Kansas City, MO, to O'Fallon, IL

Day Seven - 294 miles

What can I say about today, other than it sucked from the moment I left Kansas City.

The day started well enough. I got my laundry done. WOO HOO! CLEAN CLOTHES!!! There was a girl working at the laundromat who was very kind and helpful to me. She even gave me some free soap. People are genuinely nice and friendly in this town, and also pretty hip and cool. It's got a nice balance. People sometimes in the bigger cities think they're so incredibly cool and wonderful that they...oh well, let's not go there.

I met up with Marco again for lunch (thanks for that, Marco!). We parted ways again, and after packing up the bike in the SWELTERING heat (96F and very muggy) I was finally off again at about 2:30pm.

I found Hwy 50 again to continue the "backroads" odyssey. Getting further into Missouri, I was starting to get a bit fed up with the stop and start. The road was quite dangerous here, with two fast lanes in each direction, and a LOT of cross traffic. The landscape was "okay" but was sort of semi-rural industrial. Not particularly interesting, and well-nigh endless. We were really starting to slow down in the town of Sedalia, and it looked like the traffic was only going to get worse. A quick look at the map, and I could see I-70 was only about 30 miles north, and running parallel. I decided to make a break for it. I felt I hadn't been making great mileage the last couple of days, and a good belt along I-70 to beyond St. Louis, would make the afternoon worthwhile.

Then the rain came....

And boy, did it pour....

Later this night, after I'd finally found a motel to rest my weary bones, I watched the weather report and saw what I had just been through - the worst day of driving on a motorcycle (and probably a car too) in my life. I'll let the National Weather Service warning sum it up tonight:

THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AT ST. LOUIS

* UNTIL THURSDAY EVENING.

* AT 8:00 PM FRIDAY THE STAGE WAS 30.4 FEET.

* FLOOD STAGE IS 30.0 FEET.

* MINOR FLOODING IS OCCURRING AND MINOR FLOODING IS FORECAST.

* FORECAST...THE RIVER WILL CONTINUE RISING TO NEAR 31.3 FEET BY

MONDAY EARLY AFTERNOON. THE RIVER WILL FALL BELOW FLOOD STAGE

WEDNESDAY EVENING.

Let's just say, it was very, very bad motorcycling weather. Extremely difficult driving conditions. I suppose I could have stopped, but I hoped it would pass. It didn't. It seems to have now, but more is on the way tomorrow. Don's "froggtoggs" raingear are coming in extremely handy.

Anyway, I have no pictures from the road today. I re-joined US-50 on the far side of St. Louis. I passed over the Mississippi River and Busch Stadium as a game was in progress. I could see the "Arch" of the Gateway to the West, but unfortunately I have no record of it, save that which is etched in my memory. I was more concerned with keeping my eyes on the road.

I'm going to try and get to West Virginia by tomorrow night. Then I might make Mat and Kelly's in Richmond by Sunday evening.

The battle continues.

Onwards!

Garden City, KS, to Kansas City, MO

Day 6 - 387 miles

Across Kansas and across the Plains.

I really liked driving through Kansas. Some people say it's flat and boring, and some of it is. However, if you look a bit deeper, you see the natural beauty not far beneath the surface. Wherever the land is allowed to lie for any amount of time, the prairie grass seems to quickly reestablish itself. There was more actual prairie than I thought there would be.

US Highway 50 is quite amazing at stages out here. You literally are rolling through residential neighborhoods at times, in little towns where the highway is in fact the main street.

I stopped at a particular place to look at the prairie grass, and also where some of the original Santa Fe Trail wagon tracks lie. By this stage I'm really aware of the massive distances involved in crossing this continent. How people did this 150 years ago in wagons under extremely arduous circumstances is beyond me.

I was able to keep up a pretty good speed on the road out here. 75-80 mph, a lot of the time. Every 10 or 20 miles we would come to a town and have to slow down for a few minutes, then we'd be off again. Very little other traffic, so not much to worry about there. Preferable to driving on the Interstate, I think.

The afternoon weather is becoming a bit of a pain. The day kind of goes like this:

- Get up. Coffee. Pack bike. Weather 80F+

- Early afternoon. Stop to refuel and get some brunch (getting very fed up with "road food.")

- Weather in the afternoons well into the high 90's. Very uncomfortable if not moving.

- Late afternoons very hot and muggy: VIOLENT thunderstorms begin. Suit-up into raingear. Very, very uncomfortable, and it slows everything down, taking the raingear off and on.

- Evening. A bit cooler, and welcome. You leave the raingear on, as the temperature drops. At high speed it's about right. Maybe take it off later.

Evening, 6pm-9pm, is a nice time to drive, and you can really clock up some miles, and don't have the awful heat or thunderstorms to deal with. I've had late afternoon HEAVY rain every day since eastern Nevada. At this stage you want to get as many miles done as possible, but you also are cognizant of the fact that you need to stop and get a place to stay. And get some food (that isn't crap). Also, we really don't want to be driving this lonely road after dark.

Today, I was making good time though, and eastern Kansas was getting greener and greener. Eventually, the small road became a bigger divided highway, and eventually we joined with Interstate 35, and Kansas City was looming on the highway.

Kansas City is a GREAT TOWN! I would come back here again. There's a real renaissance going on here - lots of cool shops, restaurants, and bars, and plenty happening at all hours. I stayed at the "Q Hotel + Spa" (www.theqhotel.com), a little gem of a place in the Westport district.

I went down to the downtown former "Garment" district afterwards, and met up with former Russian Hill (San Francisco) denizens Marco and Shileigh, who moved here in March. I had eaten well of a decent greek salad with spinach and olives - what a relief! Marco had told me of a great late-night eatery right by my hotel. Marco and his wife Shileigh were regulars at "Rex Cafe" in San Francisco, and seem to have firmly established themselves in a few similar places in Kansas City. It was fun to see them and their new friends, and this would be a good place to come back to and spend more time. Thank you guys for being so welcoming to me! :-)

I got back to the Q at about 2:15am, and updated my blog for the last few days (Kansas and Colorado). By the time I hit the sack, it was 4:30am. I resolved to get up early though - my bike clothes (and underwear!) had taken their share of punishment with the rain and dust and sweat. I was literally DYING to wash some clothes. My new BMW summer pants were starting to look like a coal miner's workpants. Marco and Shileigh kindly offered to let me use their washer and dryer, but I had already scoped out a laundromat up the street from the Q. These clothes were "industrial" dirty, and I didn't want to mess up some friends' place with this lot!

We're into Missouri now. We'll cross the river and the state tomorrow.

Onwards!

Video from Day Five - Colorado: Into the Rockies

Video from Day Four - Tuesday, July 27th (Hwy 191 to Arches)

Delta, CO, to Garden City, KS

Day Five - 470 miles

NOTE: Pictures to follow. Using low bandwidth internet on cell phone. Internet out at motel.

I felt like I needed to make some headway today. The "imagined' mechanical issue, the bad weather for the last two days, along with the tragic event back in San Francisco had kind of taken their toll.

I decided to try and make the best of things. I got a fairly early start. I stayed in a really nifty little motel in Delta, Colorado, called Westways Court. Kind of artsy, log cabin, rustic sort of a vibe, with subdued neon lighting (a bit like the dimmed night-time cabin lighting on Virgin America, if you've ever flown them coast-to-coast). I recommend it if you're ever passing though this way.

I also recommend the (also funky) little coffee stand up the street. A nice girl called "Katie" made my espresso for me. People are really nice and friendly out here in Utah and western Colorado. If I had to live in a very rural area, I could think of worse places. You certainly get a heck of a view when you look out the window every morning.

As I pushed on into Colorado and up into the Rockies proper, the landscape finally changed from the desert of the past few days. There are beautiful green pastures with majestic mountains as a backdrop. Lots of horses.

We climbed up to reach the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass, elevation 11,312 ft. That was a pretty cool milestone.

I passed several "packs" of biker gangs going to or from someplace. Bikers on the road have a sort of "protocol" and we always wave or hold an arm out, just to acknowledge one another, and generally say "Hi! Isn't it great to be out here on a motorcycle!" Well, the guys in the gangs tend to not wave at anyone. That's their business, I suppose. I tend to stay out of their way, and they seem to stay out of mine.

We followed the Gunnison River, then the Arkansas River. I now noticed the Arkansas River running east - in the direction I was going. Prior to crossing the Continental Divide, all the rivers were flowing "against me" towards the Pacific. Now we were all heading east towards the Atlantic. Pretty cool!

After quite a long time through or near the Royal Gorge, the mountains and canyons gave way to high plains. Eastern Colorado is plains country. After three or four (or five) more hours, I crossed into Kansas and the Central time zone.

A word about the road. Highway 50 is NOT an Interstate or a freeway. Sometimes it is a freeway near bigger cities, but out here it is at most two lanes in each direction, and usually that is not for very long. This is an old highway from the pre-Interstate "Route 66" days. It is SINGLE LANE in each direction for much of the way, especially in Kansas. At times it runs through residential areas of very small towns, and some very small towns that are fading away as the boom has passed or children or young people and jobs have moved elsewhere. This is real Americana.

I pulled in for the night at Garden City, Kansas. We are now out in the Great Plains.

I have "lost" another hour's sleep, as we changed time zones again. It also takes a couple of hours to catch up on the blog and pictures.

The internet router died at the motel here tonight, so I am posting this via my "tethered" iPhone on a very slow roaming partner called "USA 340." I tried uploading a photo, but it is taking to long. I'll update these last two days blogs with the pictures next time I have a good connection.

Still thinking about Brian. I am finding it difficult to cope with.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Onwards...

Green River, UT, to Delta, CO, via Arches National Park

Day Four - 223 miles

NOTE: Pictures to follow. Using low bandwidth internet on cell phone. Internet out at motel.

Today, Tuesday, July 27th, was dominated by my unsettled thoughts over the tragic and untimely death of my friend Brian. I was up very late on Monday night. I was wandering around the street of the town of Green River at four in the morning trying to make sense of it all. Maybe I should have been there for him more? Maybe we all should have. Sometimes people in a deeply depressed situation do not realize how much they are loved by others. As a friend of Linda's wrote on my Facebook comments, they sometimes think they are doing everyone else a favor, when in fact all we want more than anything in the world would be to have them back, and let us help them.

Brian loved America. He always wanted to come here to live. He also loved the idea of America and the values it was founded on. We don't always live up to those values, but Brian always thought that dignity, individual rights, and personal freedoms were things we should cherish. I'm so sad that he lost sight of the "light" in his own life, and that he didn't have the fight left in himself anymore.

I drove slightly "off course" today, and dropped down to Arches National Park. All the thoughts above, and many more, were swirling in my head. I thought of Brian a lot. He loved these places too, and visited many of them over the years. We were just talking - gosh, the day I left - about how he hiked into Bodie (State Park, in California) in the winter. He drove as far as the road would allow, as I did last winter. But rather than turn around because the road was snowed in, he hiked in the rest of the way with his friends. I was thinking of turning back now on this trip, to be with my friends, and attend whatever service or memorial that we are having. However, I think it might be a better tribute to Brian if I keep going. I think he would want that.

As I've said to a couple of people today, I don't want Brian's life to be defined by how it ended. I'd like to remember him for all the good stuff. He had a good sense of humor. He was a character. And he would always help someone in need, if he could. I think that's the lesson we all have to learn from this - and really learn it...you have to be there for people. Otherwise, what are we?

As I was leaving Arches, the skies opened up, and the biggest thunderstorm I have ever experienced in my life ensued. I took shelter under a picnic table and canopy in a gas station in nearby Moab. Once the storm passed, I headed back up onto US-50, and continued on for Colorado.

A massive storm was looming in the mountains to the east...or was it the remnants of the previous one? I didn't know. I "suited up" into the rain gear, and pointed the bike towards the storm and pushed on into the Rockies....

Great Basin National Park, NV, to Green River, UT

*** Written Monday night, July 26th. ***

Today was a moderately okay to mildly crap day. I got up at the relatively early (for me) time of 8:30AM. I haven't quite got my "system" down to a fine art yet, so by the time I made some coffee, ate the obligatory granola bar, had some more coffee, and did that other thing I do in the morning, it was time to pack up camp and pack the bike.

I like camping, and it was good to get all the old compact pots and cups and miniature stove going again. Packing ot all up and fitting it back onto the bike took me longer than I thought. By the time I rolled out of Great Basin National Park - an extremely remote place - it was 11:15AM.

The weather was very unsettled today. Fairly early on I pulled over beside an older (60-ish) guy on a big Honda who had been visiting his son in Washington state. His name was Mike. Like me, he was eying the big thunderstorm ahead and thought, "I don't feel like getting wet." Of course the weather was also very warm and muggy, so pulling on the rain gear makes you fairly hot. It also sucks when you end up not hitting the rain - these storms blow through - and you end up riding in your hot gear under the baking sun. The day before I had dodged the rain gear and the storms. I didn't think I would be so luck today, and I wasn't.

Myself and Mike rode together for a bit through the rain. I pulled over once or twice to adjust things, and so did he. We'd give each other the thumbs up to make sure we were ok. The touring bikers, especially BMW and KTM folks (and Mike on his Honda!) really look out for each other. After a while though, we were going separate speeds, and myself and Mike parted ways.

I got to Delta, Utah, and decided to get some gas. It was at this stage that I noticed my bike was covered in what looked like oil. This could be very bad. I had just got it serviced in BMW San Francisco before I left - they are expensive, but they check and do EVERYTHING. I was upset and slightly resigned. However, the weird thing was, the bike was running ok....

Just then, another BMW dude pulled rode by on a 1200GS Adventure - same as my bike but with a few extra bells and whistles. It must have been a bad day for bikers because he (John, I think his name was) had just lost his wallet, credit cards and everything, somewhere between Delta and Grand Junction, Colorado, where he lived. He was on his way to California, but was about to abandon ship. I asked him if he needed cash. He had managed to remember enough of his numbers, that he was able to get cash at the bank down the street, but he thanked me for my offer.

John had a look at my bike and thought it looked a bit strange. We both thought that there was a possibility it just *might* be oil and dirt from the road. There hadn't been much rain in the area in the last few months, so these fresh storms were kicking up a lot of gunk.

At that point I noticed that the gas station had no gas. John had been to another one in town, same deal. I told him about one I'd seen earlier down the road at the edge of town, and it looked like they had gas. At that point we parted ways. I think he was going to go back to Grand Junction.

I needed gas myself, so a few minutes later headed back down the road. I saw John coming bacxk the other way and we waved. I was still kind of worried about my bike. I filled up in the station at the edge of town. I was examining the bike when a bloke pulled in on a KTM 950. Basically, anytime a BMW "GS" rider and a KTM rider meet, there is an immediate camaraderie. His name was Jeff, and after assessing the bike with me, he also thought it looked like oil was leaking from somewhere (where?) but at the same time thought there was a *slight* chance that it could have been just road gunk - but leaning towards a leak.

By now, I had my friend and fellow BMW biker, the great and enormously helpful Don on the phone. Don had me go over a few things, and again it looked ok. It ran ok. By now Bridget who worked in the gas station, and who was extremely nice and helpful, had got me the name and address of a guy in the town who would take a look at it. Don was leaning towards diverting up to Salt lake, and Jeff had already offered me a room in his house! I have nothing but good things to say about the people of Utah. Everyone I met was kind and friendly, and offered to lend a hand.

Myself and Jeff duly rode down to Delta Motorsports, a motorcycle and ATV dealership and service center. The main mechanic there...I can;t recally his name...initially looked at it and thought it might be the rear shock, but then after checking a few other things declared - IT'S JUST DIRT AND GUNK!

We all had a bit of a laugh about it - the Irish guy from San Francisco who got his bike dirty! Still, it was better than the alternative.

Don called me back, and as I was heading east on US 50, recommended that I head to Grand Junction, Colorado, and check in with BMW the next day, just to be on the safe side. I concurred.

Jeff was continuing north-east towards Salt Lake. He kept his offer open room for the night if things took a turn for the worse. In fact, he said if I was ever passing through to look him up, and I could stay. Very cool and nice guy. He has a sister in San Francisco, and we figured he had been not far behind me most of the way the last couple of days.

The rain was picking up, so I pushed on in full rain gear for Grand Junction. However, the day was getting late, plus I was now on Mountain Time and had "lost" an hour, so I didn't want to arrive too late. It was probably 5:45PM by the time I left Delta.

After the previous night's encounter with the deer, I was very leery of riding in the dark in these remote areas. However, I knew that Hwy 50 would soon join Interstate 70, and those roads arfe well cordoned off from animals.

I-70 is very remote, and it is amazingly spectacular. This part of the world, the red canyons of Utah, remind me of my father and how much he loves the area. We'll all be travelling near here again in a month or two with him and my mum. The red rocks and canyons were now looking spectacular as the sun was breaking through the thunderclouds as it set, with lightning flashing all around (yes, I forgot to mention that!).

As, I continued along I-70 between about 8 and 9PM and it was getting darker, I saw a few of those "deer jumping" signs, and I realized that parts of this *extremely remote* interstate were NOT cordoned off. I decided at that point to get to the next main town - the only town for 100 miles - Green River, Utah, and call it a night there. Grand Junction was another two hours, and didn't want to push my luck. I checked into a little motel in Green River, got myself a pizza, and decided to update my blog.

A VERY SAD NOTE: As I was wrapping this up tonight, I got the very sad news that my friend Brian Black has died. I will write more about Brian later. I am very distressed at this news. I just shook hands with him on Saturday as I said goodbye. R.I.P. Brian.