Shark Week, the national Road Glide Rally, will be in Deadwood, SD the week after the Sturgis rally. My plan is to take five days to ride to Deadwood. That schedule sets an easy pace with the longest day just 455 miles. On these transit days I just ride to cover the miles. I stop for gas and lunch and just keep going. I haven’t scheduled any touring stops.

I rode north on I-75. The only thing to report is that the construction between Wesley Chapel and Ocala is mostly complete. The highway is now three lanes wide all the way from Tampa to Atlanta. The new interchange with the Florida Turnpike is nearing completion.

I stayed at the same hotel we stayed at in 2017 on our way to East Peoria, IL. It has a nice pool and a McDonald’s next door, but I got a salad at Walmart for dinner. The rooms are a little shabby. My non-smoking room smelled of smoke – not cigarette smoke – but camp fire smoke. Perhaps someone burned incense in the room.

This was another easy, super-slab ride. What was notable was that I made it through Chattanooga without rain. I’ve encountered rain in the mountains west of the city several times. The last time I rode through here it poured.

The picnic grounds at the rest area where I stopped for lunch were very park-like.

The town of Metropolis claims to be the home of Superman and has several Superman attractions, but I didn’t seek them out.

This ride was primarily on secondary highways in southern Illinois and central Missouri. MO-72 and MO-8 are great motorcycle roads. They have hills and sweepers that I enjoy.

I found a community park, Columbia Park, in Park Hills, MO. There were picnic pavilions, a playground, and a community swimming pool. I had a very pleasant, relaxed lunch.

The final leg of this ride was on I-70 from Columbia to Kansas City, MO. There were a lot of trucks. It was hard to find an open spot where I could just coast on cruise control.

I did some laundry and attempted to dry the clothes in the guest laundry. The mechanism that accepts the coins jammed, so the staff dried my clothes in the hotel dryer.

It’s the morning of Day 4 as I’m writing this. A storm is passing through, so I’m going to wait a few hours before getting started.