St. Louis to Marion county Kentucky

First and foremost - Thank you to Diane and Robby for the hospitality and the dinner! It is greatly appreciated and it was fun to stop in and see the sights and just get to know each other better. Thank you!

I learned a lesson here. Wipe lens clean after riding in bike all day!

The drive down was pretty uneventful with the exception of crossing the Ohio river in Louisville.The drivers there are nuts. They are even worse than the drivers in Bellevue, if can believe it. The speed limit is just a general rule. Anything within 20mph of it is fine, and construction zones are only there to be ignored.

 We started in Missouri and went through Illinois, Indiana, and into Kentucky. We Got to Dianes house about 3PM and Diane graciously offered to drive us around a bit to see some local sights. We went to Makers Mark Distillery and also "My Old Kentucky Home" state park. Kentucky is a beautiful state, and the people there are all friendly. It would be a great place to live.

We also stopped by the home where Abe Lincoln's parents lived.

Diane actually works in a building that once was famous. It used to be the Golden Horseshoe/ Club 68. There is an article about all the people that used to play there.

http://www.kentucky.com/2010/01/06/1084212/remembering-when-bb-otis-all-played.html

 Jackie and Beverly (2 of Robby's sisters (out of 11!) went out to dinner with us, and we had a good time at a little out of way place that even if you knew of it, you couldn't find it without a guide. But it was great food!

Later, we met Jacob, Diane's son and we sat around and talked  and played with Wesley (Diane's dog) until it was time to go to bed. It was a great day!  Thank You Again, Diane and Robby!

Tomorrow we head down to run the "tail of the dragon" and on into South Carolina!

Day 5 - Sioux City to St Louis

What a great day! We let to clear blue sky's and immediately went into the Loess hills and headed south. It was a great start.

However I did learn a few things about Iowa and a GPS.

First off Iowa does an awsome job on their Hwy's. They are well maintained and smooth, and you just roll along. The secondary hwy's are ok, but they patch them with tar. There are tar snakes. A LOT of tar snakes!

The other roads are OK if you are in a town, but rural roads are all.... Gravel! The problem is that the GPS does not designate them as gravel, so if you do any wandering, you are either going to be on gravel roads, or doing a lot of backtracking. We did the backtracking thing. :-)

I also learned that Iowa is about 60% corn fields. You can go 300 miles and you still see cornfields. Too many cornfields!


About the only place there wasn't corn fields was in a little town of Defiance. Go figure. Looks like they were growing soy.

And what is up with fighter plane planted on a post on Hwy 59 just south of Cyclone? Just sitting there all by itself, so sign or anything...

We did go through the town of Desoto, where John Wayne was born.

Iowa is green! not like most states, it looks like everything is watered every other day. The medians on the divided hwys are green grass and if you are by a town they are mowed. It looks like you could play golf in the median if you wished. Now that would be a concept :-)

Driving through Iowa, all I could think of was "heartland of America" It truly is. The people are friendly, every thing is fresh, clean, wholesome. If someone came up with things to do, it would be a great place to retire too.

We went through Hannibal to see the home of one of the greatest writers ever, Mark Twain. It was fun to see. We left there and headed south to get through St. Louis, so we would not have to fight traffic in the morning. Tomorrow we head to Louisville, Ky area to see Lori's niece.

Day 4 - Rapid City to Sioux City

I had planned on this day to be a trying one. I have been through here before and you can count on wind all the way.
Well, it was worse than that. Pouring rain and wind gusts of over 50 mph. It was hard to even keep the bikes on the road and it wore us out. We had stopped at a rest stop and some kid opened the door on their car and it darn near ripped it off!
We had one corner that got to me mentally. It was a big sweeping left turn and if you know bikes, you know they lean into the corner and this corner I was leaning right and turning left. It just was not natural!

We were going to take a short trip through the badlands, but with the rain and wind, it would not have been fun, so we skipped it. We did get to stop in at Wall Drugs and see the original store. Someone was thinking when they set this up as a tourist destination. It basically is the town.

After leaving there we headed south to follow the Outlaw trail. It was interesting to me to see that the Outlaw trail and the Lewis and Clark trail are so close to the same. I guess with all the land, you just had to stick to a trail in order to be safe back then.

Tomorrow we are running down old Hwy 141 and then SE and Down the Avenue of the Saints into Quincy, or Hannibal.

If you look to one of the first posts there is a link to the ride planner, where you can follow along as we go.

Day 3

Day 3 started out with a real gloomy sky. (However, we did find palm tree’s in Billings, Mt.)

The Rain and thunderstorms was just starting in on the west side of town as we left going east.
It seems that the clouds have been chasing us every day and just about caught us.

We stopped at the "Battle of Little Bighorn" site. We had never stopped in there before and just wanted to take a peek and see. By the time we left, the rain had caught up to us again.

We got out of the just as it started sprinkling and quickly out paced the clouds. By the time we hit Wyoming, the weather was 82 and sunny.
Our main goal for this day was to sight see at Mt. Rushmore and get into Rapid City at a decent hour and relax, and we made it. We got in to Rapid City at 5:30
If you have never seen Mt. Rushmore it is an awesome sight! You could come and spend a couple of weeks just staying in the area and seeing the towns like Keystone, with all the little shops and tourist things to do.
But, even more, the Needles hwy that cuts through the Black hills national forest has to be one of the most enjoyable roads ever on a motorcycle!
It must have 300 turns, switchbacks, rock tunnels and hill climbs in about 17 miles. On a motorcycle it was awesome, in a car it would be challenging as some of the roads are too narrow for two vehicles to pass. Most of the corners, if you are doing 20, you are going too fast.
There was even a motorhome going up there! ( I don't know how he thought he was going to go through a rock tunnel that is only 8'4" wide and 12' tall!)
Any way, we are tired so I am going to cut this short and going to get some rest. I will check back in tomorrow...

Day 2

Well day 2 started (and ended) not with a bang, but with a wimper!

That was us as we both woke up at 4:45 am. We were wide awake and it was not possible to go back to sleep. We laid around for about ½ an hour and decided we might as well get up and go.

We left Lewiston just as the sun was rising. It was beautiful, but hard to see anything with the sun in your eyes.

Hwy 12 up and over LOLO pass is one of the best and most scenic drives we have found. We followed the river for about 60 miles, winding back and forth on 35 mph curves that are very comfortable at 50, when we passed a sign that said there was another 100 miles of the same. There is rarely more than a couple of hundred yards of straight road. After a while you find yourself wandering on the short straights because it does not seem natural to be upright.

When I was driving along and listening to my favorite music playing softly in the background, sweeping through the curves and watching Lori driving behind me in the rear view mirror, I was thinking “it just doesn’t get any better than this!”

And then…

The killer attack chipmunks! They started darting out from every side. One ran out and sat on the center yellow line and was mocking me as I went by! Other ran out and just when you think you are going to hit one, they dart back to safety.

We finally got through them and settle back down to riding, when the state decided, in the middle of a corner, with no warning, to start doing road work. The center line went away and we were instantly on fresh chipseal.

Not a good thing to have happen in a corner. After a little sliding and a quick adrenaline rush we slowed down and took it easy for the next 25 miles until they finally left the road alone, right before LOLO summit.

We stopped at the top and Lori saw a mother and baby Moose and went to have a look and to get a picture.

We got into Missoula, Mt and topped off the gas and started east.

I let Lori lead on I-90 for a while because she says she does not like to go fast, so I figured with her in front she could go at a comfortable speed for her…

Well she took off and I had a heck of a time catching up to her. When I did, we settled into a nice comfortable 80+ mph on the speedo. When she finally stopped after 150 miles, I asked her about her lack of comfort at speed, to which she replied “ I got over it!”

We had to make some miles today, so tomorrow will be more of a laid back day. Other that a quick downpour, the rest of the was pretty uneventful. We got into Billings at 7:00. 

With 910 miles on our trip, we were both sore and tired. We had a quick dinner, did the update to the web site and time for bed.

Tomorrow we head for Mt Rushmore.

Friday Sept 3rd

Well the first day of the trip went well. We left home at 12:30 and made it to Lewiston by 6:30 to have dinner with Shannon and Kevin. The 350 miles went by fairly quickly considering it is Eastern Wa and not much to look at. If you are not a farmer, the palouse region is boring. Lyons Ferry is a nice area for boating and just relaxing, but not too much of anything to look at until we actually got into Lewiston.

Traffic over the pass was OK, but as soon as we were over the top, it crawled for 5 miles or so before opening up. It sure seems like the road goes by faster on a motorcycle.

Any way, It was good to see Shannon and Kevin, And thank you both for the dinner! Love ya, and we will have a drink for you in Key west...

It's time!

Well, it's that time!

The bikes are loaded and ready to go. Just waiting for Lori to get home and we are off.
We hope we have everything we need, but will make do if we don't.

I will try and post nightly if we have internet access.
See ya soon!