Ride Journal

May 26, Day 14, The Ratbike and the Police

I slept in ‘till 7:00 this morning and was dragging my feet waiting for stuff to clear up a bit. Breakfast and coffee in the lobby and the weather was looking a bit better. Big puddles, but no rain for the moment. I was hoping for a no rain day so I still did not put on the rain gear. The road was very wet but no rain all the way through Illinois to St Louis. I wanted to get a picture of their beautiful Arch, but there was no place to stop on the freeway. I last saw that Arch while riding through on the same bike in 1980. The Arch looked the same but that's all I can remember about the town and the area.

Then the skies opened up about the same time as I needed fuel. I got rained on for a few minutes and was able to put the rain gear on under the roof at the gas station. Off we go into the wild wet yonder! And wet it was. It rained all the way through Missouri and into Kansas. And the wind was pretty wild too. I kept thinking of Dorothy and Toto as I saw some weird cloud formations. It tapered off just a little by Lawrence at the start of the toll road. After the toll road I stopped for fuel and a sandwich.

While I was in the parking lot a couple of cops rolled up and approached me and asked, "Do you mind if we take a picture of your bike?" There was no "license and registration" asked, just a picture or two! I told them about the NVAR ride and what it is all about and they said that the world needs more people like me. I told them that I am just one small part of the big picture of the ride and the veterans and that everyone on the ride does the same thing. We talked some more and said goodbye.

Just past Topeka the rain started again. I got a motel in Junction City at 5:00 and spent about an hour and a half with a tech guy in India for my HP laptop. He finally guided me with a lot of tricks and got it all back to normal and then the email would not send. Another call to Rio tech support and that is fixed now too. I am hungry again so I will see where to go and will also see what weather tomorrow brings. I just got done talking to Noel in Johnstown, Colorado and asked if I could stay at their house. He said that I had better plan to stay for a while.........