The Road to Denver: Day 2 - Kansas

I started today thinking it would be pretty similar to yesterday - Interstate boredom. Boy was I wrong. The whole day was basically spent in Kansas. And it was hot. A high of 106, to be specific. And it was windy. About a 40 mph crosswind. All day. I now know what hair feels like when it's being blow-dried. We were the hair today. It felt like a 120-degree heat coming off of the pavement. So, the award for most miserable riding conditions goes to Kansas.

Some things we witnessed today (no exaggerations here, I promise):

-A bird trying to fly into the wind and not moving at all.

-Another bird trying to take off and moving backwards.

-A day of leaning 10-15 degrees from vertical, but still going straight.

-Surprise toll roads (in Kansas, the interstates are toll roads)

-My cup holder has leather glued to it. The heat today melted the glue, and the wind blew part of the leather off...

We had to stop about every 45 minutes due to the heat and wind. So, a drive that should have taken 8 hours actually took 12. Seeing as neither of us really slept last night, we decided to stay in a hotel tonight to make sure we both get a full night's sleep. Here's a couple of pics from today:















Fighting the wind...







Our "campsite" for tonight.

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The Road to Denver: Day 1

Not much to tell. Today was spent almost entirely on I-40 from Memphis to Oklahoma. The only excitement came when we got to Tulsa. We got in earlier than expected, so we decided we were going to visit the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. The web page had the address as 3624 South 74th Street West. So that's where we went. Turns out that's someone's house. The real address is 3624 North 74th Street East. Whoops! So we went to eat and then went to the camp site. Oh well...








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Location:Memphis to Tulsa

Turkey

We went over to Cycle Gear today for a bike cover for the upcoming trip. We looked over and this turkey was wandering down the side of Summer Ave!


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Test

Just downloaded a new app to post blogs from the road. Here's the test.


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Location:Home

Houston, May 27-June 4, 2011

So, I rode the motorcycle down to Houston a couple of weeks ago to visit the folks. It started out rough. When I pulled in for the first gas stop, the left saddlebag was hanging by one bolt and the cords for the lights! Luckily, I had some bungee cords packed. So, I rigged it up for the rest of the ride down:

It stayed pretty solid for the rest of the ride down, but every few seconds I still was checking to make sure it was still there. The ride itself wasn't too bad. I only got uncomfortable about ten hours into it. I took a lot of back roads and state highways going down, so, it took about fourteen hours to get there. (It's normally 9.5 hrs in a car)

My time down there was very relaxing. I spent a lot of time in the pool. The three of us rode down to Brazos Bend State Park, which is about 45 minutes southwest of Houston.

Last fall, one of my parents' dogs died. This brought them down to one dog and two cats. Every time an animal passes away, they say they won't get another one, but it never works out that way. Because of Sheltie Sanctuary (website), they now have three dogs and two cats.



Missy



Sunshine



Molly (Who, incidentally, sleeps like this literally all the time)

While we were fixing my saddlebag, we decided it would be a good time to reinforce the bags with steel plates.

It took us several hours to cut the plates and drill the holes for the bolts, mainly because we were cutting the steel with a Dremmel (it kept overheating) and the batteries for the drill weren't holding a charge.

One bag done!

Repairs complete! I must say, they are really solid now.

The ride back to Memphis was fairly uneventful. I took the interstate back to save some time. I did have to stop at one point in the afternoon for about a half an hour because it was so hot it felt like I was riding in an oven. I could tell I was getting overheated, so I stopped and got re-hydrated. Overall it was a good trip and a nice test, since I'll be riding the bike to Denver for the 4th of July.