"Life is the great adventure ride. Twist the throttle hard."

July 15

Picked up Route 66 in Eastern Kansas and into MO. It was good to see it again, and we took a break at a road-side war memorial.

Found a dead bug, and am really glad we haven’t taken one of these in the mouth yet.

Cruising through the Ozarks was fantastic. We toured around Table Rock Lake for a few hours (It has 600 miles of shore line). It is a man-made lake, and the bridge in the photo below is a new on, the old bridge is now 150 feet under water as seen in the old photo before the dam was completed.Â

July 16

Another great day of riding and good weather. We crossed Missouri, the Mississippi, and ended the day at Graceland.

I hate to admit it, but my father was right. He told me to take tools along cause “those Harleys vibrate so much, things fall off”.  For no apparent reason, the bolt holding my passenger foot peg snapped off, and the 20lb foot-rest flew off at 70MPH. We found it in a ditch, and will probably mail it home.

Not many photos today. It was a scenic day but a long one in the saddle. We took all back-roads with lots of breaks, so the little towns, stop signs, and hairpin curves kept the average speed down (310 miles in 9 hours). We have 2700 miles behind us. The trip is going well, and we both are still having a good time with it.

July 13

Left Denver this morning, heading east for the llllllooonnng ride across Kansas. Weather was fine but Colorado starts looking like Kansas about 10 minutes east of Denver. We took the I70 for about an hour (I really don’t like riding the super-highways), and then jumped off south toward Lamar. Doug told us about all the snakes on the road near Lamar. I saw lots of frogs, and Sam saw a few snakes, but the ride was mostly uneventful.

The little museum in Kit Carson was good, and in an old barn next to it, we found a mint original Model T.

Stayed the night at Garden City Kansas. False advertising. It’s a dirty cow-town surrounded by HUGE cattle feeding farms. So there was only one choice for dinner — a Rib Eye steak.

July 14

In the morning, we headed out to Dodge City. It has even more factory farms around it, and city-slicker Sam did not enjoy that great county aroma. We toured Boot Hill (disappointing tourist stop). Up until now, we had seen no dear and little wild-life while riding. Today, we saw our first deer, a dead armadillo, and hit our first bird with the Harley. Road-kill is so much more interesting from the seat of a bike.

We had lunch at Greensburg, KS (the city destroyed by an F5 tornado earlier this year) at a trailer-kitchen run the owners of a restaurant that was demolished in the tornado.   FEMA was still set-up, and the local hospital was still an big tent. The scene was surreal, almost like a war-zone. Block-after-block of vacant lots, some still with the remains of the houses, although most houses have been removed. I have to admit, it was about as tough to take in as almost any war memorial I’ve been to. Pictures are in the photo gallery, and I really felt strange even photographing such carnage.  Every tree within a mile was completely stripped of branches and green, and now all are sprouting new green branches as you can see in the photos.

30 miles later after leaving Greensburg, we got a good laugh. A local (who later called himself the “Biggest dumb A$$ in Kansas”) tried to get a wide combine on a trailer across a 1-lane bridge that had no less than 5 signs before it saying “No Wide Loads. 10 foot Max”, He wedged the combine in the bridge, and then blew its tire when he unloaded it. Caused us about 45 minutes delay but worth it just to watch Einstein in action.

I160 east of Medicine Lodge turned into some spectacular scenery we didn’t expect.  Green rolling hills, streams, and lakes.  The has been a LOT of rain here, and the rivers and lakes are all full.

In Wellington KS, we took a break at a hot-rod/antique auto show.  Some very nice classic Detroit metal.

The last 2 hours of riding today turned into the classic mind-numbing straight highway we had dreaded.  All-in-all, crossing Kansas was not too bad, and way more fun on a bike than on 4 wheels.