This is one last post to cover the whole trip and put things in order, since the blog
goes backwards chronologically.
Day 1 | Photos
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4 | Photos
Day 5
Day 6 | Photos
Day 7 | Photos | Gene’s
Photos
And one last story from the road.
Conversation with an Anonymous Farmer
I was waiting
at a traffic stop in Kansas for about 15 minutes and had some time to pass, so
I struck up a conversation with the farmer in the truck behind me. He was in a weathered
pickup and bringing his horse back from the vet.
Farmer (F): Howdy.
Me (M): Howdy. How ya doing?
F: Good, wishin for rain.
M: Man, you can have all the rain I’ve sen. I just came across Missouri last night
in a downpour.
F: We need it. The wheat here is stressed (indicating the wheat field next to us)
.
M: I thought things here looked really green. But I am from Texas and we grew soy
beans and rice when I was growing up. I don’t know how to read wheat.
F You been up there in that New Jersey too long. (He was reading my license plate
from the bike I had just bought).
M: No, I live in Idaho. Just bought the bike and am riding it home.
F: What, they don’t sell motorcycles in Idaho?
OK, he got me here, but I was prepared to redeem myself, so I smartassed him back
and brought out the Copenhagen can hoping for a little nod of camaraderie there.
M: They don’t sell that one in Idaho. (Got him, hee hee)
F: Yeah, I reckon you don’t see a lot of purple motorsickles up there in
Idaho.
He shoots, he scores. Damn.
F: Can I bum a pinch off ya?