Day 31

We were up and moving by 5 a.m. Graham was right – I only had to wake him once – I guess the incentive to get home and see family and his girlfriend is all he needed. Wayne and Diana were up to see us off. We had our rain gear on as we rode the bikes out of the garage into a steady rain – the first real rain we have had all trip. It is approximately 100 miles to the Interstate 29 and we were in varying degrees of rain the whole time. We had planned to ride to St. Louis and join Suz and spend the night with Tara, Jess and Jack. Since we had 670 miles to travel we decided to take a direct route to St. Louis via interstates. We went down I 29 to Kansas City and across I 70 to near St. Louis. We arrived at Jess and Tara’s apartment at 5 p.m. It was a non-eventful trip (the way we like it).

One of the more interesting things that occurs while we are traveling is the opportunity to visit with other bikers when we stop for gas or eats. Today we visited with a couple that had been on the road for 20 days and were riding back to their home in Madison, IN. Another couple was returning to Louisiana and had been in Jackson, WY when we were there and took the same route to Sturgis. All the bikers that we talked to had the same experience in Sturgis – too crowded and a big hassle – 2 days is all they could handle.

Suz had fixed a great meal and Graham and I enjoyed getting reacquainted with Jack. You might recall that we missed Jack’s birthday, so this was our birthday dinner. He is such a great kid and joy to be around. If interested, you can check him out on Tara’s blog: http://jessandtarabrower.blogspot.com/

This was my present to Jack - a moose puppet that I found in Jackson, WY:



It was good to be back with the family. We missed out on a lot of family happenings while we were gone so there was considerable catching up to do. Graham and I will complete the trip tomorrow when we arrive back home in Washington. Only 200 miles left.