First. WTF. So I guess there's something to be said about appreciating things after going through the gauntlet yourself. The day started off nice enough, I picked up my dreamy lady and took her to coffee and breakfast.......then it started to rain. It was basically mother nature personifying my girlfriends emotions. She's so sweet and caring, she's been a total rock and supportive as anyone I've ever known. Anyhow, the rain's coming down, mom and I run through the checklist one final time and BAM we go! Instead of taking the most direct route south, Dad decides that I need to get used to the rain at somewhat slower speeds, so we head west....directly into the worst of the storm. What wold have normally taken 3 hrs (bloomington/normal) took us 3 hrs. But it's all about the experience. I was rather upset as we tooled along at the speed of snail. Of course, anything that could go wrong did. First, I found out how not so waterproof my boots were. As my fingers were about to fall off, I suddenly realized that my clutch wasn't working and sort of freaked out. Oh wait, no. My fingers weren't functioning like normal. I sped up and honked and threw on my blinker at every exit. But the big man in the sweet bike with heated hand grips, well he didn't notice. Frustrated and yelling at nobody in particular got me nothing but a foggy face plate on my helmet, and erupted a burp of who knows what that stunk like hard eggs, hot sauce, ketchup, and coffee......or otherwise known as "breakfast". What a horrible mistake. So, choking on my own stink and trying to get my dad's attention, i cut someone off while opening my facemask.....good Lord, all of those blessing from last night worked! I got so lucky and was able to get everyone off the road and into the Subway restaurant. As i got off of the bike, i was super wobbly, because you know, i couldn't feel my feet, oops. What an awesome time to rest. We ate Subway and got warm. I traded my sopping wet boots for my nikes, and NBC covers ( Nuclear Biological Chemical warfare) which kept my feet and shoes dry.
As the day went by, I started needing some sleep. I had gotten about 6 hrs of sleep and probaby should have gotten more. Well, we stopped again, got gas and i slammed a Monster energy drink. HOLY BALLS!! About 15 short minutes later, the sun came out, we were nearing STL and I'm all dancin around in my seat, singing along as loud as possible because you know, who's gonna judge me?! Shakira? NO! But, you know, she totally could if she wanted hahaaha! Yeah, we hit STL and saw the Archway to the West, or Gateway? and I was stoked. The sun and monster turned me into a freakin meth head aparently. I totally get every aspect of breaking bad now! Ok, so this lasted until the next fill up, and bombed when it rained again. Rain on a moto BLOWS. For the first 15 min or so the tires kind of slip all over, but when the oils wash off the road you're pretty solid, however you have to remember the roads 20 miles away may not have had the same amount etc. Totally crazy! So we hammered out around 300-400 miles of hard riding through the rain. The last 1.5 hrs was in the rain too. Somehow my dad got cold, he's got layers on, and electric jacket and hand warming grips....but he's cold?! Shit, I'm kind of worried, he might be getting sick or something. Anyhow, after this realization, I took lead and got us to the hotel. Not that Dad couldn't do it, but he wasn't going to be able to focus on everything that you need to focus on when driving in the rain, especially when you're so impaired. I mean, he'd probably have been fine, since he's got more experience with all of this than I do in life. Anyhow, we got to the hotel. And earlier we tried to cancel since we were in Rolly and didn't want to drive through rain again to get to Springfield. But the management at this place wouldn't help us out. No big deal, we rode hard. Got here around 10 or 1030 at night and finally got pizza. Oh yeah, mom got us a free breakfast because of the dangerous conditions we had to get through haha. I mean, normally I wouldn't complain, but c'mon, this is silly. Anyhow, Bed time! I didn't get pics thanks to the rain etc. Ugh, see you all soon on the road!
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