Cloverdale, IN to Home

I left Cloverdale at 6 AM Central time since I was awake and wanted to try and beat the heat.  The continental breakfast started at 6:30 Eastern time so I had some breakfast before heading out.  I had enough fuel to get me down the road a 100  or so miles.  These are the kind of motels I look for on the cycle.  Seems like all have Wifi and continental breakfasts.

I like to be able to pull right up to the door so I can unload.  It wasn't quite as important on this trip since I didn't carry camping gear.  The two side boxes lock with a padlock so I can leave some items on the bike.

I spent $492.40 for 8 nights motel for an average of $61.55 which is cheap compared to Canada and Alaska.  I rode a total of 3,451 miles and spent $227.80 for gas and averaged 43.7 mpg burning premium fuel.

 I rode 444 miles on the Natchez Trace, 469 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway and 105 miles on Skyline drive in the Shenandoah National Park.  There is a lot of great scenery along the way and I did not see all the sights I could have visited along the way.

My ride home was not uneventful.  While I was still in Illinois I came across a semi truck accident that had the entire east bound I-70 shut down.  The drivers door was down and had both lanes and the shoulders blocked. I would imagine he went to sleep.  There were probably 50 trucks behind it and the next exit that got caught when the accident occurred.  I did not stop for a picture as it is to dangerous because someone looking at the accident could run into me.  In fact about a mile past the accident a semi was coming into my lane on a bridge and I quickly shot around him.  He was probably talking on the CB.  Traffic was backed up for about 3 miles and they were all exiting off the exit ramp for a detour.

Before I got into St Louis I took I-270 and I-370 to stay out of the downtown area.  This is much quicker and easier on the nerves.  As I crossed the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers they were both running bank full and maybe flooding a little.  West of Columbia, Mo where I-70 crosses the Missouri river there was lots of flooding there.  I ran into rain several miles east of Columbia and it was coming down hard going through Columbia.  I rode in the rain for about 50 miles then pulled off for a burger.  It quit raining soon after that and I pulled into a rest area and took off the rain gear as it was starting to warm up.  I pulled into Topeka at 2:30 after 506 miles of riding.

As usual I am glad to get home.  I filled the bird feeders, took some pictures of our hydrangea and got out the clippers to trim my beard.

Saturday it was time to pick cherries.  I got up early and drove out northeast to a friends house and the tree was loaded.  I thought I might be too late as my son-in-law and daughter had picked a bunch and the grand kids too.  I picked about three gallon then it started to rain so I went home and started pitting.  My daughter Jenea came down to help and brought another gallon and a half.  We got all these pitted by 2:30.  It was still cool out and wasn't raining so I went out and picked 5 more gallons.  There are still lots on the tree.  They are really nice, plump and red this year.  Lots of good pies, jam and cooked cherries. Yum!

I have the cherries all pitted.  I worked on them for 9 hours yesterday and today.  Mary helped about an hour but is baking us a pie.  I have 22 quarts, a gallon bag, 6 pounds for jelly, a pie and wrinkled hands.

Well I am glad you could ride along with me again on this journey.  I now have 24,000 miles on this BMW in less than two years.  Thanks for all the comments about my blog while on this ride.  I had much better weather than I thought I might.  I was expecting extreme hot, humid weather in the south but it was really quite comfortable.  I had some rain but that is to expected.  At least there we no long rain-out periods.