As I mentioned already, I was in no big hurry to get home. Both in the aggregate sense of real life, but also in the specific sense of the day's schedule. There was nothing on the calendar for the rest of the day other than to be back home in Sioux Falls before it ended. As a result, I had no real feeling of urgency to be on the road by a given time.
Because of this, I didn't bother to set an alarm and just slept until I woke up. This turned out to be about 7:30. I got out of bed and got dressed, then packed up most of my stuff.
After yesterday's events, I was really worried about how my shoulder was going to feel on the ride home. Usually on motorcycle trips when my shoulder hurts, it will feel fine once I get off the bike and especially after I've had a night's sleep. This morning, however, my shoulder was still sore. That wasn't a good omen.
Because of the blood thinners I am required to take due to my artificial heart valve, I am not allowed to have any pain killers other than acetaminophen. And unfortunately, I am mostly a non-responder to acetaminophen which leaves me only the "grin and bear it" approach to pain management. Despite this I downed a couple acetaminophen capsules just in case they could help a little.
The hotel normally has a continental breakfast, but because of the pandemic it was shut down. In it's place was a "grab and go breakfast bag" you could pick up at the front desk. I wandered down and grabbed one from the person behind the counter, then took it back to my room.
Frankly, it was disappointing, and this is from someone who wasn't expecting a whole lot. It contained a bottle of water, a cereal bar, a form of small breakfast burrito, and some yogurt. I ate the cereal bar. When I opened the yogurt it looked like it had aged in the wrong way, and had more of a cottage cheese texture. I wasn't going to eat that, and I don't consider myself a picky eater. The burrito thing may have been good, but there wasn't a microwave in the room, so I wound up eating it cold. I was left feeling unsatisfied.
As luck would have it, there was a Waffle House a block away from my hotel. Now I know Waffle House is a pretty polarizing place to eat. It seems people either love it, or think it's one step above eating at a public restroom. I'm more of the former, so my unsatisfactory hotel breakfast was all the excuse I needed to decide to have some more food at Waffle House.
I finished the last of my packing and got ready to load up the bike. I also took a few minutes slathering myself with sunscreen. Overall I'd been doing a really good job staying on top of the sunscreen during this trip to avoid any serious sunburn (well, until later this day, which I will get to...)
When I walked out of the hotel I was pleasantly surprised to not be hit with a blast of heat. The heat wave had finally broken, and the air temperature was a comfortable 79 degrees this morning. That was good news.
Parked next to me was another pair of motorcycles. As I was attaching my luggage one of the riders came out and struck up a conversation. They were on their way home from the Sturgis rally and asked if I was doing the same. I told him I also was heading home, but towards South Dakota rather than away from it.
I get this question often when riding: "Are you on your way to/home from Sturgis?" My standard tongue-in-cheek response is, "I'm from South Dakota. During Sturgis week I head in the opposite direction."
The rider mentioned that it was already 79 degrees, and that it was going to be a hot day. I laughed to myself and thought, "Dude, you have no idea!"
With the bike loaded up I checked out of the hotel and rode next door to the Waffle House.
I'd already had a little bit of breakfast so I didn't need to go hog wild and order everything on the menu. I settled on some scrambled eggs and a waffle.
As I was eating, I realized the guy next to me was kind of an interesting character. He was chatting with the staff, when suddenly the jukebox started playing some music. He turned to me and asked, "Is that your phone?"
I said, "No" but I couldn't help but wonder how he couldn't tell the difference in sound between a jukebox and a phone?
I continued to eat and listen to his conversation with the cook. The cook mentioned he was looking at moving, and they started talking about apartments. When the cook told the guy where he currently lived, the guy said, "You live really close to me! You've probably seen me before. I'm the guy on the unicycle."
Now being a cyclist, my ears perked up. I actually own a unicycle myself, but have yet to figure out how to ride it. I bought it thinking it would be fun to learn, and then after smashing my shins repeatedly on the pedals while falling off, it was placed in the garage where I haven't touched it in at least five years. I probably need to either commit to learning to ride it or sell it.
Anyway, I asked him about his unicycle. He mention that he commutes on it every single day. He then picked it up and showed it to me.
Well, that wasn't what I was expecting to see. In my mind I pictured the old school style of unicycle like what I have. His is electric, without a seat. He said that his current unicycle can go 35 mph, but he has a new one on order that will do 70 mph. That's crazy.
As he was talking, I suddenly realized that he had with him a leather jacket and full face helmet, like what you would wear on a sport bike. So this definitely isn't the traditional unicycle we're talking about.
He got up to leave, and several of us from the restaurant went out to watch him ride this contraption. Once I saw him take off, I really, really, really regret not pulling out my phone and taking a video. It was amazing. He got on it and suddenly whipped through the parking lot, made a right turn on the street and started heading up a hill easily keeping up with traffic. As he was riding he was leaning forward like the ski jumpers you see in the Olympics. If that's what 35 mph looks like on a unicycle, I shudder to think what 70 mph looks like. I can see why he wears biker gear, because if you fall off that thing there's no staying on your feet.
I went back inside and paid for my meal, then left the Waffle House and hit the road. It was now 9:05 AM.
The most direct route from Kansas City to Sioux Falls was to go straight up I-29. It's about 350 miles and takes about 6 hours on a motorcycle. However, my motorcycle trips aren't always about taking the most direct route.
Because of flooding in 2011 I had previously ridden part of the stretch between KC and Sioux Falls on back roads through Missouri and Iowa. On this trip I decided to go on the other side of the Missouri River and ride through Kansas and Nebraska. Once I hit Sioux City, IA I was going to concede and ride the last 90 miles on the interstate, as there's really no good back road route the rest of the way to Sioux Falls without adding a lot of miles and making a ton of turns at highway junctions.
To start the day's journey, the first ten miles would be on the interstate up to Platte City. I tried to find a decent non-interstate route between my hotel and Platte City, but really, due to the airport being directly between the two there wasn't an easy method without making the route overly complex. So here's another spot where I conceded and rode the interstate.
At the Platte City exit, there was a lot of road construction. I knew about this when planning my route, as Google said "expect delays." Thankfully there were no delays, and other than having to ride through some gravel it was no big deal.
However, because of the construction the road no longer matched my directions exactly. I turned on what I thought was the correct road. After riding a few miles I started to second guess myself, so I pulled over to check my map. As it turned out, I was just paranoid. I was still on highway 273, which was the correct one.
Because I was stopped, I snapped a picture. I just happened to be in the parking lot of this business, so it's purely coincidental. I have no affiliation with, nor have I received any compensation from All Season Roofing.
I kept heading northeast on highway 273. I think I was in the town of Weston where it looked like they were getting ready for an antique tractor parade. That would have been cool to stop and see. However, they still looked like they were in the preparation stage and I had no idea when the parade was actually going to start, so I reluctantly continued on my journey.
When I reached the junction of highway 45, I took a right turn to head north.
The directions I had written down told me to stay on route 45 for 15 miles until I got to highway 59. After I had ridden about 18 miles I still didn't see the highway. Usually my translated directions are pretty close mileage-wise, so I was worried I had ridden past the junction without noticing. I pulled over by Sugar Lake, MO to check the map on my phone. As it turns out, I pulled over 1/2 mile too early as the junction was just up the road.
At the junction I headed west. This was the road that would take me over the river and into Kansas.
Highway 59 crosses the Missouri River at Atchinson, KS. As I went over the bridge, I noticed a big house up on the hill to the right. It was prominent enough to catch my attention. Thinking it may have been more than just someone's house, a few days later I went back and looked it up on the internet. I believe it's the Amelia Earhart birthplace and museum.
On the west side of Atchinson, my route took a (literal) one block jog to get me on highway 73 heading west.
In Horton, KS I missed a turn and didn't know it at the time. Well, technically, I didn't miss a turn but instead made a turn when I shouldn't have.
I saw a sign that highway 73 went to the north. I was thinking, "Oh, I'm following highway 73" so I turned and followed the road north.
After about 20 miles, something didn't seem right to me. For one thing, I was heading north when I thought I should be heading west. I pulled over to check the map on my phone.
This is when I discovered what I did wrong. While highway 73 did indeed branch north in the town of Horton, I was supposed to continue straight at the intersection which would have taken me east on route 20. Oops. So here's the route that I was originally intending to ride:
Rather than backtracking to Horton and then taking my original planned route, I made a route adjustment. I would now continue north on 73 to Falls City, NE, then head west through the town of Salem until I reached highway 75. There was nothing particular I was planning on seeing on the original route, so my new route would offer pretty much the same views and get me to highway 75 just as effectively. So here's the new route:
Just south of Falls City I crossed the Nebraska border.
I encountered some road construction where a flagman had stopped traffic. I hardly had enough time to worry about how long we would sit there before he flipped the sign around to say "slow" and we proceeded through the construction area.
As I entered Falls City, I found myself behind the smelliest garbage truck I've ever encountered. Seriously, whatever this thing was hauling was making my eyes water it smelled so bad. If you told me he was hauling a load of dead bodies I would have believed you.
I started looking for an opportunity to get out from behind this garbage truck when we got stopped at an intersection. An extremely long truck was hauling an extremely large piece of equipment, and was slowly navigating the corner. The truck was so long that it had a second truck in the back that could steer and allow it to make it around corners. The whole entourage was monstrous in size and I tried to get a photo. Unfortunately, the picture didn't adequately capture the size of the load being hauled, nor did it give me a good shot of the smelliest garbage truck in the world.
Once the large equipment made it through the intersection we started moving again. My tolerance for the garbage truck stench had reached critical mass and I decided that I didn't care if it was illegal, I was going to pass this truck. As I started to make preparations to go around it, the garbage truck turned. Whew! Fresh air again.
My updated itinerary had me heading east on route 8 towards Salem, NE and then highway 75.
I made the turn and rode about four miles, when I noticed a storm was brewing ahead of me. This started a debate in my head.
Riding in the rain isn't the end of the world, as I've done it countless times. However, I generally will try to avoid it if convenient to do so. Should I press onward? Should I turn around and go a different direction? Will it even rain or do the clouds just look dark? All questions that had no certain answer at this moment in time.
As I mentioned earlier, before the trip I had purchased brand new rain gear to replace my old $5 Walmart hunting rainsuit that I'd had for about 20 years. I tried it out once when I wore it to a rainy football game, but had yet to use it on my motorcycle. Should I put on the rain gear and just continue on?
The storm seemed to be heading east, directly at me. I finally made the decision to turn around and ride back to Falls City, then from there continue north on highway 73 and try to get out of it's path.
About five and a half miles north of Falls City, highway 73 turned and headed west. However, this was enough to get me to the north of the storm as it passed to the south. I pulled over to snap a picture of the storm I managed to skirt. It looked like there was some heavy rain in those clouds. I've noticed that clouds never look as dark in photos as they do in real life.
As I was trying to put my camera away I managed to take an accidental photo. I do this occasionally where I don't discover that I'd snapped a picture until later when I'm downloading and reviewing them. I figured I'd include the picture just because. It's kind of artsy.
When I reached highway 75, I was now back on my planned route after the inadvertent detour. However, had I taken my original route out of Horton, KS, I would have ridden right into the storm that I managed to avoid. So maybe it was providence that I made a mistake on my route?
Highway 75 is a pretty busy road that moves quickly. I was going to stay on this highway all the way until Sioux City, IA. Before I went that far, however, I had a planned gas and food stop in Omaha.
It was 70 miles to Omaha, and this was a dull stretch of road. There was plenty of traffic so I didn't feel like I was isolated in the middle of nowhere, but that was small consolation. I was feeling that in-between struggle where I wanted to stop and take a break, but I also wanted the day to be over. My shoulder was hurting and mentally I was spent, yet I pressed on. There was no good place to stop anyway, so if I did I would have just been standing on the shoulder of the road.
As I slowly drew closer to Omaha, traffic got heavier. On the south side of the city I passed through the suburb of Bellevue. I rode by a Runza restaurant and that got me thinking: I hadn't had a Runza in more than 20 years. For the uninitiated, a Runza is a regional sandwich-like food that is mainly found in the Omaha area. It's comprised of a yeast dough filled with beef, cabbage and onions. It is like an eastern European version of a Hot Pocket. Or similar to a Pastie for you northern Michiganites.
For whatever reason, a Runza sounded tasty. I don't think I've ever craved a Runza at any point in my life previously. I thought about turning around to get one, but then figured there are plenty of Runza restaurants in the Omaha area and odds were good that I would pass another one. So I continued on and just kept my eye open for the next convenient Runza.
My low gas light had been on for a while, and on the south side of Omaha I felt the bike suddenly lose power which is the signal that my main tank is dry. I flipped the petcock over to my reserve tank and started to look for gas stations.
This was a pretty major highway, so I expected to see signs for gas stations at the exits. I saw none. As I rode further and further up the highway I started to get a little worried. I certainly didn't want to completely run out of gas and deal with that hassle.
By the time I was in the city I started taking each exit in search of fuel. At the end of the ramp I would look up and down the street to see if I could see any sign of a gas station. When I would see none, I would take the ramp back onto the highway and head toward the next exit.
After the third time I tried this I thought, "This is ridiculous. Omaha has a ton of people. There has to be a gas station around here somewhere." So at the next exit I opted to just follow the streets and hunt until I came across a filling station.
I followed Douglas Street towards downtown. I made it all the way to downtown without seeing a station. Seriously, where do people who live here fill up?
So I went a block north to Dodge Street and started following it away from downtown. Finally I came across a BP station. It didn't look like it was in a very good area of town, but at this point I had limited options. Given the uncertainty of the area's safety, as much as I was wanting a break from riding I decided to try and make this stop as quick as I could. I didn't even bother to remove my helmet. Within six minutes I had filled up and was rolling again.
I found my way back to highway 75, which was an interesting puzzle due to all of the one way streets. I followed this highway through the North part of the city.
The whole time I kept looking for Runza restaurants, but didn't see any. It seems like every time I'm in Omaha they're everywhere, but for some reason there were none along highway 75 north of Bellevue.
Soon I had left town and was again riding in the countryside. Traffic had reduced to the occasional vehicle going by.
At one point I passed a gravel pit and parked next to it was seriously the dirtiest car I had ever seen. It was completely covered in gravel dust to the point where it looked like the whole vehicle was molded out of dirt.
As I rode along, suddenly my throttle grip broke. I use a throttle rocker which allows me to control the throttle with the palm of my hand rather than having to squeeze the grip the whole time. It's a lifesaver on long trips. I had the throttle rocker attached to the chrome end of the hand grip, and this chrome end suddenly decided it no longer wanted to be attached to the rest of the grip. So the end along with the throttle rocker rotated downward and did nothing to provide gasoline to the engine.
It kind of startled me because it happened so suddenly. At first I feared a larger problem like a broken throttle cable, but quickly figured out what the issue was. I went back to the traditional "squeeze the grip" method of controlling the throttle and started looking for somewhere I could pull over and try to rectify the issue. Plus, I was in need of a rest break.
When I reached Fort Calhoun, NE, there was a Shell station with a convenience store attached. That looked as good a place as any to stop.
Upon inspecting the broken throttle grip, there was no way I could get the chrome end reattached. It was still holding on enough to not fall off the grip, but it would just spin freely. So instead I just moved the throttle rocker further inward and attached it to the part of the grip that would still control the throttle. This would make my hand a little crowded, but it was better than not having a throttle rocker at all. My grips had been in need of replacement for a few years, so I guess this was the final indicator that it was time to get some new ones.
With the throttle grip issue resolved, I went inside to take a break. First thing first, I needed the restroom. This was a small store, and there was only a single unisex bathroom. I opened the door and found myself looking at a teenage girl sitting on the toilet. She hadn't locked the door. Well, that was awkward. I hastily retreated.
I hid behind the sandwiches hoping she would come out, and I could stealthily make my way into the restroom without her seeing me. I mean, it wasn't my fault she hadn't locked the door but for some reason I was really embarrassed about it. Well, she didn't come out for a while, and meanwhile I stood behind the sandwiches hiding. This made the clerk behind the counter eye me suspiciously like I was stealing food and made an awkward situation even worse.
After what seemed like forever the girl finally exited the restroom. I made my way in as discreetly as possible, and made double sure to lock the door while I used the facilities.
To my relief (pun somewhat intended), once I came out of the restroom the girl was no longer in the store. Having spent so much time hiding behind the sandwiches, I had good opportunity to look them over so I grabbed one and also an iced tea. After paying for my items I sat on a bench outside and ate and rested.
The temp was probably around 85°F. It was warm, but nothing like it had been the previous four days. The humidity was even at a reasonable level, so as a result I was pretty comfortable sitting on the bench and relaxing.
Normally on this trip I would reapply sunscreen while stopping for lunch. For whatever reason (probably laziness) I decided to omit the sunscreen reapplication on this final day of my trip. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the next day I would discover my arms were a little burned. Not badly, but enough to have made me wish I'd bothered to reapply on day five as well.
Back on the motorcycle I continued north on highway 75. Seven miles down the road I reached Blair, NE, and sure enough there was a Runza there on the corner. Had my throttle held on for just a few more miles...
I momentarily thought about stopping and getting one anyway, even though I had just eaten a sandwich. I wasn't all that hungry so I let common sense prevail and rode on. Weeks later as I'm writing this, my craving for a Runza has long passed.
North of the town of Blair, I encountered several stretches of construction that had only one lane open with a pilot car. So there was a lot of stopping and waiting. They were all over fairly short stretches of road, so at least the waits were only a few minutes at each one.
As I rode along, suddenly the same throttle issue happened. Confused, I looked down only to discover that my throttle rocker itself had broken. Apparently both the grip and the throttle rocker had the exact mean time to failure rating.
I pulled over to deal with the situation. I pulled the throttle rocker off and put it in my vest pocket so I wasn't littering. At this point I was going to have to squeeze the grip for the rest of the trip. I'm just thankful that it happened on the last day instead of the first day.
Riding in Nebraska is not known for its scenery, but at least this section wasn't too bad. There were some occasional trees to look at.
As I got closer to Winnebago, the scenery got better. There were quite a few bluffs on the west side of the road.
At one point I saw a sign for a scenic overlook. I didn't know they had any of those in Nebraska, so I pulled a U-Turn and went back to check it out. When I turned into the parking area I discovered it was deep loose rock. Very treacherous and difficult to ride through. I parked the bike, which in itself was a trick because the kickstand just wanted to sink in the rocks. I finally rode up onto the sidewalk just to give the bike some solid footing.
I walked down a path to the overlook. There was a rest stop shelter here, which struck me as odd because it was in a pretty remote spot. Also there were no picnic tables or anything in the shelter. Just this empty covered building.
Here's the view from the overlook. It's not bad, but had I known about the loose rocks and the walk I probably wouldn't have stopped to see it.
I walked back to the bike and gingerly made it back out to the highway without falling over in the rocks. Seriously, that parking area was a hazard to anything without four wheels.
As I rode along I was just south of Homer, NE when I got something in my eye. I don't know if it was a bug or some other piece of debris. Usually when this happens you can blink it out after a minute, but in this case it wasn't coming out, and keeping my eye open was painful. I could barely see if I kept it open, so I closed it for a few miles (which in itself is interesting; riding a motorcycle with no depth perception) until I found a convenience store that would have a restroom where I could try and deal with the situation.
I went inside the store holding my eye shut, which I'm sure was an odd sight. In the bathroom I tried to flush it out in the sink. After a few minutes I think I got it out, but my eye was still stinging so I couldn't tell for sure or not if it was gone. I decided to give it a try. If I made it out to the motorcycle and still felt it floating around in there I could always return to the restroom and flush it some more.
I felt guilty about using the restroom without buying anything so I grabbed an iced tea even though I wasn't very thirsty. I think the lady behind the counter thought I was winking at her when in reality it was my eye still twitching after being flushed out.
I continued up the road towards Sioux City, IA. My eye started to feel better, so I relaxed knowing the flushing session worked.
Parts of Sioux City actually spans three states. I came in on the Nebraska side.
I rode through town to get to the bridge that crosses into Iowa.
I crossed the river into Iowa. The ramp to get onto the interstate is directly on the other side of the bridge. And less than two miles north of this bridge is the border into South Dakota. I was right around the point where the three states meet.
As I already mentioned, I had decided to take interstate the rest of the way to Sioux Falls. To take back roads I would have to ride a lot of miles out of my way and do a lot of jogging around as aside from the interstate there's no direct highway that connects the two cities, even though they are directly north and south of each other.
Although my shoulder was killing me, my mood was a bit lighter than the previous afternoon. I think mainly because the temperature was about 15 degrees cooler and the humidity was low enough that it wasn't noticeable.
Just north of Sioux City my low fuel light came on. Usually a full tank of gas will get me all the way from Omaha to Sioux Falls, so I wasn't too worried. The speed limit on this stretch of interstate was 80 mph, and my motorcycle drinks a lot of gas at that speed. I was only going about 70 mph, however.
Traffic was heavy. One of the nice things about running slower than the speed limit is that I can cruise along and let other drivers worry about passing me, rather than the other way around. Occasionally though, I would encounter a slow moving truck or camper that would require me to merge into the passing lane to get around them.
Just north of the town of Beresford, with about 25 miles left to go to Sioux Falls, I hit my reserve tank. This was sooner than I had anticipated. I really didn't want to hassle with stopping for gas until I was home, and I really, really didn't want to hassle with running out of gas completely. I reduced my speed further down to about 65 mph and pressed on.
The closer I got to Sioux Falls the heavier traffic became. I was reaching the city right at rush hour. Granted, rush hour in Sioux Falls isn't anything compared to what it is in larger cities, but there can be times when the interstate moves slow.
One of the known bottlenecks on the interstate is the closest exit to my house. I decided that I didn't want to risk sitting in gridlock, so I got off the interstate one exit early. I took back streets to my neighborhood. This is a slower route on most days, but not by a large amount of time. Today I was gambling that it actually would be faster.
About a mile from my house I stopped at a gas station to fill up my tank and record my final numbers for the trip. I don't use this gas station very often.
While I was filling the tank I became aware of the sunburn. I could feel that my arms were sore, and I started to regret not taking the time to reapply the sunscreen when I stopped for my sandwich. I wasn't completely cooked, just a light red.
I rode the final mile home and pulled into the garage. It felt good to get off the motorcycle, mainly because of my shoulder. Usually when I end a motorcycle trip my soreness goes away fairly quickly (in a matter of hours,) but after this trip I could feel it for about four days.
My wife came out to the garage to greet me before I had the luggage off the bike. After hauling everything inside, before I got too comfortable and lazy, I unpacked and put everything away.
While unpacking I pulled out my paper that I use to record my stops. I don't think I've ever shown how I do this before, so here it is. I log my arrival/departure times, how many miles and how many gallons of gas I use. I write it all on the backside of the pieces of paper that hold my route directions. My chicken scratches don't mean much to anyone else other than me.
So when it was all said and done and I reflected on the trip, it was the most enjoyable motorcycle trip I've had in a while. Despite the challenge of the overbearing heat and my painful shoulder, it still was a lot of fun. I think my route planning was the best I had done yet, and the mileage length of each day was about perfect.
I was able to get a lot of riding in, yet I didn't have any days with more than eight hours of saddle time which really lowered the stress level. It was nice knowing I didn't have to maintain a certain speed all day in order to squeeze in all the miles I had planned.
I'm already looking forward to next year's trip, wherever that may take me.
See the summary of the trip...
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This page last updated on 11/10/2021