Ride to Live: Day One

I left Louisville thinking I am the luckiest son of bitch this world has ever seen. Not only did I score a week and half of pay for not being off of work, but I was taking off on a newly serviced BMW K1600GTL. The original plan was to head towards my moms, then I thought what the hell I have the time I should ride down to Key West! Her first response was "yeah that would be nice and all, but hell why not go to Colorado and get a real experience". HOLLY SHIT! Why didn't I think of that? So that's what I did, am doing.

It is hard to explain the joy that riding that motorcycle brings to my heart. I had a good analogy while I was riding but I've lost it. Maybe it will come to me by the time I finish wiring this. It's ultimately something that can't be described. I am completely alive right now and the motorcycle is feeding me. I actually barely ate anything yesterday. Could of been the excitement, could of been the adderal. Who knows?

Okay enough about all that, lets get to the trip. So I left, lucky son of a bitch.... (Yikes, real quick because I just realized who might be reading this. The term son of a bitch is not literal!) Ran in to Laura on the way out while she was doing laps around the neighborhood and said and official goodbye. She snapped this photo of me. I don't particually like the way I look in it, but it's a little late for do overs. I'll just keep the photo small so you get gist.

(I don't know if this picture is clickable, so don't try)

I left through Kentucky down Dixie Hwy. Thankfully it was early in the morning and red necks like to sleep in because the traffic wasn't bad at all. I was almost to Ft. Knox before the GPS shot me west. This took me into Tell City, which was kinda weird because when I was looking at the route on the Garmin the night before I south I would had kept going south. So I popped into Indiana for awhile and over to Illinois. These are both pretty boring states (at least the southern parts of them). Things started getting more interesting when I got into Missouri. There were these little bumps in the road about ever 15 - 20 seconds and it started DRIVING ME NUTS!!! I feel a little stupid posting this now because about 5 hours later I had an epiphany. A voice in my head, it sounded a lot like Laura, said "BMW built this bike for you to be successful". Then what was I doing wrong that I'm so pissed off at the people who build this shitty road? I looked down at my gauges and surely I had all the right settings. I use the comfort ride mode to give me a little more boune and the dual riders mode because I assume that with the luggage and myself that the weight....... Here comes the voice again "don't you think BMW already thought of that and that's why they have a ride with luggage setting". GOD DAMN IT!!! I made a quick pit stop, adjusted the settings and now not only do the bumps not piss me off but the air hits my helmet just a tad bit more appropriately. Lesson #1 - Never question German engineering.

Making my way through Missouri was much better than I ever thought it would be.... Keep in mind that I don't actually know when I entered Missouri because the states are to cheap to "Welcome to My State" signs at every entrance. But can I at least get a "Now Entering" sign? I actually had to text Bobby, via voice text on my helmet (hands free for those wondering) and ask him what state I was in. Fun Fact - Chester Illinois is the home to Popeye. Figured I'd get that out since we were already through Illinois.

I'm not sure where this was taken. I was actually trying to get a shot of the road behind me because it seemed to go on for days.

So I get to Mark Twain National park and the roads here are great! There are curves after curves and they are just sharp enough you can hit them at a decent speed and not feel stressed. I'm not sure how long I was in the park before it started to sprinkle rain. I finally got on top of a ridge or a place where there was a clearing in the trees and noticed a really nasty rain storm. I immediately pulled over at the first covering I could find and threw on my rain gear. To most people this wouldn't sound all that exciting, except I've never ridden in the rain without getting completely soaked. I'm gonna be completely honest. I could not wait to get this gear on and out in the rain!!! I was racing to put it on because I was afraid the rain was going to let up by the time I got back on road. Strangely a white Jeep honked at me while I putting my gear on. What was that about? (more about this in a minute). I now wish I had taken a photo of how ridiculous I probably looked and felt with my giant plastic suit on. But I didn't care, I hoped back on the bike and into the rain! It rained for about the next hour or two. Sometimes slow, sometimes hard. I was reminded of my trip back from Charleston SC when Bobby and I couldn't escape the rain. Not this time, I wanted it to rain harder! Only problem I had was with my helmet fogging up, but I was able to work around it.

Update: I completely forgot to talk about the Jeep that honked at me. Honestly it wasn't that important, but I noticed I was missing a bottle of water when I was packing up my rain gear. I wondered if it had fallen out of my bag when he was behind me and wanted to let me know he wasn't happy. Who knows.... See wasn't that important.

I stopped about an hour after it stopped raining to take my suit off. I couldn't find a good spot so I just pulled over on the side of the road. It was large enough to be out of the road and have plenty of room. I was packing up the suit and this guy pulls up on a Harley and asks me if everything was okay. He looked exactly like the guy from Sons of Anarchy. I wanted to fan out like a fan girl and scream OMG it's BOBBY! But he died in the series didn't he? *Spoiler Alert

So onward I went through Missouri then into Kansas... There actually was a sign for Kansas state line. The only state that no one gives a shit about riding through. You can image the rest.

I think I snapped this photo shortly after it stopped raining. Just a cool bridge.

Mom is helping plan my route the rest of the trip. After yesterday our expectations of the trip just got MUCH larger.

Okay I have to get in the shower, finish my coffee and get to COLORADO!! More to come soon. Hopefully I get better at blogging and it becomes worth the read by the end of the trip. I leave you with a couple other shot I got during yesterdays adventure.