Heading Out

It's 4:15 AM on Saturday May 7 and I am leaving the house heading east. It seems that my TRUE LOVE has been in Chicago for 6+ weeks with Farida, one of our former exchange students, babysitting Eldar, Farida's son while Farida is finishing up this term of a Fulbright scholarship. Maybe she can help me with the proper usage of all these commas! Along the way I will be taking pictures of restaurants with BBQ, Barbecue or Barbeque in their name for a contest I have entered. I tried this earlier going to California. I would have the GPS search for BBQ restaurants and then go to that location. No luck. All restaurants seemed to be short lived and BBQ restaurants even more so. I kept finding the address but the restaurant was long gone. I will start using the phone book as the information in the GPS is usually several years old. I need one restaurant from fifteen different states.

Just before Tucumcari, NM I begin to yawn and feel sleepy. I have encountered this before and almost learned the VERY hard way that it is time to stop and rest or exercise or anything but continue riding. I stop and take a 20 minute nap without ever getting off of the bike. That's all it takes and I am ready to go.

I also wanted pictures of my bike at the various state signs so naturally I went right by the Oklahoma sign before I could stop. I did not feel like trying to back the trailer up 50 yards so I took the next offramp and got on old 66 heading west. And I went right by the Will Rogers Highway sign that I did not get a picture of 2 years ago. There was no way back onto the freeway so the bike, trailer and I went off roading through the grass and back onto I-40. Got the sign picture and then took the offramp again to get the Will Rogers picture. Then decided to stay on old 66 for awhile and saw a sign proclaiming it to be the Roger Miller highway. I guess Oklahoma is somewhat indecisive. Picked up another BBQ in Weatherford, OK and then played the toll booth game all the way to Missouri. I did not see any BBQ places along I-44, just plenty of adult video stores. My friends the Mooneys had pasta waiting for me when I arrived and had the tv tuned to the Las Vegas supercross which had just started. Great friends!! Today was a 15 hour, 900 mile day. I wanted to be able to spend some time with Vicki on Sunday morning as she would be leaving fo work at noon on Sunday.