It was the best of trip's - It was the worst of trips.
It was a meticulously planned trip -It was a nearly total failure of those plans.
It was beyond belief curvy roads - It was....crossing Kansas...nuff said.
It was, as always, safety first - It was a trip plagued with an inordinate number of close calls.
But when all was said and done, even with all the negatives, it was another typical time spent with family and that means an incredibly wonderful visit...and that...made everything else entirely insignificant.
It was in fact one of my best of trips ever!
(Equaled only by other cross country, cross state, cross city family visits)
Let me expain;
We have a son who is putting down some deep roots in Missouri.
The plan is: I'll leave a day before Beverly then we meet up in Colorado and continue together.
We take the insanely curvy 36 across Kansas - my arms grow weary, and the chicken strips shrink from the constant Kansas corners,..... ahem...yea right...
And we pass Lebonon
We didn't actually go to the town, but stopped on the 36 for this;
I thought this was kind of cool but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it....
And then we finally arrived in Gallaten In time to see grand-daughter pitch and another grand-daughter play. And grand-son's football games (two).
There were two injuries during the game - Moments after the final bell, both teams spontaniously met in the middle of the field for a prayer on behalf of the injured players.
An action by the players that I found extremely heartwarming!
And another softball player that I failed to get a pic of while playing.
And the 'little house on the prairie"
Back at our hotel there was a tour of riders. I can only assume they continued to ride the bikes once the weather became more favorable.
My bike, Honda NT 1100
Sunday we attended meetings....I slept through them.
During the second part of the meetings Beverly suggested I go for a ride rather than sleep through more meetings... Good advice that I wisely took.
Ordinarily I will ride a long time and many miles without a close call with other vehicles in other words close calls are a rarity for me...usually...but not so this time!
A short recap of close calls on this trip;
* A mattress flying out of a truckbed on the superslab, doing a couple flips then landing in front of me...I was able to miss it.
* Rain, coming down so hard that on a 60 mph speed limit cars were only going 40ish, and I was happy to follow them at that speed.
* On a long 55 mph sweeper, right for me, left for the dump truck coming toward me- his passenger side tires left the road, he skidded very briefly then regained his sense's and got the truck back on the road before we passed each other...he was only 2 or 3 feet on my side of the yellow line.
* Going to Hot Springs National Park, on three different occasions, 3 poorly trained dogs tried to ruin my day.
* This was after my GPS led me to 4 1/2 miles of dirt road...nicely graded dirt but, really?
* Speaking of the Park, while there I was motoring on main street (25mph) and as approaching a cross walk some knucklehead guy RAN to the crosswalk, which I was close enough I couldn't stop - but luckily, I was not even close to the guy -
But that didn't matter to him, he commenced to yelling at me how he was going to kick my "grass!".. Haha...I didn't even have any grass with me! Anyway, I ignored him and motored on.
Eureka Springs is a beautiful town! The varied and spectacular architecture is eye catching and at times, breathtaking.
After Hot Springs NP I made my way back to Missouri and was able to watch my grandson play in another football game. They won again!
But then, sadly my time for visiting was over. I had decided to cut my trip short due to the weather. I really didn't want to follow a storm across country. So it was west bound for me.
As I was riding home. I backtracked to the Kansas 36. Passing through tiny St Francis I saw a small sign "Motorcycle Museum". I thought to myself, this must be a "sign". (ahem)_ So I followed the signs and ended up at the museum.
It is a very well run museum and the selection of bikes was a real treat.
I had an enjoyable couple hours looking at the beautiful machines they had on display.
Billy Bike and Capt America (replicas of course)
Then back on the road - two more days and I was home.
This really was a super trip, about 3400 miles of good weather and bad weather....its all part of the fun.
Life is still good!!
