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| In Search of Open Roads and Starry Nights |
As we headed home from last
year’s Arizona trip, our truck, an F-150, was starting to voice its opinion
about having to pull the trailer loaded with two bikes, etc. Kim started talking about getting a new truck
and while I recognized the need to do something if we were going to continue
trailering the bikes, I couldn’t help thinking about the budget. Around the beginning of January we decided we
could take on a truck payment and then Kim started looking in earnest…for a
Texas truck. And because Marshal has
experience in doing this very thing, Kim tapped into his knowledge. Texas trucks haven’t been exposed to Michigan
winter road salt so the nuts and bolts of it aren’t covered in rust…and because
good used trucks are so plentiful in Texas, buying a truck there is often
cheaper. While the research took a
couple of weeks and many emails between Kim and Marshal, booking flights to get
out there to look at many trucks to buy just one happened in a rush. Toward the end of January, Kim and Marshal
flew to Texas and I drove to Kentucky to hang out with Callie and the kiddos while
the guys were gone. I thought it funny
when 3 year old Clayton informed me that “my Grandpa is in Tech-as and my daddy
went to bring him home”. J Well, his daddy brought Grandpa home
alright…in a fully decked out Ford F-250 King Ranch, apparently known out west
as a cowboy Cadillac. J
It’s a beauty of a truck…only drawback in my eyes is the camel colored
carpet…darker carpet hides the Michigan mud/snow/dirt.
So we’re 600 miles into our
trip with bike trailer in tow and bicycles strapped onto the front and both of
us are very pleased with the performance of this beast of a truck. Acceleration power is immediate, it doesn’t
labor up hills, the ride is much quieter, and it’s got a great sounding stereo!
And now I have to pay attention to a different price at gas stations and talk
in terms of ‘fuel’ instead of ‘gas’.
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| Dylan, Clayton and Shelby |
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| Field in Missouri |
It rained to various degrees all day long
and the ground appears to be saturated in Indiana, Kentucky and eastern
Missouri, which is as far as we made it today.
I would hazard a guess that this part of the country has seen a fair
amount of rain recently. Ditches,
creeks, and rivers of all sizes have overflowed their banks into the surrounding
fields. A kayak would be a more appropriate method of travel than farm
machinery. We encountered an astounding
thunderstorm in Missouri. The rain was
so intense that we pulled over on the side of the road to wait out the worst of
it…Kim commented that it was the rain equivalent of a white out. But it was fast moving and therefore, short
lived….back on the road in a matter of minutes.
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Kim had told me that he really didn’t want to do any Roadside America stops until we left Louisville. So we weren’t far down the road when I turned to my favorite sightseeing guide and started searching. Oh, look! The Everly Brothers were born and raised in a little town up ahead and there’s a monument. Can we stop? It doesn’t look far off the highway. Kim was game so we followed the directions on the app and it wasn’t until we passed the city welcome sign that I said, “Hey, wait! Have we done this before because that sign sure looked familiar?” A ½ mile down the road Kim agreed that we had been there before…when talking about it, we remembered being
on the bikes and never finding the monument.
An unfulfilled quest. And it
appeared we were going to have the same problem this time around; we seemed to
be circling the marker on the map with no luck at finding it. We crested a slight rise in the road only to
realize that it no longer continued on as a road; thankfully we stopped in time
so Kim could back the trailer into a parking lot to get us going back out. I must say at this point that Kim exhibited
great patience with the situation and an even greater skill at maneuvering our
rig around the streets of the little town. J As we were heading back out through town, I
saw the monument on the sidewalk, snugged up against the side of a downtown
building. It was kind of anti-climactic after all the trouble of finding it but
that’s just part of the adventure. J
The rain let up enough to get out for a picture then we headed back out to the
highway at Rapunzel’s insistence.
**A side note on the Everly Brothers:
We saw Simon and Garfunkel in 2003 on their Old Friends Tour…the Everly
Brothers were their special guests and it was a wonderful night of great
music. J
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| Found the Everly Brothers monument |
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