We have arrived!!

For those of you wondering if the day off the bike being medicated  worked.... yes, it did!  I woke up this morning with an annoying, scratchy cough, but the pressure in my ears had subsided and my sinuses had opened up a good bit.  The surest sign that I was on the mend though was that I woke up giddy with excitement that I'd get to ride again!

Missouri backroads

We rolled out of Harrison, AR and rode Hwy 13 all the way into Kansas City, MO.  The countryside through MO was rolling hills of wide open space.   We didn't hit much traffic until we got into Kansas City and had the roads mostly to ourselves for much of the riding.  We covered somewhere around our daily average of 250 miles today.  It's hard to describe all the random little sites and events that are experienced in those miles.  I take lots of pictures, but not everything translates well into a photo.  One of the things that always makes me smile is cars rolling by with the driver sticking his/her hand out the window giving a thumbs up sign or little kids in the backseat waving like crazy.  Today, Body Slam was riding on the bike directly in front of me when I saw her waving to the backseat of a car we were riding past.  When I got next to the car, it was two adult women and a couple of little girls just grinning from ear to ear waving excitedly to us.  It always leaves me wondering if this little exchange may be recalled later by those young girls and give them the nudge to ride a bike of their own one day.

Bridge into Kansas City

We were rolling comfortably along at one point when I looked up into the sky and saw a B-2 stealth bomber moving across the sky.  A few miles down the road, we passed an Amish family riding their horse-drawn buggy along the interstate and a guy working  a field with a horse-pulled plow.  It's a little mind-boggling how these two technologies can co-exist.

Princess pillow

Speaking of technologies, here's another random event that gave us all a good chuckle and one of our fellow riders a road name.  It's no secret that riding for eight hours a day can take a toll on your backside if you don't have a really great seat.  Most riders who do long distance have after-market cushions made of foam and/or gel to help soften the miles.  Hooker's passenger was new to long-distance riding and needed a little extra padding for his two-up seat (notice I used the family friendly name for the passenger seat :-)).  With not much available in the little town in which we were departing, they went to Walmart and picked up a regular chair cushion.  There are so many high-dollar after-market accessories for our bikes that it was pretty amusing to see the low-budget "princess pillow" on Hooker's top-of-the-line ride!  When it comes to road names, you don't really get a choice on what you will be called, so Lisa has evolved into Princess :-)  Now everyone will assume she's high-maintenance with a name like Princess so she'll get to retell the story for years!  Good thing Hooker already has a road name with longevity, or his might have changed to the Prince since he purchased another one for himself the next day!

Hooker and Princess riding in comfort on Walmart pillows :-)

Well, that's the update so far.  Now that we are at the CVMA National Meeting site, we're just meeting up with old friends and making new ones of CVMA members from around the country.  Will post again soon.