Day 20 is in the book, and we are in McCook Nebraska, at the Cobblestone Hotel. Fortunately there is a bar in the lobby, and there are cold rocky mountains in the cooler and Monkey is the last to show, so that means he gets the bar tab!
This morning Ski Doo, Hedgie and Brother Rick found the Waffle House next to the hotel for breakfast. Good choice compared to the “complimentary” breakfast bar that was available at the Clarion. I should have had the All Star Breakfast with hashbrowns all the way (hashbrowns with ham, mushrooms, green peppers cheese, chili and breakfast gravy) them, instead of the imitation eggs and sausage links that were offered.
Anywho, we had agreed last night that we were not setting a hard departure time this morning. We were ready for a bit of rest, and a more leisurely take off. I took the time to write yesterday’s stupid blog, and I don’t know what the others did with their time off. I know Hedgie didn’t do any of the prep work he wanted to do on his bike, because he waited until about 10 minutes before we decided to leave to do the maintenance. His exhaust pipe puts off so much heat on his HD Panamerica that he coolant hose had started to get some heat damage. Him & Monkey rode down to the local auto parts store to get some exhaust tape to wrap it.
It was about 11:45am when we finally departed Ft Collins, in the eastbound direction, towards Nebraska. While Hedgie and Monkey were gone on a parts run, we stood by the bikes and bantered about what our goals were for the day. We both agreed we’d be happy if we just got 150-180 miles down the road, and called it good.
About 100 miles in, we stopped in Sterling, CO, for a bite bit of lunch at the River City Grill. We took the time to download the Idaho State Lottery Commission app so I could scan the 110 or so Mega Millions tickets we had. We turned 400$ into 14$. We also discussed our continued path, and decided the extra rest this morning did wonders for us, and we all felt we should run more about 250 miles today.
Ski Doo got his techno fingers working on his cell phone and determined that McCook Nebraska fit the ticket, so to speak. We switched time zones again, and are now in the Central time zone, and got in right around 6pm.
We stopped at the Welcome to Nebraska sign for the obligatory photo op, and proceeded on from there down the long straight roads thru more crop fields and so on and such. We got a little excitement after we started our progression. Ski Doo & Hedgie lined up on the paved, deserted, road and a little full throttle blast, KTM vs Harley. Looked pretty close for me to judge. But I got to have a little fun too. They didn’t see me twist the throttle behind them and I jumped into the un-coming traffic lane (oxymoron, there was no oncoming traffic) and when they shut down, I stayed in it and blasted right past Ski Doo. As we got back to normal running speed he pulled up beside me and gave me the thumbs up, and said I got him good on that one, he had no idea I was out there until I blew by him and scared the bejeezus our of him.
But the excitement was not done yet. Ski Doo & I were out front, when we realized Monkey & Hedgie were no longer behind us. We pulled over in a deserted old drive, and just then Monkey was calling Ski Doo on the blue tooth. We had to turn around and go back. Hedgie’s dash had lit up like the northern lights and his bike was in limp mode again. Oh boy.
By the time we got back on the scene, Hedge had already turned off and reset his bike and the dash went back to normal. We took a couple minutes to figure out how to clear the error codes in the diagnostic screen, and down the boring road we went.
Not much to write about since then, the roads are boring and much like North Dakota. The weather is favorable, high of about 91 my dash told me. There is a storm front behind us, that will determine our departure in the morning.
We are pretty much in get home mode, I believe. There is not much scenery here or Griswaldy things to do between here and there. Now don’t confuse that with we are going to rush or anything, we have the attention span of a pack of squirrels, we could change direction at any moment.
We shall see.
Bye for now,
Stick