Our first day wasn't going to be a full day of riding. As I'd done the previous two years, I just wanted to get a little ways down the road in order to shorten the length of the 2nd day's journey. So our plan was to ride about 220 miles west to Murdo, SD where we would spend the night.
Both Jon and I worked earlier in the day. I arranged to leave work at noon so I could come home and do a few things. First off, during my last oil change I had mistakenly overfilled my transfer case on the bike. So I drained out the excess oil that I'm sure wasn't doing the transfer case any good. At the very least it would stop the annoying dripping from underneath the bike.
Then I mowed the lawn so if I were to die everything would look nice for the mourners. I spent some time transferring photos from our digital camera onto our main computer in order to free up plenty of space for all the pictures I was planning on taking during the trip. After that I packed my luggage, went and filled up the gas tank and did a few other odds and ends. By 4:00 I was pretty much ready to go. I just had to wait for Jon to arrive and for my son to get off the school bus so I could see him before we left.
Tyler got off the bus around 4:30, and Jon arrived about 4:40. I said my goodbyes to my family. We snapped a picture, and then headed out just a few minutes before 5:00.
This evening's ride wasn't going to be anything special. Murdo is a couple hundred miles west of Sioux Falls on Interstate 90. It's just a straight road with very little scenery.
Jon's bike has cruise control and mine doesn't. I do have a throttle lock, but this is a rather archaic device. It pretty much just holds the throttle in a single position where it is set. As a result, when I use it I tend to go 10 mph under the speed limit uphill and 10 mph over the speed limit downhill. This doesn't really bother me when I'm riding alone, but tends to annoy others so I don't use it when I'm not solo.
Because of Jon's cruise control he could set it and hold a steady speed. So on the interstate I had him ride in front and then I just manually adjusted my throttle to ride behind him. After a couple hours I started to understand how tired my wrist gets when I'm not using the throttle lock. But, in the grand scheme of things it really wasn't that bad.
It had turned into a beautiful day. The temperature was in the low 80s, and we had a slight tailwind which assisted with gas mileage. It was nice enough weather that I didn't bother wearing a jacket.
150 miles down the road we stopped at Oacoma, SD which is just on the west side of the Missouri river. We filled up with gas and then went into an Arby's that was attached to the gas station in order to grab a bite to eat for supper.
After supper, we hit the road again. Murdo was just another 70 miles down the road, so it was an easy ride. In less than an hour we pulled into Murdo.
One of the areas of concern Jon had was how well his posterior end would hold up to riding. He had gone on a 200 mile ride earlier in the summer and his backside was hurting so bad he could barely stand it. To be honest, this concerned me as well because I didn't want to get 500 miles down the road and have him bail out on the trip because he was in pain. For this trip he had brought a sheepskin to place over his seat, and thankfully this did the trick: he said he wasn't sore at all when we arrived at the night's destination.
There was a gas station right next to the Super 8 hotel where we were staying, so we topped off our tanks in order to save us time in the morning. We checked into the motel and unloaded our bikes.
The room was clean and comfortable. Not fancy, but we didn't need fancy. I will say that the mattresses were among the most comfortable I have ever felt in a hotel.
We called our respective families, and then took turns showering. On my trips I like to shower in the evenings because it makes me feel better when I sleep and also saves time in the mornings.
I was watching some of the Twins game but they were leading (for a change) by over ten runs in the 7th inning, so I didn't feel the need to finish the game to know what happened. Jon and I were both tired, so we turned out the light at about 11:00. We wanted to be on the road by 7:30 the next morning. Jon thought we should set the alarm for 6 AM and I wanted 6:30 so we split the difference and set it for 6:15.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018