The morning we’d been waiting for since our engagement on May 5th, 2009, today we leave for a two week trip out west, for our wedding and honeymoon. Custer, South Dakota for our nuptials, Yellowstone, Bonneville Salt Flats, Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon and back to South Dakota to finish our trip.
We left an hour late after an alarm clock mishap, at 6:10am on Saturday, August 7th. Myself in full leathers and bike packed to the gills, wondering where the leathers would go once it warms up. I did end up finding a place for them, strapped atop my luggage, making it even higher and top heavy.
We gassed up on Ford Rd. in Westland and I shuffled my iPod. Vacation by the GoGo’s was the first song, and I laughed to myself. This would be the trip of our lifetimes, at least, so far. A chilly ride down I-94 west into I think somewhere in Jackson where we stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast then continued on as the sun came up.
The leathers came off at our next gas stop, and it was then I decided I’d never wear a hoodie on a motorcycle again. Not only did the drawstrings whip me in the face until I could stuff them under my helmet strap, the hood itself constantly blew around my head to purposely blind me, and the zipper beat my throat until I was sure it bled. Lesson learned.
The weather was in our favor all day, and when we stopped for gas again near Joliet, IL, I called my sister, who was heading home from a camping trip out west with her family. We knew we’d pass eachother at some point on I-80, and when I spoke with her, found that they were only ten miles away from our current gas stop. Minutes later, they turned into the Love’s Truck Stop where we were, and it was neat to bump into them here, so far from home.
We arrived at the Super 8 in Walnut, Iowa around 8pm or so, 680 miles away from home. We greeted several of our friends there and heard that we avoided a pretty heavy downpour. It was then that I remembered a comment I’d made that morning to Bill as we rushed around, discovering we’d overslept, “Obviously we were supposed to miss something today.” Funny how things like that happen.
Changing into shorts and flipflops, we enjoyed the cool summer evening with our friends and some cool summer beverages. The breeze blowing in off the vast cornfields took me back about thirty years to a camping trip with my folks, off the ocean, and I could almost hear the waves crashing on the beach beneath a sky ablaze with stars. In the distance, the massive wind turbines that line I-80 were barely visible except for their blinking red lights. During the day, these wind farms seem almost creepy as you approach them heading west on the interstate.
I noticed a slight burn on my right leg from my exhaust pipes and thought, “Terrific, it’s not even hot yet! Wait until we get to Nevada.” And yes, as it turned out, I would not know the meaning of hot until we reached Nevada. We turned in shortly after, our ears ringing from the wind like we just arrived home from a concert.