm has streams and is relatively small.  The buyers only want big flat farms.  He and his brother live in the same house that they were born in.  He was probable in his 70's.

The beautiful road in Nebraska has been destroyed by the trucking industry. I had numerous detours, single lane with escort cars, single lane bridges and at one town the road stopped and I had to find my way back to a detour that I missed.

It was kind of sad to see where progress is taking us.  Pattie asked me tonight if I was going to turn tomorrow....Rt. 20 is a straight line across Iowa and Nebraska.  Yep, I am going north.

June 14, 2018 - Iowa

I left the hotel around 9:30 heading south after 2 hours of waiting for a storm to pass.  It was still hanging around.  When I crossed the Mississippi it started sprinkling.  I pulled over and put on the full rain gear which was a relief since the temperature had fallen to 60 degrees and I was chilly.  As I approached my first stop it really began to rain.  But I have arrived.

 

I get chills because that is one of my favorite movies!  I only spent a few minutes there due to the rain but I am glad I stopped.  I went into town for lunch and had a wonderful chicken Pot pie and a salad.

It continued to rain.  It was time to move on or I would end up way behind schedule getting to Denver.   The next stop was only 46 miles away.  The rains came down harder and now gusting winds were beating me to death.  The evening news said the area I was in got 3-6” of rain with 40-50 mph gusts.  I believe it.  I finally got there!  The National Motorcycle Museum with over 400 bikes and dry shelter from the storm.

After hours of looking around for a place to stay I saw a sign with an "H" on it meaning hospital but also meaning hospitality like hotels and restaurants.  The town was Iowa Falls ( the place is flat so how can there be falls).  They have Super 8's everywhere in the midwest and this one was across from the hospital.  The town was maybe 6,000 people and had a number of fast foods but I wanted to try a local non-chain.

Not a good idea!  The town had 4 pizza places and a McDonalds.  I picked the wrong one.  Pizza was never invented to be served in a buffet.  The fried chicken was good though.  I then rode around the town to see what small town america has to offer.  Beautiful old homes and in the center of town was a nicely cared for park.

Small town got it right, a popcorn kiosk in the park.  We could all learn from this!  But time for bed since tomorrow will be a 400 mile ride in mid-90's temperatures.

June 9th an easy day

I left Mike and Joanne’s at 10:00 heading to Ludington to take the Badger first thing in the morning.  It seemed to be a replay of the prior day when not 2 miles into the 179 mile trip the rains started!  This time with gusting winds.  So not much to do but keep on going.  Rain or not it was a light day in the saddle.  The rains reached a peak around Holland, MI and then stopped.  But the winds picked up even more.  This is the first time I have noticed the effect of strong winds on wind turbines which dotted the hillsides.  The propellers were bent back by the strength of the wing and especially towards the tips.  The gusts were unpredictable and the bike kept being blown back and forth in the lane.

Riding in the rain on a distance trip isn’t really a problem.  The Gear that most of us wear is good and keeps the rider dry and warm.  The wind however is very tiring when it whips you around all day.  For a short ride I was very tired.  To bed early tonight.

June 8th - the triple nickel

Ready to tackle the world after a good nights sleep.  As I leave the lobby of the Sleep Inn in Parkersburg the weatherman is saying not to worry about the clouds to the west there is a very stable air mass that should let the clouds pass right over.  Should be a great dry ride.  After 15 minutes I have arrived at the beginning after crossing the river into OH.

It didn’t take long for the rains to start!  Let me assure you that there is no drought in OH, IN, or in MI.  Today I dealt with 4 storm cells that pounded me with rain, high gusting winds and lightning.  I managed to alter my route enough to get by two of them but but the other two got me head on.

The Nickel was a great ride.  I did about 40 miles of it and handled the blind hilltop, 90 degree turns and off camber corners.  It would have been more fun if it was dry but still a great ride.  I took a detour part way up to see Old Muskie!

The biggest drag line bucket in the world!  The size is amazing and the fact that it sits on top of a hill on a narrow little road makes you wonder how it got there.

The rains were wearing on me so with another 325 miles to go and having used up 3 hours going 60 miles it was time to move on.  

Off to Columbus then around and across OH to IN and a wonderful visit with good friends in Granger, IN.    It was another 400 mile day and I arrived at their house at 5:30.  To welcome me Michael was wearing a Carolina Blue shirt, quite a sacrifice for a Notre Dame alum.

We had a fun dinner then I got a tour of the Notre Dame Campus.  What a beautiful campus.  

Wow, my ipad freaked out on the last post and refused to edit.