Vacation is here!
I got up at my normal too-early hour. I putzed around the house for a while getting ready for the trip, but we couldn't leave until after the dogs were safely at the kennel so I ended up reading a magazine while drinking my coffee. Eight o'clock finally came and the dogs were dropped off at the kennel. Final checks were made of the house and we were off.
I found myself early in the trip thinking about work. I consciously put it out of my mind which was easier than I had thought. Normally on motorcycle trips, I avoid interstates and try to stay to 2-lane roads. Today was all about burning up rear tires and making miles so most of the planned route was on the interstate.
As I hit the interstate, I could feel the stress leaving me. It leaked out from under my helmet and it rolled down the back of my motorcycle coat. The stress fell down from the bike behind the rear tire in huge heavy glops onto the road be hind me. No doubt that stress was picked up by people traveling metaphorically in the opposite direction. Toward home, toward stress, toward work. Poor bastards.
Interstate 70 was busy, but 74 had surprisingly light traffic. Temperatures started out cool, but warmed quickly. We stayed on I-74 all they to near Iowa. Somewhere around Goodfield, IL we stopped for gas and food. There was a restaurant called the Busy Corner Restaurant; unfortunately both the corner and the restaurant were busy and I didn't want to wait. Subway it was...not the best, but it was faster than the eating on a busy corner.
We continued on and crossed the Mississippi for the 15th time on a motorcycle. The river looked a little low due to the drought, but not near as bad as some of the smaller rivers we crossed. Crops looked terrible too, mostly in Indiana, but also in Iowa.
Once across the river, we hit I-80. This main artery across the country was intermittently very heavy with traffic. Not the most fun, but we were making good time, I guess.
The plan was to stop near Iowa City, IA, but we weren't ready to stop (and the Company I work for has a facility there so it was just a little to close). We went north on I-380 up to Waterloo where we stopped. Interesting that on I-380 we saw the Google Streetview Camera Car. I wished we could have gotten a picture of it, but we were on the interstate and didn't have a camera ready.
We drove around Waterloo and found a hotel. After checking in, we saw there was a casino-hotel nearby. I'm probably glad we saw that after we checked in. We walked over to a Bonanza for dinner, but they had a sign on their door that they could not take credit cards. With a sketchy looking buffet, we walked down the road past several more restaurants until deciding on a Longhorn Steakhouse. The steak was bloody but good and we were hungry. Night came with Oreo Cakesters in the room for dessert.
583.5 miles on the odometer for the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment