Friday, September 4….
Left
the campground at 11 a.m. and arrived at Marshal’s about 6:30 p.m. It was
supposed to be another 300 mile/5 hour run, but Kim and I never seem to be able to keep on Google's time schedule, despite driving the speed limit and sometimes a bit more. Of course, the time component is never correct because Google Maps
doesn’t take into account that a person needs to eat, get fuel or sometimes just stop to use a
bathroom. While we factor in eating, gassing up, etc., when estimating how long it'll take, we don’t factor in road construction, rush hour or the fact that Kim’s pulling
a trailer. Today we kept moving and still managed to be two hours off target. Bah!!
Last
night, it actually cooled down enough that it was pleasant sitting about 3 feet
from a dying fire. Still a bit warm
inside the tent, but with the fan and the ‘windows’ open, we both had a
pleasant night’s sleep. It cooled down even
more throughout the night, enough to cover up with a light blanket. Woke
up to a gray overcast day and had the thought that maybe today wouldn’t be as
hot. Wrong!!! As soon as the sun broke through, the heat
was on!
My issue with the GPS…..I know I’ve written
previously about my frustration with traveling strictly by GPS. This is our
process when traveling: Kim and I talk
about where we’re headed for that day, keeping in mind the overall direction of
the entire ride. That means taking a
good look at the map…not only to see the basic route we’re going but also to see
how we can stay off the freeways, etc.
In the course of doing that, I spend a good deal of time looking at the
map….I know what we’ve talked about, the route we’ve looked at….and that sort
of stuff sticks in my brain. Comes from
years of traveling by map, I guess. Kim uses
‘Phil’ as a navigational tool….Phil being the name I gave the Google map app person on his
phone. And since Phil is not in on any
of our discussions, when Kim tells him to ‘Go to …..’, he just plots the route that
he thinks is best. And that’s not
necessarily what Kim and I have talked about when looking at the map. I had a GPS ‘aha’ moment yesterday on the way
to the campground. We’d scoped out a
route to South Bend and I had that map in my head. Once we got to the Indiana border, we were
gonna turn to Phil for help. But when we
stopped at a rest area a few miles out of Kalamazoo, Kim plugged in the address
of the campground…and Phil was in control.
He took us a different route than we had planned….it wasn’t a bad route,
it was just a bit more convoluted. But we arrived at our intended destination
and you can’t argue with that. So, what this comes down to is I have to turn
off the map in my head…that was my ‘aha’ moment. Now I don’t know exactly how to do that but I’ll
have a lot of miles on this ride for practicing. And I do have to say that I appreciate how a
GPS can navigate us through an intricate city route….but sometimes its
directions are the reason we wandered into the city to begin with. But that’s another issue….. J
Had lunch
at a little diner today. When we walked
in, I headed straight for the bathroom so all I noticed was that it was a busy
place...I didn’t notice the two women sitting
together having lunch. As we were finishing up our meals, the lady sitting in the booth
behind me (who appeared to be a local) asked two different waitresses if those
two women that had been sitting over there were sisters or you know….lesbians.
Both waitresses said they didn’t know, but they came in a lot and
whether they were sisters or not just never came up. “Not that it matters, and maybe they’re just
sisters, because my friend has two sisters who never married and they just
lived together into their old age and did everything together. But that one woman was dressed sort of
masculine, but that doesn’t really mean anything either….blah, blah, blah…..” As the woman rattled on, I’m sure she
thought she was being discreet and not the least bit judgmental. I’d say wrong on both counts, lady.
To me, Indiana
is a solid 300 miles of boring. Top to
bottom, boring…..but to be honest, I probably feel that way because it stands
between me and the KY Bakkers. It’s not
the farmland, it’s not the flatness, it’s just the miles. J Anyway, while the driving is boring, we
did see signs for cities that piqued my interest: Miami, Mexico and Peru. Don’t know what the cities have to offer but
their names caught my attention.
I am not a
sun person…I have fair skin and I burn easily. When riding, I use sunscreen and reapply throughout
the day. I found a brand that worked okay
but my dermatologist recommended a new sunscreen….well, actually, she recommended
keeping my arms covered while riding. Some
days that’s doable and some days it’s too blasted hot to have long sleeves on. Today was not a long sleeve day…today wasn’t even
a short sleeve day….had my shirt sleeves pulled up and tucked under my bra straps.
My assessment after a day in the sun…sunscreen seems to have worked…my arms have
a little redness but no heat and no pain so far. But when I look in the mirror, it looks like I
either forgot to put it on my chin or that I wiped it off during the course of the
day. Oh, well…..
Observations from the road:
*Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee all have
towns named Shelbyville
*Riders on sport bikes (crotch rockets) seem to ride
by different rules
*Riders on sport bikes seem to have a disregard for
speed limits
*Clouds are a blessing on a hot sunny day
If a person has an aversion to getting dirty, then
getting on a motorcycle would not be in their best interest. Being out on the open road, feeling the wind
in your face, being exposed to the elements is not the way to stay clean….especially
if you’ve put sunscreen on. J
Today’s mileage:
311 miles Total
mileage: 598 miles
Get your motor running and head out on the highway. (Steppenwolf)
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