Newark to Boise – Day 4
How
many individual thunderstorms complete with lightening and hail do you think can occur
on a single route from
Indiana
to
Kansas
? I can answer that for you. FOUR.
Day 4
I leave the hotel in
Indiana
staying on Rt. 50, which I have followed since
Athens
,
OH
. I have decided to stay away from interstates so far as the whole “seeing
America
” experience is much better on the
old highways. I plug along for maybe an hour when I hit the first thunderstorm. I
learn a valuable lesson here: Put on the rain gear BEFORE you are wet. Anyway, I find
a portico at a church and use it to get into my rain gear.
I can no longer hear my headphones because of the wind noise
in my helmet, so I pass the time by making up lyrics to Nirvana tunes and singing
them in falsetto in my helmet, making a deal with myself that I can stop for a rest
in
Salem
,
Illinois
for a potty break. OK, you know the tune to “Rape Me”?
SALEM
!
SALEM
!
Illinois
…
I get to pee in
SALEM
!
SALEM
!
Illinois
…
OK, never-mind, maybe it’s just me.
I give up on my own talents and pull out my earplugs so that
Chris LeDoux can serenade me into western
Illinois
where I find:
1. A
giant peach.
2. Blue
Flash, the world’s only known home-made roller coaster with a full 360 degree
loop. Here is a full
story on it.
David Allen Coe sings me in to
St. Louis
during a thunderstorm at 5:00 and the beginning of rush hour. I pray that the bridge
over the
Mississippi
won’t be grid iron and it isn’t. Concrete (Thank you, thank you). I head
straight in to of
St. Louis to pick up the BMW to 12-Volt adapter that I have been forgetting since
PA, in case I need to run my air compressor. While I there I also need a tank bag
rain cover and some water proof gloves. When I ask you what water PROOF means, does
that mean semi-permeable? NO! Well, that apparently what the service manager meant
when he sold me my $70 gloves! They will be getting a letter when I get home. Water
PROOF, not resistant. Can you see the rain outside, pard? Geez.
A few pre-requisite
St. Louis
snapshots, and I am back out on the freeway and it’s on to
Jefferson City
(where I will later wring water from my new water resistant gloves)
via route 50. I love route 50. I have some great scenery and places along it. But,
ask dusk settle in, it is time to head to the freeway, I-70 and make up some time
tonight. I want to be in
Topeka
by morning.
This is where it really starts to go to hell.
More later.
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