Tuesday

We got on the road just a little after 7 a.m. The first 100 miles were pleasant as the temperature was in the 70s.

We stopped for gas at Bowlin’s Flying C Ranch. When we got back on the bikes, the temperature was in the 80s and by noon it was 110 degrees.

We stopped for gas at Russell’s Truck and Travel Center on I-40. This is the larger of the two and has a car museum and large diner.

The classic car museum was closed, even though the sign said it should be open.

So we moved on and found a rest area with a picnic table not far down the road.

We made it to our hotel late afternoon and got in from the heat.

Wednesday

Our first gas and coffee stop was at a Love’s. It was 90 degrees by 8:30 a.m., so we soaked our wet vests and moved on.

Scenes from the road: Grinding and paving…

Ticket time…

Beth found a nice picnic area in Lake Eufaula State Park in Oklahoma.

The bathrooms had flush toilets and running water!!!

We had to stop at a rest area and put more water in our wet vests and Camelbacks. The architecture of the buildings was unusual for a rest area.

We crossed into Arkansas and stopped for the night in Van Buren.

Travel on the interstates is pretty boring, and the 100-degree afternoons are very tiring. Without the wet vests we would have to stop much more often. We are ticking off the miles so Beth can get home for a real estate closing early next week.

Thursday

The morning started out just fine. The temperature was cool and we got a fairly early start. The disadvantage of going east early in the morning is that the sun is in your eyes for a couple of hours. That’s a first-world problem, I know, but it is a safety concern. It’s difficult to see debris on the road and signs are in shadow. Fortunately, we had no issues to contend with.

We got gas in Little Rock.

After getting gas, we met the first challenge of the day. From Albuquerque to Little Rock, the trucks were easy to contend with. The stretch of I-40 from Little Rock to Memphis, however, is filled with trucks. Some were doing 65 mph, and some were going 75 mph. We spent a lot of time in the passing lane going whatever speed was needed.

We crossed the Mississippi again. Crossing the Mississippi was special when I was a kid and it remains so.

We came to our second challenge in Memphis. A portion of I-55 was shut down. We had to get off the highway and take some local streets to get back on track. The adventure was complicated by the heat. The temperature was in the upper 90s.

We stopped for lunch at Fairview Community Park, a couple of miles off US-78/I-22, southeast of Memphis. The picnic tables were in the sun, so we broke out the camp chairs and had a picnic in the shade.

The third challenge of the day was the worst. The GPS warned me there was a 2-1/2-hour delay ahead on I-22. I didn’t believe the warning, and sure enough we hit a snag. Traffic was moving about 3 mph. We and our bikes got overheated, so we pulled off the highway and sat in the shade for a while.

About a mile down the road, all traffic was directed off the highway. We found a gas station and cooled off. I had a bottle of Gatorlyte – that’s Gatorade on steroids. It did the trick. I felt much better after drinking it.

Eventually we got to our hotel in Tupelo and unloaded our stuff. We went to Walmart for dinner salads. We went to bed early and slept for a solid 8-1/2 hours.

Friday

We got on the road a little after 7 a.m. Since we were farther east in the time zone, the sun was higher in the sky and not so much a bother as it had been the previous two mornings. We made a gas stop before getting to Birmingham and a coffee stop at Dunkin’ south of Birmingham.

We stopped for lunch at a park along US-231 south of Montgomery.

We continued on to our hotel in Marianna, FL. The temperature was about 98 degrees this afternoon, but we weren’t so affected as we were yesterday.

Now that we are back in Florida, we are in the land of big storms. This is outside our hotel this afternoon.

This evening we had dinner with our Bunk-a-Biker friends. We were supposed to stay with them, but a power glitch killed their air-conditioner. It’s going to take a couple of weeks to get it fixed, so they are staying in their RV. Nevertheless, they had us sign their guest book, and we are their 500th guest!

Saturday

Saturday is Beth’s birthday. We will celebrate by making the final leg of our journey. We’ll go east to US-19, south on US-19 and Suncoast Parkway, over the Howard Frankland bridge and US-19 to home. I’ll put together a post with some statistics and the video of Rocky Mountain National Park in a few days or so.