DAY
4, Wednesday, June 05, 2013
The alarm sounded at 7:00 AM and woke me up from a deep
sleep. Greg was already awake and
sitting on his bed playing on his iPad or his coloring book and crayons. I wasn’t sure. I just woke up. He told me that he had been up for a
while. He looked out the window and saw
that it was cloudy and windy. I was in
the process of getting up when we heard the rain come down…hard! I got up and got dressed, as did Greg. I knew that we were going to make it a late
morning because we didn’t need to be in Springfield until 11:00 AM. The lunch was from 11 until 2. After we got dressed, we packed our bags and
walked down to the lobby for breakfast.
Everyone was already there having breakfast except Bruce and Jan. The breakfast area was crowded and the other
guys got up and made room for us to eat.
Chuck was with us, as was J.B. We
talked about possibly leaving at about 10 AM or 10:30 AM, hoping that the rain
stops. Greg, J.B. and Chuck finished
their breakfast just as Jan and Bruce walked in. I stayed with them while they ate. After breakfast, we returned to our rooms and
waited for the rain to stop or 10 AM, whichever came first. We slowly started getting our Motors ready
while it rained. We didn’t want to do it
all at once because we would have gotten soaked. Slowly, we packed and got our Motors
ready. It didn’t stop raining! It did slow down to a light rain. I got the map out and looked it over with Ken
to see which roads we would take to get to Springfield and the Golden
Corral. I looked over the map with Chuck
also, so that he would know which way we were going. We decided to leave after putting on our rain
gear. We left at 10:24 AM with Ken in
the lead.
Ken led us onto I-44 and we went eastbound, headed for
Springfield. It was raining and Ken kept
it at an easy pace of 65 mph. It was
cool and the traffic wasn’t too bad. It
stopped raining about an hour after we started.
We made the turn off to go south just as we had seen on the map. We rode for about 8 miles and didn’t see the
road that we were supposed to get off at…according to the map. Ken made a u-turn and we went back
north. We got off of an exit that we had
discussed and Ken pulled into a parking lot after 94 miles and at 11:51 AM to
look at the map again. We checked the
map and it was as we had discussed. I
got my iPhone and checked the map and it gave me a different direction. We left at 11:56 AM and went west for about 2
miles and then South. There it was! We rode for 3 miles and arrived at the Golden
Corral at 12:06 PM.
We took off our rain gear, went inside and were greeted
by Harvey Kaylor. Harvey set up this
lunch with the Retirees. We all paid for
our lunch…at a special rate and went into the private party room and saw the other
ten Retirees and their wives. We all
greeted them and Harvey had us write our names on name tags so that everyone
would know what our names were. Great
idea! We have often said that ourselves
when we go to the other Retirees breakfasts in Phoenix, Prescott and
Payson. No one ever uses name tags. We had a good lunch and conversed with our
old friends. Some attending were
supervisors, however, now they are just friends. Harvey had provided us with a Sharpie and
blank name tags. We ran out and Ken
stated that he didn’t want to write his name with a Sharpie on his shirt! I got the Sharpie and was going to write his
name on his forehead; however, he didn’t let me. I tried!
The end of the lunch came very quickly.
We prepared to leave. It was good
to see old friends. We left at 1:52 PM
with Ken still in the lead.
Ken led us to US 60, eastbound. This was a familiar road to us since we did a
ride in 2010 traveling US 60 to the east coast and then north to US 50 to the
west coast. As we were eastbound, I saw
a sign that indicated that Sikeston, MO was 220 miles away. We rode for 74 miles and at 3:02 PM, we
stopped for gas in Cabool, MO.
It was my turn to lead and before we left, I spoke with
Chuck and suggested that we go as far as Sikeston so that we could go to dinner
at Lambert’s, Home of the Throwed Rolls.
Chuck told me that we probably wouldn’t have time to get there and he
showed me on the map as to where to start looking for hotels. I told Chuck that it was, now, only about 160
miles. We agreed that we would play it
by ear. We left at 3:23 PM.
I led the group eastbound on US 60. It is a nice road with beautiful scenery of
rolling, green hills, cattle, horses, farms and dead armadillos (road
kill). I really do appreciate the people
in the area that decide to mow their lawns for us when we pass by. The smell of freshly mowed grass is
great! We rode for 89 miles and at 4:41
PM we stopped at a gas stations with a huge store. This store had more than what I have seen at
other mini marts and truck stops. We
made our pit stop, got some drinks and sat and talked for a while. As the others sat and talked, I roamed the
store and found myself in the hardware department. As I was going up and down the aisles, I saw
“stuff” to replace and upgrade my “Harley Repair Kit.” I replaced the two hose clamps with two
larger, chrome hose clamps. I love
chrome. I need chrome. I want to get more chrome for my Motor. Squirrel!!
Sorry…I just got distracted and I need to focus…back to the story. We were ready to leave and we saddled up on
our Motors. As I started my Motor, I
forgot to turn on my navigation. It can
only be turned on when the Motor is stopped.
I left the parking lot with the others following…and no navigation
system to tell me how to get to Lambert’s.
As we got about 4 miles from Sikeston, I took my gloves off, pulled out
my iPhone and put Lambert’s on the map app.
I was trying to read the map for the off ramp when I passed the
exit. It told me another exit, and I
missed that one too! The next exit was 4
miles away. Jan came up next to me and
told me that I missed the exit. I told
him that I knew what I did and that I was going to make a u-turn as soon as I
could. As we exited the interstate, we
came to a stop. I turned my navigation
system on and we were good to go. We
rode southbound and got off on the proper exit.
I was going to stop at a hotel to see if we could secure some rooms
first. We made a stop at a Holiday Inn
Express after 92 miles and at 6:38 PM.
Bruce entered to check if they had rooms and they didn’t. We left to go to the other side of the
interstate and check other hotels, as there were several. The first one we came to was a Comfort Inn
& Suites. We had stayed here 3 years
ago on the 50/60 Ride. I went inside and
“made the deal.” They had the rooms and
the good rate so we checked in. We got
our stuff and took them to the rooms.
Soon after checking in, we all met in the lobby and headed for dinner at
Lambert’s, Home of the Throwed Rolls. We
had a good dinner and service was outstanding!
We were done and returned to the hotel where we were allowed to park the
Motors under the awning. We covered the
Motors, only because all of our covers were wet from last night and putting
them on the Motors overnight would help them dry. The Motors were “tucked” in for the night.
Today we rode for 352 miles. We lost a lot of riding time when we stopped
for the Retirees lunch. That’s OK; we
all had a good time. We had previously
discussed stopping at Lambert’s for dinner, since we were so close, and we
did. Tomorrow, we will head towards the
Blue Ridge Mountains, like we did in 2010.
We are close, we might as well.
We will see how far we get tomorrow.
So, until tomorrow…
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