Day 17, Tuesday, May 16, 2017
My alarm sounded at 6:30 AM and I had 7 hours of sleep. The beds here at the Holiday Inn Express were
wonderful. Jan was my roomy. I got up, quietly, and got dressed. I also packed and Jan finally got up. I told him that I was going to the Motor to
pack my bags and that I would see him at breakfast. I went outside to the Motors and saw that
every Motor was uncovered, except for Jan’s.
There were water spots on the Motors also. Apparently, it rained last night and also had
67 MPH winds at the Hotel. I learned
later that the winds in town reached 88 MPH.
My cover was on the pavement next to my Motor. As I packed and cleaned my Motor, a gentleman
walked out and spoke with me. He asked
me if my cover was on the pavement next to my Motor. I told him that it was. He told me that he had come out earlier and
saw that my cover was about 200 yards away.
He picked it up and guessed that it was mine. I couldn’t believe this! This is the first time that it has ever
happened to us. I guess from now on, we will
be securing our covers to our Motors.
The rest of the guys came out and took care of their Motors and packed
their bags. I looked to the sky to the
SW and it was very dark, however it was moving east and wouldn’t come to
us. I went in for breakfast. The others came in and ate breakfast. When I finished, I went back out to my Motor
and repaired the headlight. NO, no,
no! I already fixed the left
headlight. It was the right headlight
that burned out, thanks to all of the bumpy roads. We all finished our breakfast and finished
packing and rode down the street to a CEMEX gas station and gassed up. We left at 9:08 AM.
Chuck had earlier given me the directions that we needed to
go. It was my turn to lead. Jan followed, then Ken, C.E., Jake, Chuck and
J.B. We rode out of the City and got on
SR 60. It was cool and cloudy. The temperature was 71 degrees. We all had our jackets on. Not much later, at 9:22 AM, we crossed over
into Iowa. The road was good and I was
enjoying the ride. I’m sure that the
others were also. We rode on SR 60 until
it ended and it turned into US 77. We
arrived in Sioux City, Iowa. We rode and
got off at SR 20 Business. We rode for
105 miles and at 10:42 AM we stopped at a Casey’s General Store and Gas
Station. We went in and made a pit stop
and took a little break. We were
catching up with J.B., since he was going to leave us and head to Kansas City,
MO. to visit his Son and Daughter in Law.
C.E. took the opportunity to top off his gas tank. We all said our “goodbyes” to J.B. One of the employees of the Casey’s agreed to
take our pictures. We instructed J.B. to call or text when he arrived safely to
Kansas City. We all got on our Motors
and left at 11:23 AM.
I led the Group back onto Business SR 20 until we arrived to
the entrance to I-29. We stopped at the
light to go north, and J.B. got in the left turn lane to turn to go south. As the light turn green, J.B. gave us a celebratory
Harley wave, he revved the engine a couple of times. He turned and we went straight. Now we were 6. We got onto I-29 and headed north. At 11:34 AM we crossed over into South
Dakota. With South Dakota came the 80
MPH speed limit. We rode for another 27
miles and exited onto SR 50 and went west.
We stopped at the first business, which was a truck stop with a
Subway. I was lunch time! We rode for 35 miles and at 11:58 AM we
stopped in Burbank. NO! Not Burbank, CA., but Burbank, South Dakota. It was a very busy truck stop and it was in
the process of being renovated. We had
lunch, and when I finished, I went looking around. I found some refrigerator magnets of all of
the States. There were also magnets of
the Canadian States. When we were in Ontario,
I looked for them and couldn’t find one.
It would have been a nice souvenir. I bought one!
I couldn’t believe that I would find one in South Dakota. I showed Chuck and he got one as well. We were all done so we left at 12:37 PM.
We continued on SR 50 west.
It was a nice road and posted at 65 MPH.
I set my cruise control to 72 MPH and we were off. We rode for 64 miles and at 1:46 PM we
stopped at a gas station in Tyndall, SD.
I was getting low on gas and I knew that others were also. The 80 MPH sucks up gas. We all took off our
jackets and secured them. We took the necessary pit stop and we were
ready to go. We left at 2:09 PM.
It was now C.E.’s turn to lead. Chuck followed C.E., then Jake, Jan, Ken and
Me. The road was still great to
ride. The weather fluctuated from 72 to
87 degrees. We rode on SR 50 until we had to make a left turn. SR 50 ended and we were now on SR 44. We rode through a few small towns. We came upon Lake Francis Case. There was a bridge and the Lake was
beautiful. The area was a brilliant
green. There were rolling hills and
twisties. What a road! The weather was cooperating. We continued on and after riding 131 miles,
we stopped at 4:24 PM at the Holiday Inn Express in Winner, SD. I went in to “make the deal” and Jan
followed. We spoke with the two Desk
Clerks. One of them gave us a price for
the rooms and we schmoozed her. We got her
very confused. We had to remind her more
than once as to what she had just said. We ended up with a good price. We all checked in. Room assignments for tonight are: Chuck and Me, Jan and Ken, Jake and C.E. We took our bags to our rooms and parked the
Motors together. The Motors were cleaned
and nicely tucked in for the night. The
Desk Clerk suggested the Holiday House & Sports Bar two doors down. Since our Motors were tucked in, we walked
over, had dinner and returned to the Hotel.
Hot Tub time! As the others went
into the Hot Tub, I opted to work on the Blog and do a load of laundry to make
sure that I had enough clean clothes to last until the end of our ride.
Today we rode 335 miles, escaped being rained on and also
said “Goodbye” to J.B. By the way, we
heard that J.B. arrived safely in Kansas City at his Son’s home. He will stay with his Son for a day or so and
continue on to his home and lovely Wife, Susie.
J.B. will let us know when he arrives home. Also, so far, we have ridden a total of 4,955 miles
on this trip. Right now, my odometer is reading 99,448 miles. I wonder where we will be when it hits
100,000 miles. At this writing, Chuck
has not looked at the map to figure out where we will end up tomorrow. Who knows?
Maybe we will be out of South Dakota and into Colorado or Utah. We shall see…
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