Day 8

This post is a day late because Friday was a long, hard, painful day. I wrecked my bike in Kentucky on I-24 about a mile north of the Tennessee border. We rode once again through steady rain most of the day and were really looking forward to getting home. The roads obviously were wet and I opened a handle bar storage pouch when something flew out of the pouch and past me. I'm not really sure what happened (it was a split second kind of thing), but I tried to look back to see what I had just lost and might have tapped my front brake or moved the handle bars trying to see what I lost, not sure. But what I am sure of is that the bike went down and I went for a 200 ft, 70 mile-an-hour slide down I-24, rolling and banging my head on the pavement several times during the trip. My helmet got scratched up some, but did it's job.

Brad and I were lamenting the cold rain when we left Missouri that morning, but it caused me to put on extra layers of clothing that ended up saving my skin. The slide tore through 2-3 layers of clothing at several locations and thankfully I had six layers on top and four layers on bottom. That, combined with the fact that the wetness of the pavement limited the friction, helped me to come out of it almost without a scratch. I did break my hand (5th Metacarpal). The paramedics called it a "boxer fracture" because they are frequent boxing injuries. I am very thankful to God that I wasn't seriously injured. The Kentucky state troopers said that almost all of the motorcycle injuries on the interstate require MedFlight.

As it turned out, my bike has minimal damage. When it went down it pretty much just layed on it's side and slid about 300 feet down the highway. No tumbling or breaking apart, just tore up the right-side highway bars and pegs, the right saddle bag, and a little pipe scraping. All of my baggage (except for the tank bag) stayed strapped on and the bike was still ridable. I was amazed (and once again, thankful).

The paramedics were preparing to take me to a local hospital, but I was so much wanting to get home, I asked if I could just ride back to Alabama and get my hand checked out there. They said I could, so they rigged me up a temporary splint and Brad and I hopped back on and rode home to Alabama. The splint made it tough to use the throttle and front brake, but we rode slower and made it just fine.

Brad was great through all of this. He didn't see the wreck because he was in front of me. But he called Deb and let her know I was OK and helped me get my broken and bruised self all the way to my house in Madison even though he had 30 more minutes to ride to get to Tonya and Emma who were eagerly waiting to see him for the first time in a week. He spent the week waiting for me to get my gear back on every time we stopped, and coaxing me to go a little further when I was ready to call it a day. And then to be 120 miles from home, only to have me dump my bike and delay us another two hours. He's not known for his patience, but I pushed him to his limits and he never (OK, rarely) gave me a hard time. Thanks for the adventure Big Guy.

So that's it. We're back from our long ride and have stories that we'll still be telling in 20 years. We had a blast, and even the bad days added to the adventure. We totaled 3600 miles and covered eleven states. Thanks for taking the ride with us through this blog. It was a great time, but it's good to be home.

All the best,
B

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Day 7

When we left Sioux City, Iowa this morning, we had hopes of making it as far south as Paducah, KY, or at least St. Louis. But after riding dry for two hours south through western Iowa, we rode the next seven hours through a steady rain to Kansas City and across Missouri, finally stopping, drenched and cold at a Days Inn 50 miles west of St. Louis. As we rode into the evening, it became harder to see with the rain blurring our face shields. That, along with the fact that we were getting wetter and colder, caused us to call it a day. Once we got to our room and turned on the TV, we saw on the Weather Channel that we had been riding through a storm that had caused severe flooding in several parts of the region. We did manage to cover 470 miles, bringing our total to almost 3100 for the trip.

We'll get up in the morning and check the weather before heading out. Hopefully, the rain will have moved through the area and we can leave early enough to make it home Friday afternoon. Neither of us wants to endure another ride like today.

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Day 6

Today was a long day, consequently, this post will be a short one. We left Rapid City and headed into the Black Hills for Mt. Rushmore, which was very impressive. We took about an hour to take in the granite mountain and then headed over for a quick glance at the Crazy Horse monument about 20 miles away. After that, we cruised the Black Hills for about an hour and then decided to begin our long, 3-day trek home. Truth be told, we've had a blast, but we're both missing our families very much, so we decided to head back to the hopefully warmer southeast. The ride across South Dakota was tortuous. Worst wind we've had the whole trip and very long. But we made it to Sioux City, Iowa around 11pm after a 560 mile day, bringing our total to around 2600.

As we prepare to head south from Sioux City, the weather looks miserable. Rain, rain, and more rain, even severe thunderstorms. But we're prepared to brave the elements knowing that Deb, Jazz, Tonya, and Emma are waiting at the end of our two-day ride back to Alabama. So we'll break out the rain gear and hit the road. Thankfully, the bad weather on this trip has been limited to the rides between destinations. All of our items of interest have had great weather. Oh well, time to head home in the rain. Here we go.

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Day 5

Today was a blast. When we left Douglas Tuesday morning it was 38 degrees, so the first hour or so was a pretty cold ride. But Brad used the universal hand signals for "can we draft behind your motor home?" with a family from Nevada, and they let us tuck behind them till we got to Gillette, WY where we stopped and had some hot chocolate and chicken noodle soup at a Perkins restaurant. Thankfully the weather warmed a bit (into the 40s) for the ride to Devils Tower which was a lot of fun. Great curvy roads and virtually no traffic. Afterward we headed north toward Montana where Brad almost hit a deer in the snowy hills of northeast Wyoming. The first part of the day, we frequently saw antelope, but after Devils Tower there were deer everywhere. Seriously, there was a two-mile stretch through a wooded area where we saw over 75 deer. No lie. The ride was awesome, one of the best of the trip.

Once we got into Montana, we filled up in the small town of Alzada and headed east toward Sturgis, South Dakota, a famous biker town known for a yearly motorcycle rally that brings thousands of bikers to the small town. We stopped there, bought a t-shirt, took a couple of pictures and headed south to Rapid City. The funny thing about Sturgis... we were there between thirty minutes and an hour and never saw a motorcycle (besides ours).

Once we got to Rapid City it was dark so we headed toward Mt. Rushmore and got a room at a Comfort Inn about 20 miles away from the monument. Interestingly, I got my second senior discount of the trip. We asked for it and they gave it to us. So call me old if you want, it saved us ten bucks.

We covered 325 miles today which brought our total over the 2000 mile mark. Tomorrow we take in Rushmore, the Crazyhorse monument, and the Badlands. Weather looks to be good, so we're looking forward to cruising the Black Hills.

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Day 4

Today was very adventurous. It started out a beautiful day in Colorado Springs. Sunny, not too cold. We headed west to Pikes Peak and had a great ride up the mountain. The winds were too high (60 mph gusts) so we couldn't go all the way to the summit (14,000 ft), but we did get a little over 12,000 ft before they blocked the road. The bikes made it up fine, though we both dealt with some power loss in the higher altitudes, and the wind was so strong that while we were stopped to take a few pictures, Brad's bike slipped out of gear and slid 10 feet down a hill. It's a miracle it didn't fall over. After Pikes Peak we headed north through the mountains toward Denver. That proved to be the best ride of the trip so far. A good combination of winding mountain roads and broad sweeping curves.

Once we got to Denver we got wet. It got so bad that north of Denver we stopped to eat and tried to wait for the rain to pass. We waited about an hour and it was still coming down so we put on our rain gear and headed north toward Wyoming. Thankfully, after about 15 minutes things cleared somewhat and we were rain-free the rest of the day. We almost ran out of gas before we got out of Colorado because the closer you get to Wyoming, the fewer gas stations there are. I really was running on fumes as we entered Wyoming and made it to a station just south of Cheyenne with maybe five miles left before my Honda was bone dry. Brad got mad at me for stopping at the Wyoming state line to get a picture of the sign while I was running on fumes, but thankfully I made it to the gas station a few miles down the road.

Wow, eastern Wyoming is desolate. Not many people or trees. We thought there wasn't much in Kansas, but Wyoming is unbelievable. I visited western Wyoming a few years ago and there were mountains, trees, and a fair amount of people. But our ride through southeastern Wyoming today was like riding on the moon. I bet we went 50 miles several times and didn't see a building or a tree. It really was interesting to see.

Unfortunately, because we spent so much time waiting out the rain in Denver, we got behind schedule. We were hoping to get to Douglas, WY today but it had gotten dark and we were still an hour and a half away. And unfortunately for me, Brad would ride straight through the night if I was willing, so he was adamant we push on to Douglas and get a hotel there. I agreed and that proved to be my biggest regret of this trip yet. Why... because we froze our butts off, that's why! It turns out the low tonight in Douglas is 28 degrees with high winds. Well to make this long story a bit shorter... the final 20-30 minutes of our ride to Douglas was in the low 30s with strong gusty winds and snow flurries. I couldn't feel my hands when we pulled into the Holiday Inn Express. We both agreed that future dictionaries will have a picture of Brad and I riding to Douglas next to the definition of the word "idiot". But we're here, and I thank God for getting us here without a breakdown.

Tomorrow we ride first to Devils Tower, the landmark from the Steven Spielberg movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And after that, on to Montana and Sturgis, SD. As of now, daytime highs are forecast in the 50s, but the weather folks have not proven themselves to be very reliable on this trip so far, so I'll believe it when I see (feel) it.

So like I said at the beginning of this post... this was a very adventurous day. Definitely the best riding so far and also the biggest challenge, and I'm not referring to Pikes Peak. We covered over 400 miles which pushes our total to around 1750. Now if we can only get through Montana and South Dakota without getting snowed in, we'll be fine. This has been an amazing trip, and we're not even half way yet.

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Day 3

Today was a rough one. It started out cold and windy as we left Salina, KS and once we stopped for pizza across the Colorado state line we had cold rain and fog. It got so bad on the way to Colorado Springs that the temperature was in the 40s, we couldn't see 20 yards ahead of us for the fog, and it was raining. Thankfully, once we got into Colorado Springs the rain and fog let up and the weather tomorrow is forecast to be much better as we ride Pikes Peak. We also had a nice meal at Outback and we're settled into a Days Inn earlier than we have been the past two nights. We covered 450 miles today for a total of over 1350.

Now, if only our stuff will dry out over night. But even as hard as the day was, we're in good spirits and are still having a blast. We keep joking that we wanted an adventure and that's what we're getting. The next couple of days will be through parts of the Rocky Mountains and we're looking forward to riding something other than boring, straight interstate highways.

After Pikes Peak, we're heading north through Denver and into Wyoming. We're counting on the weather forecasters being right. We'll keep you posted.

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Day 2

Day two was longer and colder than yesterday. We traveled a little over 570 miles today and it was fairly cold and windy. We ended the ride in Salina, KS where it was 46 degrees before we called it a night at 11:30pm. You might notice that Salina is nowhere near Sioux Falls, SD, our intended destination when we began the day. Well, we've been checking the weather forecasts the past few days and noticed that Monday in Rapid City they are forecasting 40 degrees and 80% rain. That was the day we were planning to see Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the Badlands. So we decided in Kansas City to head west to Denver where they are forecasting sunny and in the 60s the next few days. We can visit Pikes Peak and then head north on Tuesday to Wyoming, Montana, and then on to South Dakota after all the cold, wet weather passes. It will still be fairly cool, but they're saying sunny in the 50s instead of rainy and 40.

We had a good ride today and got a chance to use our cold weather gear. We pushed pretty hard today but did take the time to stop and see the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Very impressive. The Cardinals were playing the Brewers downtown so it was pretty crowded, but it was a nice diversion from our cold ride.

We're getting up early tomorrow to head to the Rockies. I'm excited.

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