Making Up Time

Too soon the time to leave was at hand. Rani and I chatted for an hour in the morning after Mike went off to work. I got one last hug from Rani, and was on my way.
.....it was time to do some catching up to that 500 mile/day average.

I-70 took me out of Columbus quickly to the west. I could see 2 obstacles in front of me. St Louis and Kansas City. It was a nice weather day, and the Wing hummed along like an old song. Tank after tank ticked off the miles.
I followed the GPS without a hitch thru St Louis. It was nearly 300 more miles to KC.
By 5:30pm I was in KC. I think I'd gained an hour. That was almost 700 miles. I was getting tired. I followed the GPS as it was programed to Westcliffe Co. It was taking me to ALT 70.....hummmm.
I missed an exit in downtown KC, damn, but the GPS got me back on track. It's neat how that works. Then I notice that the ALT 70 that I'm on is soon to be a Toll Road. I didn't like the sound of that.
Sure enough a toll booth showed up and they gave me a ticket. So at the first chance I got off that freeway. I accused the toll girl of her being in cahoots with the GPS folks to get me on that toll road. She denied it....indicating that I was just stupid. She was probably right. :rofl
So I needed to take a nearby road across the edge of town to get the real I-70. That made me nervous as this route looked to be prime deer country. In fact, I did see a deer that crossed in front of me.
Plus I was traveling North into some very dark skies. It looked very rough up ahead, and there was sheet lighting every 5 seconds or so. I wondered a couple time if I shouldn't have just stayed on the toll road.
There were some dark clouds dipping low toward the ground. I wondered about tornadoes, but what do I know about such things. Still it did look mean.
I made it to free I-70 and headed west again. I guess the adrenaline of the situation had amped me up. I was considering an SS1000 as it seemed doable.
I was cruising along when a rest stop came up that advertised free WIFI. I was ready for a stop anyway, and had been looking for a cheap motel along the last 50 miles. I was keeping my options open.
A man and his wife sitting at the rest stop asked me if it was cold out there. We talked a bit. He said there was a tornado watch in effect at the time. How about that?
I asked him what he was doing there. He said that he was out of work and going to spend the night there in his car. He said nit was legal to spend the night, but not legal to camp there. I can see a fine line between spending the night and camping.
So if you are a car you can sleep in your car, if you are a big truck you can sleep in the sleeper.....but what can you do if you're on a motorcycle? Well, I figured that meant that I could pull out my sleeping bag under drop cloth and have at it. Tent's would be more like camping.
Anyway that is what I did in an out of the way nook kinda out of sight. It was 9:30 somewhere when I hit the hay. Nobody bothered me all night, and I got up at dawn. No rain or tornadoes was the words of the night. I took a half hour on my netbook and caught up on things. Most everyone had reported home safely from the Maine event. That's always good to hear.
You'll notice a lack of pictures between Columbus and the Rockies. Although it's not too photogenic, I don't mind that 1500 miles. Americas Heartland is full of hard working folks, and what you see from the road is proof of that.
I just let my mind wander thru the 18 & 1900s out there, and I'm usually fascinated with what I find when the abandoned machinery bring the old days to my attention.
Did I tell you that my seat rolls made that Gold Wing's seat very livable. Yahoo!