I woke up, and it was still dark. The room was warm. My brain was thinking that I felt awake enough to just get up. I had a long day ahead of me and I wanted to get to Kansas City in time to meet my friend Brandon for supper.
I rolled over and glanced at the clock and saw that it was only 4:30 AM. No sense getting up this early. If I did I would just regret it later in the day. I decided to go back to sleep and to my surprise fell asleep again almost immediately.
At 7:00 my alarm went off, only this time I felt tired. Go figure.
I got up, dressed and went down to the lobby to see what was available for breakfast. When initially selecting the hotel they said that a continental breakfast was provided, however given how I had been let down by the rest of the hotel stay I didn't get my hopes up. When I checked in, I noticed a rather large breakfast area so maybe I would be pleasantly surprised?
Nope. When I reached the breakfast area it was empty. There was nobody seated in the area, which in the morning at a hotel is never a good sign. Granted, there weren't a whole lot of people staying at this hotel, but regardless I expected to find at least a couple people eating.
The only thing resembling food was a loaf of bread sitting next to a toaster. I didn't see any butter, jelly or peanut butter to put on the toast. In the mini-fridge there was a jug of questionable looking milk. However, what they lacked in food they more than made up for in ants. There were ants everywhere.
As I stood there assessing the situation the guy working behind the registration desk hollered that there was a Keurig machine, but they were out of cups. Not sure why he bothered telling me there was a Keurig if they didn't have cups available. Perhaps he thought I might just stick my head under the brew spout?
It didn't take a whole lot of deliberation to decide I wasn't going to eat at the hotel. The dry toast wouldn't get me very far down the road, and the ant protein wasn't very appealing, even if it is eco-friendly.
Instead I went outside and cleaned the bike. It was pretty dirty from riding in the rain the previous day, so it took some extra time to get the bike presentable again.
Back in the hotel room I layered on sunscreen and finished my packing. Before I departed, I messaged my friend Brandon that I was leaving the hotel and was still planning on being able to join him for supper that night.
With the bike loaded, I rode around to the front entrance and went inside to check out. When I walked up to the front desk, the guy behind the counter was sitting in a chair fast asleep.
This was awkward. I debated on what to do. I finally opted to just set my room key on the counter and let them figure it out. However, the noise of me putting the key on the counter was enough to startle the guy awake. Oops. Now it got even more awkward.
I told him my room number and that I was checking out. He thanked me and took my key, and I walked out the door and got on the motorcycle.
No sooner than I climbed on the bike when the guy who was behind the counter came out the door and quickly headed towards me. "Uh oh…" I remember thinking.
He asked me, "Do you remember the name of the person that checked you in last night?"
I responded in the negative. I'm not sure why he would think I knew the guy's name. I don't know if I've ever known the name of anyone who has ever checked me into a hotel.
He then said something about not finding that I was assigned to a room when he looked at the computer. I think I told him that the guy couldn't figure out how the computer worked, so he just gave me a room. He said, "OK," and went back inside. I took off before this hotel stay got any weirder.
Long story short, if you're ever thinking about staying at the University Inn in Carbondale, IL, I would place this firmly in the "do not recommend" category. I was actually hoping that because my information was never entered into their computer that I wouldn't get charged for staying at this flea-trap, but about a week later the charge showed up on my credit card. It must have taken them that long to sort things out.
I rarely leave negative reviews. I think it's because I like to think I try to find the good in most situations. I hope others see me as more of a positive person than a negative person, because nobody wants to be around negative people. However, about a month after my stay I decided to leave a negative review on the hotel booking website I used. I felt it was my duty to warn others, and maybe offset some of the shill reviews that I had read which convinced me to select this hotel.
Because I didn't eat breakfast I was actually on the road before 8 AM. However, this was a little deceiving because I was going to have to stop and eat somewhere. My initial thought was that a McDonald's sounded good, because I was craving their made-with-crack pancakes.
I didn't ride by a McDonald's on my way out of Carbondale. In fact, the hotel was right on the west edge of town so I didn't ride by hardly anything before I found myself out on the highway.
Eight miles down the road I came to the town of Murphysboro. Maybe they had a McDonalds? I rode by a Hardee's, but no McDonalds. Later I would look on the map and see that there was a McDonald's on the north end of town, but I was riding east to west through the south side, so I didn't see it.
Hardee's has a pretty good breakfast as well, and I thought about turning around. Before I could double-back, however, I came across a Casey's. Anyone who has followed my trips knows my affinity for Casey's sausage breakfast pizza. I decided a slice of pizza was almost as good as McDonald's pancakes, so I pulled in and bought a slice. And in a rare non-glutton moment, I showed restraint by only buying one slice.
After I wolfed down the pizza, I was back on the road. Back on the highway I encountered wet roads. From looking at the clouds and the radar, it looked like a small rain storm had just come through the area. It was now to the north of me. As I rode through western Illinois there was wet pavement but I never did feel any rain falling.
There was quite a bit of road construction. In fact, I encountered road construction throughout the day. I suppose it was the season for it.
I made it to Chester, IL which is where I would cross the Mississippi river into Missouri. The GPS routed me down this little street.
At first I thought going down this little road was a mistake, but it turned out to be the street that ran right next to the river.
It was kind of a neat little road, although there was quite a bit of industrial traffic along this stretch. Soon I saw the Chester Bridge which would take me over the river.
To get to the road that would actually take me over the bridge, I had to take a side street called "Randolph Street." It was very steep and for a moment I thought I had taken a wrong turn. But, once I reached the top of the hill I found myself at the intersection with highway 51 that would take me over the bridge.
Right before I entered the bridge I looked to my left and was surprised to see a big statue of Popeye. Had I known it was there I would have pulled over to take a photo. Unfortunately, I was already entering the bridge before I noticed it and there wasn't a safe place to turn around.
I got halfway across the bridge and had to stop. Traffic was backed up due to some repair work that was being done, and there were flagmen on either side only allowing one direction of travel at a time. While I was waiting I snapped a photo of the Mississippi river as seen from the bridge.
I was now in Missouri.
As I was riding along, I suddenly got a feeling I had been here before. When the GPS directed me to turn north on county road H I realized that I had been on this road the previous day, just heading in the opposite direction.
To the north it looked like another storm was passing. I was hoping that it was heading east and that I would skirt to the south of it. It was hard to tell, however, as the road kept turning and sometimes it looked like I was heading away from the storm, and other times it looked like I was heading straight into it.
My route included a whole bunch of back roads. It would have been much quicker to take the interstate or the main highways, but those are less interesting.
The back roads wound their way through the Mark Twain National Forest. They were constantly twisting and turning which made for good riding, but not so much for quick travel.
Another nice thing about these back roads was that there was hardly any traffic. Occasionally I would see a car coming from the opposite direction. Most of the time I had the highway to myself.
Near Ozora, MO, I started to feel the rain beginning to fall. It looked like my efforts to avoid the rain were unsuccessful. I figured it would be better to put the rain gear on early in the rain before I got soaked, rather than waiting until it was a downpour. I searched for a safe place to pull over where I could put my rain gear on. I settled on the corner of someone's driveway. Hopefully they wouldn't mind.
As I had just done it the day before and now was a self proclaimed "expert", putting the rain gear on took about half the time it did the first time. It still took more than 10 minutes though. Right as I finished getting all the gear on, the rain stopped. Ugh.
It was warm outside, and the rain gear didn't breathe very well. I certainly didn't want to wear it if I didn't need to. However, maybe it was going to start to rain again? I couldn't tell. I debated for a moment, and then decided that wearing it for a little while as the motorcycle was moving had to be better than standing still and sweating profusely. I got on the bike and took off.
I weaved my way through the back roads and passed through Farmington, MO.
My shoulder was really starting to complain. It had hurt most of the previous day, but was at a tolerable level. By this time it was far more than just an annoyance. Not much I could do other than press on, however.
The roads were getting more curved, and the wooded areas thicker.
I rode with the rain gear on for about an hour, with nothing more than a few raindrops falling. When I came across a rest area I pulled over. I could see blue sky to the west and decided there wasn't any benefit to wearing the rain gear any longer. I spent a few more minutes taking the rain gear off.
As it turned out, I hit a few sprinkles here and there, but never did run into any precipitation steady enough to warrant putting the rain gear on. I could have skipped the hassle. I guess the good thing is by putting it on and taking it off, I got a couple of rest breaks I probably wouldn't have taken otherwise. Also I got more practice putting the rain gear on, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.
The rest area was next to Buford Mountain. Admittedly, what constitutes a mountain in Missouri would probably get scoffed at in many of the western states.
Just north of the rest area I headed west on highway 32 towards Bixby, MO.
My shoulder pain grew extremely intense. It was during this stretch that I really started questioning my ability to finish the trip. This was really disappointing, as I had hoped that the chiropractor visits, the therapy ball and the other things I did were enough to keep the pain at a manageable level. On the numerical scale, at this point in time it was maintaining a solid 8 with occasional forays into the 9 range.
A few thoughts ran through my mind. The first of which was, "What are my options for dealing with this?" Due to my blood thinners for my artificial heart valve, I'm not allowed to have pain killers (at least pain killers that actually work.) So my two options were to grin and bear it, or stop riding.
I started to seriously consider the "stop riding" option. I began to ponder the feasibility of stopping for the day, then breaking the remainder of the trip up into much smaller portions. I thought, "What if I try to only ride about 100 miles per day until I finally make it home?" Quick math revealed that it would take me more than a week to get home at this rate. I didn't have the flex in my life schedule to allow me to take an additional week off without planning. Plus, I wasn't convinced that I would feel any better for those 100 miles each day.
If I was going to hurt regardless, I decided to press on until I couldn't force myself to continue any further. Unfortunately, by now the pain was sucking a lot of the fun out of the trip.
The roads provided great riding. I would have really enjoyed myself had I not been in agony.
In addition to the physical agony, I was facing the mental agony that perhaps my motorcycle riding days were over? If I couldn't get a handle on this shoulder pain, should I be buying an expensive new motorcycle? Is it time to just sell my current motorcycle and go without? These weren't fun thoughts running through my mind.
I finally decided that I wasn't going to make a decision while I was out on the road, that I would wait until I got back home. A good portion of my brain knew that if I delayed the decision until later when I wasn't riding and feeling the pain, I would for sure decide to keep the motorcycle and possibly upgrade to a newer one.
Noon arrived and I was in need of some food and a rest break. I pulled into the town of Steeleville, MO. There weren't a whole lot of food options, but I did see a couple restaurants that looked like they would be good. They were sit-down type restaurants and I wasn't sure if I had enough time in my schedule for a sit-down restaurant. The last couple of times I had been in Kansas City I wasn't able to meet up with Brandon, so I really didn't want to miss another opportunity. As appealing as a long, leisurely lunch sounded to me, my desire to be in KC on time to meet Brandon was stronger. I'd rather get to KC plenty early than a little late.
Additionally, once again the heat of the day had sapped my cravings for any specific food. I was starving hungry, yet at the same time nothing really sounded good to eat. I saw a Casey's, and decided that pizza would be quick and filling, and if nothing sounded unusually good then it didn't matter what I ate.
For the frequency at which I patronize Casey's, readers of my website might get the idea that I have some sort of unusual affinity for their pizza. Not really. The pizza is good, but not great (well, excluding the breakfast pizza which absolutely ROCKS!) The big thing is the sheer convenience. You can be riding by at any time of day or night and it will be an almost guarantee that they will have pizza available, and it likely hasn't been sitting in the rotisserie for seventeen hours.
I pulled into Casey's and went inside. The air conditioner felt absolutely wonderful. I made a quick stop in the restroom and then headed over to the pizza area. Much to my surprise, there was some breakfast pizza left over. I had just had breakfast pizza about four hours ago, but I decided to split the difference: I pulled a slice of breakfast sausage and a slice of pepperoni out of the warmer. I also grabbed an iced tea.
One of the things that Casey's doesn't provide is any sort of indoor seating. That was unfortunate. I could have used a booth or a stool to relax for a few minutes while I ate. In fact, things are usually so tight in the store that there's not a place where I could at least stand and utilize the air conditioning while I ate.
I paid for my lunch and went outside in the heat. The only place available where I could set down the food while I ate was the garbage can lid. I used the refuse container as a table and leaned against the brick wall as I consumed my lunch. Now that's gourmet!
As I was eating, an older gentleman pulled in, got out of his car and then walked up to me and said, "You don't see too many of those these days!" For a moment I had no idea as to what he was referring. I briefly thought maybe he was talking about how I looked as I ate my food on top of the garbage can. Yes, you don't see too many people using a garbage can lid as a table these days.
"Excuse me?" I replied.
He then pointed to the beaded seat cover on my motorcycle and said, "Those beaded seats. You used to see them all the time, but you never see them any more!"
Ahhhh! That made more sense. I acknowledged that he was correct and we had a brief chat about where I had gotten mine and how much they helped.
With the pizza gone and the iced tea about halfway drank, I decided the day wasn't going to get any cooler leaning against a wall. I would at least feel better to get some wind blowing on me. I climbed back on the bike and hit the road.
The heat didn't get much better with the wind blowing. I was in pain. I had a long way to go before I would get to Kansas City. Despite all these things working against me, my mood really wasn't too bad. Sometimes in these situations I can get in a foul mood, but today I was tired but accepting of the circumstances.
About half an hour down the road was St James, MO. I stopped for gas. I had thought about topping off the tank back when I stopped for lunch, but decided the extra stretch break I would get by making an additional stop wouldn't be a bad thing.
I texted my wife to let her know I was still alive. I believe the exact words I sent were, "Made it to the surface of the sun."
It wasn't a long stop. I didn't go inside the building. In fact, I forgot to take a picture. Oops.
St James, MO was where I crossed interstate 40 into the northern half of Missouri. Above I-40 the roads got a bit less interesting as I was no longer in the Mark Twain National Forest area. It seems that scenery-wise, Missouri is divided into two distinct halves. The more barren northern half, and the heavily forested lower half. I-40 appears to be the dividing line.
There wasn't a whole lot to say about the next stretch of the trip. I just sat there twisting the throttle and endured the situation. Which despite the circumstances was still more enjoyable than a typical day sitting in an office building. That's the perspective I need to keep during these trying stretches of my motorcycle trips.
The section between St James and Lake of the Ozarks seemed like it was a lot farther than what I remember it being when I planned out the route. I kept wondering if I had made a wrong turn, but when I zoomed out on the GPS sure enough I was on track. It was an 85 mile stretch that felt like 185 miles.
Just to the east of Lake Of The Ozarks I hit some road construction. There was a line of cars waiting for the pilot vehicle to return and lead us through the section of highway under repair. I got off the motorcycle for a minute to stretch, but didn't have to wait too long until it was our turn to go.
The GPS worked near flawlessly all day. I did have a minor glitch as I entered the Lake of the Ozarks area, which I mostly attribute to user error.
I had learned that when using predefined routes where you select which specific roads you want to take between two points (versus just letting the GPS decide), it often works better if you split the route up into multiple trip files. On this day I had two separate trip files, the first taking me from Carbondale, IL to Lake of the Ozarks, and the second taking me from Lake of the Ozarks to Kansas City.
As I arrived, I reached the end of the first route file and got the welcoming, "You have arrived at your destination," message. Ideally, I would have pulled over immediately, then started the new route file. However, when this happened I wasn't in a spot where I could easily pull over. Instead, I decided to try and ride by memory until I came to a good spot where I could pull over and then select the second file.
Well, I either forgot the route I had planned, or misread the signs, or (most likely) managed to do both. I made a turn, and as I was riding down the road I came to a stoplight where I was stopped long enough that I could safely load the next route file.
As I continued down the road, the GPS was thoroughly confused as by now I was way off course. It immediately advised me to make a left turn. Thinking I was on the correct road, I ignored its suggestion and continued on. After another couple of miles of having the GPS feverishly try to make me turn around, I realized I was heading in the wrong direction and the GPS was right. Oops.
I pulled into a store parking lot to consult the map and figure out what I had done wrong. I also polished off my iced tea and swapped the bottle with a (now very warm) bottle of water from my saddlebag. I needed a restroom, but decided the carpet store whose parking lot I was currently utilizing probably didn't want some grungy, sweaty, biker guy asking to use their toilet.
I got back on the bike and headed back in the direction I came from. The GPS was still throwing a fit trying to get me back on route and at one point had me ride around a block and get back on the same road heading in the same direction. That was weird. Once I made it back onto highway 54, however, the GPS straightened itself out again and worked without issue for the rest of the day.
Oddly enough, a few miles down the highway I discovered that the road I accidentally had taken earlier intersected with the highway where I was currently riding. Had I just continued down that road I could have gotten back on track without doubling-back and without circling a block unnecessarily.
My planned route had me taking county road MM. This road crossed a long bridge over the lake. Unbeknownst to me, however, this was also a toll bridge. I met a line of slow moving traffic, each vehicle waiting for their turn to pay the toll.
I needed to get my wallet out so I would be ready to pay my toll as quickly as possible when it was my turn. In a car this is pretty easy because you can easily free up a hand while driving with the other. On a motorcycle, however, all four limbs are pretty dedicated, especially when traffic is moving slow.
I would constantly be stopping as the line inched forward, but each stop was less than five seconds; not long enough to dig my wallet out and get my payment ready. I was nervous about trying to pull my wallet out without stopping as I could envision myself dropping it and making a bad situation worse. As I edged closer and closer to the booth, I finally decided I would just have to hold up the line for about fifteen seconds to get my money out.
I came to a stop and threw the bike in neutral which freed up both hands to fish out my wallet and then pull my payment out. I looked up and saw there was now about 50 feet of empty highway in front of me. I put the bike in gear, went to take off and immediately killed the engine.
One thing that happens on extremely hot days with my Road Star is that sometimes when the engine shuts off the carburetor bowl overflows. If you listen carefully you can actually hear the gasoline boiling out of the carb. When this happens, the bike becomes difficult to start as there's no gas in the carb to feed the engine. Of all the inopportune times, it chose this moment to have this issue.
So now I found myself sitting on a one lane bridge holding up traffic, cranking the bike for all it was worth hoping it would start. After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only about 10 seconds of pressing the starter button and opening the throttle, the engine finally roared back to life. I took off as fast as I could without killing the motor this time.
There were now no cars between me and the toll both. I sheepishly road up to the booth and paid my toll. I then had to pause for a few more seconds while I put my wallet back into my vest pocket. It wouldn't be good if I dropped it on the bridge in the middle of this traffic.
With that fiasco behind me, I continued down county road MM. There was a lot of tourist activity in the area. One thing that was neat was I saw some cool cars. I rode next to a C8 Corvette, saw a 60s VW bus and a Ferrarri. I also rode behind a 1949 Oldsmobile 88 for several miles.
Heading north from Lake of the Ozarks, highway 135 was under construction and had a lot of resurfacing in-progress, but there wasn't any active work happening on this particular day. I also was struck by how few cars were on this stretch. The Lake of the Ozarks area had heavy traffic, but other vehicles were very sparse on this section.
When I got to Stover, MO there was a gas station. I didn't need gas, but I was still needing the bathroom. It had been more than an hour since I last pulled over and noticed that I was in need of a restroom, and the urge had only grown since that point in time. I pulled in and used the facilities.
For being a little town in the middle of nowhere, the gas station was surprisingly busy. I decided to take a short break and check my messages to make sure things were still on track to meet Brandon. I also wanted to double-check my fantasy baseball lineup before the evening's games started.
My cell phone wouldn't connect. Which was really weird, because I could see a cell tower about 100 yards away. I tried for a few minutes, then threw in the towel and got back on the motorcycle.
Between Stover and Sedalia, I had mapped out a route of quiet county back roads.
These were nice little highways. Lots of curves between rows of corn. As I was actually kind of enjoying myself despite my pain and weariness, suddenly a car passed me. Cars passing me isn't unusual, but this car passed at an extremely high rate of speed. The way the driver was going around curves was reckless. I kept expecting to turn a corner and find the vehicle in the ditch. I never did, though.
It was only about 20 miles between Stover and Sedalia. Unfortunately this was the end of the interesting riding on this trip. All the roads that remained between this location and my home in Sioux Falls were dull four-lane highways and interstates.
In Sedalia, the GPS routed me through some residential streets, which seemed weird. Eventually it hooked me up with highway 65 heading north, but it seemed like a strange way to get me there. It must have been the shortest or fastest route.
I was going to need one more gas stop before I made it to my hotel in KC. I came across an interesting filling station in Marshall Junction at the intersection of highway 65 and I-70. It was a combination gas station and fireworks stand. One thing I'll say about Missouri: they take their fireworks very seriously.
After topping off the tank I got on the interstate heading west. Only 70 miles until I reached Kansas City, and then another 20 or so miles to my hotel. I was looking forward to being done riding for the day.
Traffic was heavy. I found a semi going an acceptable speed and just rode behind it. This allowed other vehicles to worry about passing me. Constantly trying to pass cars to maintain a higher speed gets stressful after a while, and at this point I didn't need the stress. I would gladly give up the three minutes that riding a little slower would cost in exchange for a bit of serenity.
About 15 miles from KC I saw a near tragedy unfold directly in front of me. A car went to change lanes to their left. There was another car in its blind spot, and at the last second the lane-changer saw it. Rather than smoothly turning their car back to their lane, they cranked their steering wheel hard to the right. This caused the car to go into a skid. For a brief moment I honestly thought the car was going to flip over. Somehow the vehicle weaved back and forth and eventually the driver regained control. That was crazy. I was mashing hard on my brakes trying to avoid the situation in front of me, while simultaneously keeping my eye behind me to make sure I wouldn't get run over as I quick-stopped.
I made it to the outskirts of Kansas City, then took I-435 north and cut west on highway 154. I was really, really thirsty. I also was pretty hungry, but I didn't want to eat too much and spoil my supper with Brandon. However, he was coaching a baseball game tonight and wouldn't be available to meet until 9 PM. I decided a little snack wouldn't be a bad thing to tie me over.
From my experience with previous trips to this area, I knew where an Aldi was located. I defied what the GPS was telling me, and took the exit to head towards the Aldi.
I parked and was getting situated when a guy walked by and complimented me on my motorcycle. I thanked him. I guess that's a good thing that a 23 year old motorcycle can still garner the occasional compliment.
As I was walking into the store I felt something odd on my foot. At first I thought perhaps I had walked through something sticky and my boot was slightly adhering itself to the floor with each step. When that happens, usually after four or five steps the substance wears off and the odd feeling subsides. However, several dozen steps later the feeling wasn't going away.
I looked down and saw that what I was feeling was actually my boot, which was falling apart. The sole had come unfastened from the heel. Weird. Not sure when that happened, but it must have been while I was riding the motorcycle.
I walked around Aldi collecting bottles of flavored water. I should have brought a reusable shopping bag with me, but because I hadn't, I was forced to gather the bottles in my arms. Between that and walking awkwardly due to my boot, I probably looked strange. I mean, I probably looked stranger than I normally do.
Back outside at the bike, I found places in my bags to stuff the water and a couple snacks I had purchased. Then I rode to a nearby gas station and topped off the tank.
From the gas station, the hotel was only about half a mile. I have stayed at this hotel many times before, most recently during last year's motorcycle trip.
As soon as I found a place to park and got off the bike, a weird guy walked up to me. That sounds a little harsh, but that's the only way I can accurately describe him. He immediately struck up a conversation about my motorcycle. I was trying to be polite and give him time to talk, but at the same time I really wanted to get to my room and relax in the air conditioning.
As the guy spoke at one point he said, "One thing I know about motorcycles is you never sit on one without the owner's permission. That's a good way to get punched." I'm not sure why he brought this up out of the blue. I suspect he was fishing for permission to sit on my motorcycle.
I didn't particularly want him to sit on my motorcycle, so merely responded with, "Yes, you're probably correct."
Would I have actually punched him had he sat on my motorcycle without asking? Most likely, no.
Did he need to know that I wasn't the type of person who would punch him if he sat on my motorcycle without asking? No, it would probably be better if he wondered.
In the end he never did ask to sit on my motorcycle, and after a few minutes wandered off. I had initially intended to bring half of my luggage and gear inside, check in and then dump them off in my room before I returned for the other half.
However, the interaction with the weird guy made me reevaluate. I decided it wouldn't be prudent to leave anything unattended on the motorcycle that I didn't have to, so I managed to grab all my gear along with the water bottles and snacks all at the same time.
I went inside and checked in, then found my room up on the 3rd floor. Once inside I turned on the air conditioner and to my delight it produced a reasonable volume and quickly started blowing cold air. I was ecstatic after not having functional A/C for the previous two nights.
Wanting to enjoy one of my drinks immediately, I went to look for an ice machine. I walked the entire floor and couldn't find one. I took the elevator down to the lobby and looked around for the ice machine there as well, but couldn't find it. I ran out of motivation and returned to the room and drank one of the bottles warm. I put the others in the mini-fridge.
It was now about 6:30 and Brandon wouldn't be able to meet until 9, so I had a couple hours to relax. That was nice. I showered and changed clothes and made myself presentable again as a functional member of society.
Looking at my boot, it was in rough shape. A shoe repair place could have probably fixed it, but I'm not sure it would have been worth it. I had owned these boots for nearly 20 years, and had originally bought them at Payless for about $15. I'm sure it would cost more than that to fix it. I decided that I put on enough miles that I can justify a new pair of boots every 20 years. So I did the Marie Kondo thing and thanked this pair of boots for their service, then threw them in the trash.
Luckily I had brought a pair of tennis shoes with me so I had something to wear for the remainder of the trip. Otherwise I would have had to go out and do some emergency shoe shopping.
Back in Sioux Falls, my wife had a friend visiting. They had made plans to go on a road trip this evening, so we had agreed that we would forego our usual phone call and just text each other to let the other know we're alive.
I was relaxing and watching some baseball on TV when my phone rang about 7:30. It was Brandon. His baseball game was done, and he hadn't gotten as sweaty as he thought he might, so he wasn't going to need to go home and shower before we went out to eat. He said he could be at the hotel to pick me up around 8.
At about 7:45 I got antsy, and decided that while I was waiting I would go outside to the bike and get a head start on cleaning it rather than waiting until the next morning. I walked out of the hotel and noticed that another car had parked really close to my bike.
As I squeezed between the car and my motorcycle I realized that the driver of the car was still sitting in it, his window was down and he was smoking a joint.
I suddenly felt really awkward as I was less than three feet from him as he skunked up the parking lot. I didn't feel like working on the bike with this guy sitting so close. I decided to act like I came to the bike for another reason and then get out of there.
I didn't have to act, as I looked down and saw that my saddlebag had been unbuckled. Someone had gone through my stuff. I dug through and couldn't find anything that was missing. The bag that they had gone through didn't have anything of value in it (to anyone but me, that is.) I rebuckled the bag and then went back into the hotel to wait for Brandon.
The lucky thing was, had they opened the other saddlebag they would have found the valuable stuff. The unopened bag was where I had all my rain gear and my tools stashed.
As I sat in the lobby waiting for Brandon to arrive, it occurred to me that I had no idea what kind of car he drove. So I was looking at every car that pulled into the parking lot wondering if that was him or not. A murdered-out Honda with black tinted windows pulled up at the entrance and I wondered if I should open the door and get in. Thankfully the car pulled away before I made a critical error.
Brandon arrived, and I got in his truck. This was actually the first time I had met Brandon in person. He runs the D2 Football Message Board, and is the star of the Inside D2 Football YouTube Show. We had communicated online for several years, and tonight we were finally able to get to meet "for real."
He asked what kind of food I was in the mood to eat. I told him I was up for about anything but pizza, as I had eaten pizza for my previous three meals. After some discussion, Brandon took me to a local burger place not too far from the hotel called LC's Burgers.
I wasn't sure what to order, so I followed Brandon's lead and ordered the double cheeseburger with fries. It was delicious. It was the juiciest burger I've had in years.
Brandon and I sat and talked for quite a while. The restaurant closed at 9, and then we moved outside to a picnic table and talked for a few more hours.
One of the delightful things we discovered was that we could both discuss controversial topics without judgment. We both are of the type where we're not afraid to discuss ideas, even ideas that may challenge some of our own viewpoints. We could even voluntarily offer thoughts that run contrary to our own opinions, just because it was interesting to discuss topics from a different point of view.
It is good to challenge your own beliefs. When you're faced with an opinion that runs contrary to your own, defending your own point of view strengthens the reasons for your belief. By hearing an argument for the opposing view it causes us to realize that people who think differently than us aren't just thoughtless monsters. At times the exercise may actually point out a flaw in the way you think about something and cause you to change your opinion.
I found our conversation extremely refreshing. In this day and age people tend to insulate themselves from opposing viewpoints. They surround themselves with media that simply reflects their own opinions. Any idea contrary to their own belief is immediately accepted or rejected based on the source, rather than accepted or rejected based on evaluation and analysis.
I even enjoyed throwing out a few ludicrous opinions on topics just because the conversation with Brandon was entertaining.
It was drawing towards midnight, and as much as we didn't want to, at some point you have to call it a night. We drove back to the hotel and Brandon dropped me off. On the way he told me about a shortcut through the Omaha road construction, and later on he would send me a map.
By the time I was ready for bed it was nearly 1 AM. I needed to be back in Sioux Falls the next day probably no later than 3 PM, as I had to play music the next night and needed to leave for the venue by 4 PM. That meant there wouldn't be any sleeping late. It was going to be a short night, but it was worth it.
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This page last updated on 05/10/2023