Today was going to be a longer day than the previous three. In order to reach my hotel in Kansas City at a reasonable time I wanted to be on the road by about 8 AM. The motel didn't provide a breakfast, so I needed to leave early enough to find somewhere to eat before I left town. I think I got out of bed around 7 AM.
All I had to do was dress, pack and apply sunscreen, so it really didn't take too long. With the motorcycle less than 10 feet from my door it was pretty easy to get my luggage and gear mounted.
After I was packed and loaded, I realized I hadn't gotten a picture of my room. Overall the room was clean and well worth the price I paid. The décor hadn't been updated since probably before the last time I stayed there in 1984, but it was functional. This is one of those photos that I can look at, and immediately recall the smell associated with it. Not a bad smell, just that odor of the cleaning solution that cheaper motels use.
I checked out of the motel. About a mile down the road was a McDonalds. Not gourmet, but adequate for a quick breakfast. To my surprise, the place was nearly empty. I walked right up to the counter and ordered a Sausage McMuffin and some hotcakes. No sooner did I pick out a table to sit at when they announced my food was ready.
I ate and reviewed my directions. It didn't take long to polish it all off. I made a quick restroom break and was in and out of the restaurant in about 15 minutes.
As a side note, I have no idea how McDonalds makes their hotcakes so delicious. I know they probably come frozen to the store and the employees just stick them in the microwave, but man are those things tasty. Sometimes I crave them (like right now as I type this.) Perhaps their secret ingredient is crack cocaine?
It was about 8:05 when I pulled out of the parking lot. Five minutes late, but all things considered pretty good for the 4th day of a motorcycle trip when I'm often starting slow down due to fatigue.
My route took highway 87 north out of Mountain View. It started in a residential area, which was kind of odd because my directions had me turning down a side street that didn't look like anything that would turn into a highway.
Highway 87 was a very pretty road.
That being said, almost every road is pretty in this portion of Arkansas.
Also there are very few straight roads. It's like this section of the country was made for motorcycles. Or maybe motorcycles are made for this section of the country. You pick.
Highway 87 came to an end at the junction of highway 14. I have been on this section of 14 a couple times before, and remember that it was pretty nice riding. I took a left to continue north.
A couple years prior, my brother gave me a GoPro camera for Christmas. His thought was that I could record my bicycle commutes. I think he secretly was hoping I would get attacked by a goose so he could watch the footage. I've been wearing it on all my commutes, then editing together highlight videos where I post them to my wildly unpopular YouTube channel.
By the way, I have been attacked by geese since I got the GoPro, but I discovered they usually come at you from the side where the camera doesn't pick up the footage very well.
Anyway, this year I packed my GoPro camera in my luggage thinking it might be fun to capture some video of my ride. I brought it on last year's motorcycle trip as well, but never pulled it out. I'd kind of forgotten about it until this morning. This portion of Arkansas has nice curvy roads and by the afternoon I would be on roads that aren't very interesting, so I decided to pull over in the town of Big Flat and hook up my camera.
I rode for about ten miles, then pulled over near Harriet, AR and started a new video for about the next ten miles. The roads in this area were very fun to ride and I was looking forward to seeing the footage when I got to the hotel room that night.
Well, it didn't work out as well as I had planned. To mount my GoPro, I use a chest harness. This works very well when riding on my bicycle, as the image is fairly steady and it captures the road in front of me splendidly. I had first experimented with a helmet mount, but discovered I move my head around too much when I ride bicycle and I would capture footage of me looking at every tree or anything else that briefly caught my attention.
So I also wore my chest harness to mount the camera as I rode the motorcycle. Fast forward to the evening when I excitedly downloaded the video files from the camera, and was immediately quite disappointed in the results. Because of where the camera was positioned on my chest, the main thing visible in the entire video is my windshield bag. The road is visible around the periphery, but the video really loses its impact when the primary thing the camera is focusing on is an unchanging object. Because the main view of the road is obstructed, the highway looks a lot flatter and straighter than it actually was. Also, it feels like I'm riding a lot slower than I was. What a letdown.
I hesitated about even bothering to upload the videos to YouTube. I have a vested interest in them, and even I find them kind of dull to watch. I eventually decided to go ahead and post them, but I made them "unlisted" meaning you can view them if they are linked directly, but someone isn't going to accidentally come across them in a YouTube search. I will say that at least my pipes sound good in the videos.
If I do this again in the future, I need to use a different mounting system. I thought about perhaps mounting the camera on my helmet, but I don't know if I want a GoPro mount stuck to it all the times I'm not riding. Also it would probably suffer from the same "look around" syndrome I experienced on the bicycle. I also have considered mounting it on my brake fluid reservoir, but I'm unsure how that angle would work. Either of these options has to be better than the chest mount, however.
So chalk this one up to experience, I guess.
As I was riding along, I came up behind a semi that was going through the curves slower than I was. The driver wasn't being unusually pokey, so it wasn't overly frustrating. At a certain point we hit a long straight area that was clear in front, and the semi driver pulled to the side and motioned for me to come around. I gave him a friendly wave of thanks as I passed. That was cool. You can actually see this happen (sort of) around the 9 minute mark in the second video above.
A little while down the road I came up to a pickup truck that was being unusually pokey. This driver didn't do the same as the semi driver, so I was stuck behind him. And the semi I had passed previously caught up and was stuck behind both of us. Soon a whole line of vehicles had appeared behind it.
I decided riding behind the truck was too frustrating, so I pulled off on a side road to check my map. I didn't really need to check my map as I had a good idea about where I was going, but it was an excuse to let the truck driver go on obstructing traffic without me getting frustrated.
I reached the town of Yellville, and pulled into a convenience store for a bathroom and stretch break. As I pulled in, I noticed the two guys on the dual-sport motorcycles from the previous afternoon were at the same store filling up their tanks. I went inside and hit the restroom, then came out and looked at the fridge area to find a drink. I was looking at the iced tea when I noticed they had a watermelon flavor. That intrigued me, so I grabbed a bottle and purchased it. The woman at the register was equally intrigued, as she said she hadn't noticed that they sold that flavor.
Before going back out in the extreme heat (yes, it was still really hot and humid) I relaxed for a minute or two just inside the door of the store, sipping the tea. Well, it said tea on the label, but I didn't taste any tea. It also was kind of an green antifreeze color so it didn't look anything like tea either. I strongly suspect it was just an artificially flavored juice type drink. Oh well, it was cool and wet.
Back outside and on the motorcycle, I headed north towards the town of Peel, AR. In Peel I was going to take a ferry across the Bull Shoals lake.
Like what happened when I left Mountain View earlier that morning, highway 14 on the north side of Yellville just looked like a quiet residential street.
About 15 miles north of Yellville I reached the junction of highway 125 that would take me to the Peel Ferry. After I turned the corner I pulled over. Almost immediately, a guy in a car pulled up next to me and asked if everything was OK. I explained I was just taking a quick break and thanked him for his concern. He waved and continued down the highway. Things like that help restore my faith in humanity.
The Peel Ferry gets its name because it's just outside of the little town of Peel. Peel itself wasn't too remarkable.
In addition to the Ozark Folk Center and the Dogwood Motel, the Peel Ferry is another item that harkens back to our family trip to Arkansas in the summer of 1984. We took the ferry across the lake during that trip as well. I remember the ferry at that time was a very sketchy small floating platform that would only hold a couple cars at a time. I was curious to discover if they were still using that old ferry boat.
As I arrived at the lake, the ferry was somewhere in the middle of the lake so I was going to have to wait. As I pulled up, the two guys on the dual-sport motorcycles were also waiting. They had pulled out lawn chairs and were relaxing.
I struck up a conversation with them, and we collaborated to confirm that they were indeed the two riders who had passed me west of Mammoth Springs the day before. They had ridden to Yellville and camped for the night there.
We had about a 30 minute wait until the ferry returned, so we talked for quite a while and compared notes on all the various places we had ridden our motorcycles over the years.
When the ferry finally arrived, I was both relieved and disappointed that it had been upgraded in the last 37 years. Relieved because the new ferry looked a little more seaworthy than the old one. Disappointed because it would have been cool to relive the memory of that old ferry.
There was only one car coming off the ferry from the opposite side of the lake.
When we got the signal to board, I didn't bother putting my helmet and earplugs in just to move the motorcycle forward a couple hundred feet. We rolled onto the boat and parked.
Once we were on the ferry we had to wait about 7 minutes until we actually left. I'm guessing the ferry operators were waiting to see if any additional vehicles would show up. None did. The three motorcycles were the only passengers on this crossing.
As we slowly cruised across the lake, the other bikers told me that route 125 on the other side of the shore is a good one. That was encouraging. I knew once I hit Springfield, MO that the riding would get pretty dull, so I was happy to know I'd have at least a little more good riding on this day.
The ferry has changed quite a bit since the last time I'd been on it. Last time I don't even think it was large enough to get out of the car while we were crossing. Or at least I don't remember getting out of the car.
As we crossed the riders told me about this lake. They said that despite its size, there is very little activity on the lake due to how much the water levels fluctuate. If someone were to make a beach, half the time it would be underwater, and the other half of the time it would be higher than the water line. Indeed as I looked around I discovered they were right: this was a large lake, but you didn't see any cabins or any other recreational activity going on.
It took probably 20 minutes to cross. At some point I ran out of things to talk about with the bikers and it got awkward. So I just stood around and used the time as an excuse to check my phone for any messages.
We finally got to the other side. This ferry definitely isn't the route you should choose if you're in a hurry. But I wasn't in a big hurry today, so it was a fun break from the routine.
Once we docked on the north side of the lake, I bid the other bikers "safe travels" and put on my gear and got back on the bike. With a wave to the ferry operator I rode off the boat and onto solid pavement.
The Missouri state border is actually in the middle of the lake. It's kind of hard to put a sign there, so the welcome sign was a couple hundred yards from the shore.
It was now about 11 AM. I hadn't even come 100 miles yet in the three hours since I left Mountain View, so even though I wasn't on a schedule I felt like I was running behind. There was still almost three hundred miles to go on this day.
As I rode north on highway 125 I discovered the other two bikers weren't lying. This was a great road. I encountered many more twists, turns and hills.
As mentioned, I wasn't on a schedule. At the same time, the previous three and a half days of riding were starting to take a toll on me physically, particularly with my left shoulder. I've mentioned it many times previously, but since my motorcycle accident in August of 2001 where I dislocated my shoulder, it has been giving me more and more grief. I'm usually good for a few days of riding, then it starts to hurt.
Also mentioned previously, I had adjusted my handlebars by returning to the stock risers. I do think this helped stave off the pain for a while longer than the old risers, but it wasn't the silver bullet I had been hoping it would be.
The pain was now beginning to cross into "annoying" territory. I knew it was only going to get worse as the day wore on. So despite not being on a schedule I also was concerned about sitting on the motorcycle for too many more hours. While this road was fun to ride, the slow speed was also not helping me get to my destination any sooner.
I continued on. The heat of the day was making itself even more known, and my McDonalds breakfast had worn off. I was in need of a break and some food.
There really wasn't anywhere convenient to stop around Bradlyville, so I just continued on.
Shortly after noon I reached the town of Sparta, which looked large enough to have some restaurants. As I got into the town I didn't see as many food options as I had hoped. In fact, I really didn't see any. There was a Casey's though, so I decided a couple slices of pizza would do.
I pulled in and parked, then went inside and used the restroom. Next I started looking through the store for the pizza area, and saw nothing. The clerk must have noticed my confused look and asked if she could help me find anything. I inquired whether or not they sold pizza, which at this point I knew what the answer would be.
She confirmed that they did not. That's weird. I thought every Casey's served pizza, but apparently I was mistaken. She did say that five blocks further down the street there was another Casey's, and that one did indeed have pizza. I found it really odd that they would have two Casey's locations so close to each other, but I thanked her and went back outside.
So I put my gear back on, rode the five blocks to the next Casey's and then got back off. Kind of a frustrating waste of time, but what can you do?
This Casey's indeed had pizza. I bought two slices. Unfortunately, they had no seating inside the store. I went back outside and leaned up against the wall to eat my pizza. At least I was on the north side of the building so as long as I stayed close I had a little bit of shade. A break from the heat and the ability to sit would have been beneficial during this stop, but again, what can you do?
I must have been an interesting sight, because everyone who stopped at the store eyed me with curiosity: a sweaty beast of a man shoving pizza down his throat in the blazing heat.
With the pizza eaten, I took some time to put on more sunscreen. I made sure to get the back of my neck this time. Then I reluctantly got back on the motorcycle and headed north. I was feeling a bit discouraged that half my day was done time-wise, yet only a third of my day was done mileage-wise.
I continued north on highway 125. As I left Sparta I recall thinking that it felt like I was riding through a furnace. I was now getting out of the interesting part of the day. From here the roads got flatter, straighter and the trees got sparser.
Just south of Cody, MO I got on highway 60 heading west. This was a busy 4 lane road, but I was only on it for six miles. This road took me to the east side of Springfield, MO.
Here was another spot where it was nearly unavoidable to ride on the interstate for a little while. I could have ridden through Springfield on a business route. Maybe that would have been interesting as I would have seen a part of the city that I hadn't seen before. However, I was no longer interested in seeing new things; I just wanted to get to my hotel and get out of the heat and give my shoulder a rest. So I opted to take highway 65 north through the east side of Springfield, and then hop on I-44 for for miles across the north side.
From there I got on highway 13 headed northwest. As I got off the interstate I went through a diverging diamond intersection. I had never seen one in person before, but we're getting one in Sioux Falls. It's a much more efficient type of intersection, but it requires drivers to learn a new paradigm. Kind of like roundabouts (which I love) it really speeds up traffic once the learning curve is completed. I'm sure the troglodytes will complain long and loud once the construction is finished and they attempt to navigate one for the first time.
Highway 13 would be the road I would stick with for the next 125 miles. It was a four lane that moved fairly fast. Traffic was steady, but not thick. While technically a four lane highway, it might as well be an interstate. Most access to it was limited to on/off ramps.
I know I'm beating a dead horse about this, but the heat was intense. I don't think I can emphasize this enough to truly convey how warm it was. Add to this my body aches and shoulder pain, and I could tell my mood was quickly heading south. I really wanted to the day to be over.
At the town of Bolivar I was in need of a gas station. In order to expedite things I was looking for one right off the highway. I passed on one that initially didn't look like a good option, but once it was too late I realized it probably would have been worth the stop.
I didn't want to ride much further past Bolivar as I wasn't sure when the next gas station would be. I wasn't on fumes, but my low fuel light had been on for a while now. I finally saw a sign that there was gas at the next exit, so I opted to stop there.
What I didn't realize was that once I was off the highway the gas station wasn't for another four miles further down the road. They really need to put that information out on the signs on the main highway prior to the exit. I probably would have pushed a little further to find a more convenient place to stop.
When I reached the gas station it was pretty busy. I found an empty pump and pulled in to top off my tank. I then went inside and used the restroom, but for some reason I opted not to buy anything to drink. With the heat I could have used the hydration, but also because of the heat I had become rather single minded about my objective, which at this point was to get the day's ride over with.
Despite my physical issues, the entire gas stop was only 11 minutes long. That's Sonic The Hedgehog speed compared to most of my stops while on motorcycle trips.
I rode the four miles back to highway 13, then continued north towards Clinton, MO.
The riding was unremarkable. When I finally reached Clinton, highway 13 turned into highway 7 and veered west, although there was no intersection or anything that would indicate that I was now on a different highway. It's like at some random point the number changed.
I didn't get any pictures from Bolivar all the way to Kansas City, which is kind of weird because that was half of the day's mileage. I just rode, trying to keep putting miles down. Every mile that passed was one mile closer to my destination.
At lunch my shoulder pain had crossed into the "annoying" realm. By this point it had already moved into the "agony" stage, which happened a lot faster than I expected. I briefly considered canceling my hotel in Kansas City and finding the nearest hotel to where I was (which was in the middle of nowhere.) Instead I just grit my teeth and pressed on.
Along with the pain, my mood was also foul. Thankfully there was nobody around to experience it with me. Just miles and miles of dull prairies without any scenery, and drivers isolated in their rolling air-conditioned auto cocoons insulated and oblivious to my emotions. Which really is for the best.
After what felt like an eternity I reached I-49 and headed north towards Kansas City. This seemed like a major milestone for the day as in my head I was now just on the south side of KC. Unfortunately my head was a little bit off on the proximity of the intersection, as I still had about 30 miles to go before I really starting hitting the outskirts of the metro area.
When I finally reached the city, I realized I had made a route planning error. I should have taken the I-435 bypass to avoid the KC downtown. When looking at the map this would have taken me several miles out of my way. So instead I drew up my route using the most direct path, which happened to run straight through the middle of the metropolis.
This "more direct" route neglected a couple important things. First, I discovered that this route, while connected at both ends by a freeway, has about a three mile stretch where it not only isn't a highway, it's borderline residential. Traffic was very backed up due to all the cars coming off the 65 mph freeway, into a 35 mph area full of stoplights.
In fact, I really was thinking for a while that I had made a wrong turn. I was keeping my eyes open for some sort of intersection where I could get back on the freeway, when suddenly the street I was on turned back into freeway. It's really a weird little stretch of road.
The second item of neglect when planning the route was factoring that the route takes me right through downtown, and the time of day during which I would be riding through would be fairly close to rush hour.
As a result, once I was back on the freeway it wasn't long until traffic came to a halt. And it did so with very little warning. One second I was tooling along at 65 mph with no obstruction, and the next second I was braking hard to stop in time before smashing into a line of cars sitting motionless.
These situations always make me wary when I'm on a motorcycle. I had to stop hard to avoid an accident. Motorcycles can stop quicker than cars. Now I'm at the end of the line of cars hoping that the next vehicle that arrives can also stop in time and not turn me into an accordion against the back of the semi truck in front of me.
Thankfully the next car stopped, and so did the ones behind it. Once I had a buffer of a handful of vehicles behind me, I felt better about not getting squished. Now I just had to wonder how long we were going to sit on the interstate without moving.
I wasn't sure what the problem was. Was there an accident, or is this a normal phenomena for this section of interstate during this time of day? After a few minutes we started inching forward. As it turns out the source of the gridlock was the spaghetti intersection of I-70, I-71 and I-670. True to what often happens, I never saw anything in particular that was causing the slowdown. Once I was through the interchange traffic picked up again to a more reasonable 50 mph.
I weaved my way through the jungle of interstates until I finally found my way to I-29 north. Once again I was at a point where I thought I had made a wrong turn, and came very close to taking an exit to find my way back to my correct route, when then I discovered that I was indeed still on the right road. Glad I pressed on rather than getting myself more lost than I was.
My hotel was on the north side of Kansas City, almost all the way to the airport. Traffic was really getting thick on the interstate as I made my way there. I was extremely thankful that I was now at the end of the day's journey.
When I reached my exit, I got off and found myself going through another diverging diamond intersection. Kind of weird that I had never seen one before, and today I went through two of them more than 150 miles apart.
I arrived at the hotel at 4:23 PM. It felt later than it was, and it really seemed like I had been on the motorcycle a lot longer than seven hours. I found a spot to park, and gingerly got off the bike. It felt good to be done riding for the day. Well, discounting riding to go get supper in a couple hours.
I was staying at the Sleep Inn. I have stayed at this hotel a few times in the past, so it was familiar. I knew what I was getting and it has a good quality to price ratio.
I decided to go ahead and check in first, then come back and unload the bike. Sometimes it's more convenient that way as once I discover where my room is located it's a shorter walk if I move the bike and unload it in a different spot.
As I walked through the doors and into the lobby I was anticipating the beautiful rush of cold air-conditioning to hit me. What I got was... nothing. The lobby was uncomfortably warm. This made me wary. I really hoped that my room wasn't this warm, as if it was I would probably be relocating to a different hotel.
After checking in I got my room key. I decided to check out the room before I unloaded, as if the A/C wasn't working I didn't want to have to load everything back on the motorcycle to find somewhere else to stay. Much to my relief, once I found my room and went inside it was significantly cooler. The room's air conditioning unit was working fine. I kicked it down a few degrees just because I could.
I did find a side door that was closer to the bike than going all the way through the lobby. I think it was intended more for maintenance than guest use, as it routed me through some landscaping and through a narrow space between bushes. But this path was about half the distance to where I had parked so I used it.
Once in my room I did my routine of stripping down to my underwear and basking in the cool air. I wanted to shower, but I decided to rest for a few minutes first.
As I was relaxing, I suddenly felt a dire need to use the toilet. Much to my dismay, when I was done I discovered that the quantity of excrement that came out of me was enough to clog the toilet. I tried several times to wait until the water lowered to a safe level and then re-flush, hoping that one of the attempts would finally force the foulness down the pipes. But it didn't. Remember what I said yesterday about being the king of TMI?
Ugh. Well, I first decided to take a shower and put on clean clothing. Once that was done I would deal with the toilet fiasco.
After I was dressed I wandered back down to the lobby and sheepishly admitted to the girl behind the desk what I had done. I was hoping she would discreetly hand me a plunger and I could deal with the situation myself. Instead she said she would inform the maintenance person. I thanked her, and returned to my room to wait.
I read my book for a while, and after about 15 minutes there was a knock at the door. The maintenance guy arrived with the plunger and went into the bathroom to face the gastric hell I had created. He worked for a few minutes and got the toilet situation resolved. I apologized to him and thanked him for the help.
It was now closing in on supper time. Once again I was in that "I'm hungry and would like to eat, but I'm also feeling kind of off and nothing is sounding super appealing" situation. I really think the heat and humidity of this trip was what was causing this dilemma each day.
Looking online I saw that a place near me called "Scotts Kitchen" got extremely positive reviews. I decided to go there but then noticed that they closed at 6:30. It was now about 6:10, so odds were high I wouldn't be able to make it there in time.
Seeing that I was in Kansas City, I decided that BBQ would be a good option. I looked around and found a BBQ restaurant a few miles away. I grabbed what I needed and reluctantly got back on the motorcycle. At least I knew I didn't have to stay on it for a long time.
I rode a few miles over to the Smokehouse BBQ. It is located in an area known as "Zona Rosa". This is one of those upscale, "stay and shop" areas intended to draw tourists who in the past would have been interested in shopping at a large indoor mall. Indoor malls are on the endangered list as far as business entities go.
I went in, got seated and perused the menu. I wound up ordering the "chef's special" which was sampler platter. It came with pork ribs, baby-back ribs, chicken and burnt ends. I picked coleslaw and mac and cheese for my sides, then the waitress informed me they were out of mac and cheese. She suggested the cheesy corn as a substitute, so I went with it.
I lingered over my dinner while I read my book. The food was good, although I wasn't a huge fan of the BBQ sauce. It tasted like it had a bourbon base to it. Not awful, but not my first choice in sauces.
After paying for my meal and leaving a generous tip (waitress was excellent) I left. Although I had downed about three glasses of water while I was eating, I was still thirsty. I had passed an Aldi on the way to the restaurant, so I decided to stop there and pick up more drinks. I still had a couple left over from the previous evening, but I was thirsty enough that I wanted more.
I like Aldi. They have good food and great prices. The only problem is the selection can be limited. They should probably call it "Somedi". Thank you, try the veal.
I went inside and bought as many bottles of flavored water as I thought I had room to haul back. On my way out the checkout lane I saw a peanut butter flavored candy bar, so I added that to my purchases because I'm a pig. I'm a big sucker for peanut butter.
I once read that each peanut butter and jelly sandwich you eat adds 33 minutes to your life. By that logic, I am immortal.
The girl running the checkout was friendly and remarked how great it was that I was able to get all these snacks for about $3. I agreed.
The only thing I hadn't accounted for was the fact that Aldi doesn't have bags. You are expected to bring your own. Being on a motorcycle trip, a reusable shopping bag wasn't high on my packing list. So I grabbed my armful of drinks and hoped that I could find enough places on the motorcycle to haul them back to the hotel. I wound up sticking a few in the saddlebags, then tying the rest to my luggage rack with bungee cables.
The next thing I needed was gas. I took off down the road back towards the hotel, but didn't see a station. Closer to the hotel I took a side street hoping there would be something available down that road, but after about a mile I didn't see anything there either, so I turned around. I passed the hotel and started going down that road, which twisted and turned and eventually brought me to a gas station.
As I pulled in, I looked down the street and noticed I was about two blocks from the Smokehouse BBQ. I had ridden in a big circle. Had I left the restaurant going the other direction I would have found gas right away. Oh well, at least I now know for the next time I'm in the area.
As I filled my tank, a guy at the pump next to me started asking questions about what kind of mileage my motorcycle gets. As we were talking he told me about his brother who owns a Boss Hoss. For those of you who don't know, a Boss Hoss is a motorcycle that has a 350 Chevy V8 on it. Some would accuse their owners of compensating for other shortcomings, but I'm not going to be one of those people.
I rode back to the hotel and brought my stash of waters in and put them in the fridge. I then called my wife and checked in with her.
The Twins played a day game, so they weren't on TV or the computer. But I did find a different baseball game to watch while I read. I selected one of the drinks I had purchased and sat on the bed reading my book and enjoying my snacks.
Bedtime rolled around. I was having a hard time getting myself motivated to put down my book and call it a night. This was because I knew this was the last night of my trip. Despite the agony of the afternoon's ride, I was having a blast. Really, this was one of the more enjoyable motorcycle trips I've had in a while (not that any of them are unenjoyable.)
Counter to the enjoyment of the trip, I knew that regular life was waiting for me back home the next day when I returned. Due to a variety of reasons that I'm not going to get into on the internet, my regular life hasn't been much fun the past four years or so. In any event, this trip was a wonderful, albeit short, break from reality and I was in no hurry for it to end.
Finally around 11 PM I had to accept the fact that I needed to get some sleep, so I turned out the light.
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This page last updated on 11/09/2021