Bike Week
The past couple of yrs. the hubbs and I have taken a week long (ok 9 to 10 day) motorcycle trip with another couple, wonderful people to travel with. This year the majority rule was out west to South Dakota being the main attraction. We left on friday afternoon in the drizzle, that was okay with us we were going to ride out of it, so the weatherman says. We rode well after dark, and why is it when you pull over to rest and get direction, it's always in the part of town you shouldn't be in after dark?
Our plan was to get as close my Uncle and Aunts home in Waynesville,MO. Just the other side of St. Louis. We live in Southern Indiana so maybe a 6 hr jaunt, we left at 3:30, not an impossible goal for the day. Factor in the rain and the lead driver in St. Louis heading into the wrong direction, suffice it to say we lost a couple of hrs. We found a room and got some dinner and made it to bed around midnight. Pictured here are my Husband, Aunt Jo and Me. My Uncle was back in the hosp. the day before so we missed him, our thinking was to stop on our way back through. I have decided that I would no sooner trade the couple of hrs. spent with my Aunt Jo than an extra day of sunshine, she is one of lifes gifts to our family and one of the most kind, giving and loving women God has graced this earth. I thank him for that!
Throughout the day after we left we had a little drizzle here and there as we rode through MO. and into the tip if Kansas, by late afternoon the sun was out and we came to a cross roads when we pulled off to look for our next route, we were detoured. This spring with all the flooding out in the mid west there were still roads and towns flooded. My heart sank for the people in that area, we have flooding here as well and have come close to disaster but nothing like this, we are talking 8 months of farmland under water and unless you are there and can see it you can't understand, this is all they do is farm, miles and miles of fields.
Our plan was to get as close my Uncle and Aunts home in Waynesville,MO. Just the other side of St. Louis. We live in Southern Indiana so maybe a 6 hr jaunt, we left at 3:30, not an impossible goal for the day. Factor in the rain and the lead driver in St. Louis heading into the wrong direction, suffice it to say we lost a couple of hrs. We found a room and got some dinner and made it to bed around midnight. Pictured here are my Husband, Aunt Jo and Me. My Uncle was back in the hosp. the day before so we missed him, our thinking was to stop on our way back through. I have decided that I would no sooner trade the couple of hrs. spent with my Aunt Jo than an extra day of sunshine, she is one of lifes gifts to our family and one of the most kind, giving and loving women God has graced this earth. I thank him for that!
Throughout the day after we left we had a little drizzle here and there as we rode through MO. and into the tip if Kansas, by late afternoon the sun was out and we came to a cross roads when we pulled off to look for our next route, we were detoured. This spring with all the flooding out in the mid west there were still roads and towns flooded. My heart sank for the people in that area, we have flooding here as well and have come close to disaster but nothing like this, we are talking 8 months of farmland under water and unless you are there and can see it you can't understand, this is all they do is farm, miles and miles of fields.
My Husband and Mark looking at the map trying to decide where we are going to end up this evening. The trailer is our newly aquired luxury for a long weekend. He tells everyone it is because of my over packing, his suitcase is twice the size of mine. This is looking like its going to be quite an adventure and as Mark put it, "Lets go get lost", and boy did we! We ended up in Iowa, more flooding, and nothing to look at but huge windmills and tons and tons of cornfields and when you got tired of the cornfields then there were more. Lucky for us with the weather co operating a little better we were dry and pulled in to eat at 10 p.m. and hit the motel around 11. Shower and bed! The next morning we had a fab breakfast at the Cracker Barrell and then over to Wal Mart to get some flags to fly because it was 9/11 and Shannon thought it would be a good gesture, I truly felt glad to be living in the USA
So this is the view for hrs on end. We stopped off at a bar and grill for lunch, one of the few you see after hrs of driving. The town were the bar was, I wish I would have written down the name, consists of a mini mart and this bar! I know right! Anyway everyone we talked to (there wasn't many people out anywhere) were extremely friendly, in one conversation at the mini mart we asked where the closest Wal Mart was they said oh probably Rapid City, SD about 340 miles, can you imagine! So I asked what do you do for groceries, the reply, we live on ranches we grow and raise most of our food so we plan to go in to the city a few times a year because we have to stay the night. WOW!!!! People still live like that and aren't dependent on all the department stores the way most of us in urban living are. One more thing, we do NOT live in the country. Even in the middle of hoosier farmland, it's nothing like the ranches (the same as our farms) we rode through.