Straight and Flat

Day 15 Saturday, May 1, 2010

First of all let me clarify yesterdays post when I wrote that Suzy helped me take off my pants. Those were my "rain pants." What were you people thinking? Anyway...

Chuck and I woke up at 6:30 AM. He always has his alarm set for 7 AM, but when he and I room together, he can't stand staying in bed and sleeping while I am up and moving around. He needs to be with me. He has a better day when he does! We got dressed and packed our bags. We took a couple of bags out to our Motors and uncovered them and put the bags away. Breakfast here we come. We were the only ones in our Group in the breakfast room. After a while, we looked out the window to check on our Motors and saw the rest of the Group preparing their Motors for travel. Soon they joined us. After a while, we all finished and got the rest of our stuff from our rooms and finished packing our Motors. We left at 8:46 AM with Ken in the lead. It was 55 degrees and cloudy.

Ken led for 46.8 miles and at 9:30 AM, we stopped in Florence, KS. We stopped for gas and we took a little break. Bruce took the opportunity to add some oil to his Harley. We soon left at 9:49 AM with me in the lead.

We rode the "flat lands" of Kansas on a two lane street. I told the guys that if we were elevated 100 feet, we probably could see Colorado to the west and Missouri to the east. The weather was good and we were all enjoying the ride. We stopped at 11:18 AM after riding 103.5 miles. I told you we were enjoying the ride...at least I was. We took a break and stretched. We left at 11:56 AM.

We rode west for another 96.9 miles and at 1:23 PM, we stopped in Dodge City. No, we didn't see Marshall Dillon. We gassed up and left quickly because it was time to eat. Bruce asked the female clerk in the gas station where the nearest Subway and she told him that it was east about 2 to 3 blocks. We left at 1:32 PM.

Bruce led us east and we looked 2 to 3 blocks for the Subway. We continued east and found it .9 miles away. We arrived at 1:39 PM. We enjoyed our lunch and Bruce got some information of a combination Honda and Harley Store not too far away. We left at 2:26 PM.

We drove towards this store and passed "Boot Hill." We arrived at 2:32 PM after riding 2.0 miles. Sure enough, the sign said, "Honda Harley Davidson." The Honda sign was on top. We went inside and guess what? It was 90% Harley. There were several Honda Quads. I didn't see any Honda Motorcycles inside. What a rip! Talk about trickery. Chuck and Bruce bought shirts. I told Chuck that those of us who did not buy shirts want to buy shirts with something that has to do with Dodge City. We rode to Boot Hill. We had been at Boot Hill two years ago when we rode Route 66. We left at 3:21 PM.

Bruce continued to lead the Group. After riding 50.9 miles, we arrived in Garden City, KS at 4:11 PM for a pit stop. We stayed for a while and left at 4:30 PM.

As we were riding west approaching the Kansas/Colorado border, the skies were threatening with rain. The clouds were dark with a small clearing in the center in the direction we were going. It did sprinkle a little on us but it was not bad. We crossed into Colorado and gained another hour. We didn't have much farther to go to our destination for the day. We rode for 109.0 miles and arrived in Lamar, CO. at 5:12 PM. We checked into what used to be a Best Western. The price was right and it was clean. We parked our Motors under the awning, took our bags and tucked our Motors in for the night. We took our bags to our rooms and soon after, we walked about 1/2 block to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner, Chuck, Jan and Bruce stopped at a mini-mart between the restaurant and the motel and bought a six pack of Corona, for medicinal purposes, of course.

Today, we rode 410 miles. We all agree that it didn't fell like we rode that many miles. Kansas is very flat and the road was straight. There were no curvy, twistie roads to enjoy, just the landscape. Tomorrow, we will get far into Colorado and probably get into Utah, we'll see. So, until tomorrow...