The weather was nice and sunny but a tad cool as we headed west on I-74. The traffic was light and we made good time. Our first stop was just past Champain/Urbana for fuel and to stretch our legs or as it's known in the world of motorcyclist "a butt break" :-). Here is Jany catching up on messages.
We stopped again in Decatur Illinois at Cracker Barrel for another break and a nice dinner. We made it to Litchfield Illinois and found our motel before it got dark.
Rudee and I checked out the pool and was disappointed that they didn't have a hot tub. We tried to swim but the water was just too cold for us so we gave up after just a quick dip.
Saturday morning was very grey and overcast. The weather was supposed to be nice today. What happened?? We all took advantage of the free motel breakfast and since Illinois is on Central time and Indiana is on Eastern we found ourselves with some extra time to kill before the rally opened up (oops).
The rain started while we were eating breakfast and continued most of the day. The temps never really warmed up either. We all put on our rain gear and, leaving the bikes covered in the motel parking lot, walked the block or two down to Neihaus Honda.
The dealership was having their customer appreciation celebration all weekend. They have vendors set up in their parking lot as well as special deals on motorcycles and accessories. We walked through all the vendors and made a few small purchases. Rudee and I looked at some of the bikes for sale but nothing "blew her skirt up" so no new motorcycle this trip :-(.
We decided to leave around noon and rode over to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. We made quite a sight at the restaurant, all four of us were dripping wet and shedding our helmets and rain suits. after lunch we got "dressed" again and headed south on the interstate for our 200 mile ride to Sikeston Missouri. The rain continued until we got just south of St. Louis when it finally quit. The sky was still overcast and the temperature never made it out of the 50's, not the greatest riding weather but we were having fun.
Our destination was Lambert's Restaurant "home of the throwed rolls" and we didn't even stop to check into our motel, we rode straight to the restaurant and got there about 6pm "our time".
Lambert's is quite the place. They serve huge meals of good old southern style cooking. They also have what they call "pass arounds". Waiters and Waitress' walk through the restaurant with pots full of fried Okra, macaroni and tomatoes, fried potatoes and sorghum. Then there is the "roll guy". He pushes a cart around with fresh baked, hot yeast rolls. All you have to do is raise your hand but be ready to catch it because, even if he is across the room, he'll zing a hot roll to you. They are delicious and you have to be careful or you'll fill up on rolls and not have room for anything else.
We all ate too much and waddled out to the bikes. Good thing we only had a mile or so to ride back to the motel :-). Rudee and I tried to get into the pool again but wimped out when the water got above our ankles, brrrrrrrr too cold for us!! We just gave up and went back to our room and went to bed.
Sunday was another cool overcast day and it looked like it would start raining at any moment. We were going to ride to Evansville Indiana (another 200 miles) and spend the night there.
We stayed off the interstate and road on US 60 from Sikeston all the way to Henderson Kentucky where we turned north onto US41 and crossed into Evansville Indiana. We had a nice relaxing ride and was able to stay dry all day.
We found our motel and after checking in we rode over to the Aztar Casino Boat which sits on the Ohio river in downtown Evansville. This is one of the first casino boats allowed in Indiana and is showing it's age. The newer ones are larger and have more up to date machines but we did enjoy our 2 hour gambling trip. None of us won any big $$ but we didn't lose much either. Rob and Jany's daughter attended college here so they took the lead and took us to a nice German Restaurant for supper. We had a nice meal but didn't try any of the more exotic menu items.
Monday morning the weather was more of the same, overcast and gloomy. The temperature dropped some during the ride. We started out in the low 60's but it was down into the 50's before we got 1/2 way home. The rain also started and came down pretty hard at one point. We followed Runions all the way to Brownsburg so we could pick up our mail. We had a great week end even if the weather was not as nice as we had hoped for.
Rudee and I will get back into the swing of things at work this week (yuck). We don't have any real plans for this week end but I'm sure we'll be up to something, I'll keep you posted.
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