5am, Rise and Shine. Most of the workers are hauling out of the parking lot and going to the new power plant that is being constructed in the area. Now we know why the hotels are full. There are a few people left in the hotel that had big nights and we made sure that we let them know we were leaving. Dennis especially reving the engine as he prepared to leave. He was greeted with some obcenities and a demand to turn it off. To which he revved it louder.
Ricky and I are at the front desk and bob it telling us how to recover from our little detour. He also gave us free breakfasts so we wandered into the cafe and waited on Allen and the Billy Goat to show up. While we were there, Ricky tried to set the waitress up to calling Dennis a Billy Goat, but she would have no part of that. Some local farmers rolled in one by one and sat down. One of them has a moped and asked if we thought he should ride it up to Sturgis. We told him ut would take at least a week but we would have the beer on ice for him when he arrived and we would say goodbye as we would be leaving for home. They decided that my camelback was a parachute. I told them that the guys pulled the cord when they wanted to slow me down.
It is going to be a dry day today. Just how dry we had no idea. Off we go again for yet another Harley dealer which we located in Jonesboro. Another $140. for a shifter rod and Allen has his bike ready to go. Phil had called and we found that he only made it another hour further than we had. He told us to go on and he would catch up.
We are having a great ride through the pepper farms, tobacco fields and What is this??? Rice fields??? All the teasing I get because of my rice burner.
Just cruising along, seeing some great scenery, we finally found Phil around lunch time and off again we went. But it is HOT. I mean really HOT! The sign said 97 degrees and that was around 11am. So we are stopping every hour and a half. At some point in the early afternoon we are stopping more frequently. You can feel the heat coming off the pavement. Ricky is not looking too good and just flat out refuses to keep going. "Can't I get another hundred miles out of you"? I ask. "Nope, I'm done", he says. I look at Allen, he says "I'm with Ricky". Dennis and I are getting a little frustrated that we can't get some mileage behind us. We've gone a good distance but no where near where we need to be at this point of our journey. Still 500 miles to go to get to our destination for the night. There's just no way we're going to make it. It was decided to stop early, get a good nights sleep and kick it hard real early in the morning. So we stopped on the south side of Kansas City and probably everyone is asleep but me at this point but that is only matter of moments. We plan to be out of here at the crack of dawn and ride as hard as we can for Hill City. Still 752 miles till we get there and we might not make it tomorrow. Glenn, Dion, and Jill rolled into Hill City this evening but since we don't get the lodge until Saturday, they will have to find a place for the night.
