The day came as usual, the Job was over. The last three years had been hard at this company and had put me in I need a real vacation mood. The wife Sheila and I decided to take a road trip to see some family across the U.S. We looked at Toy haulers and were close to buying one instead of riding for two months, Thank the lord for guiding me to the Harley Dealer in Daytona for a new 2018 Ultra Classic Limited.
So we set out on June 01, 2018 for Washington State, there were Graduations being held on June 9th so we were in a bit of a Hurry to get out there. I pulled up Google to see what the fastest route would be and I was figuring out how many miles and where would that put us for every day and then locating hotels, heck it sounds like work, it is. I had it all laid out then I watched the weather, At the time there was what looked like three fronts going through the north and flash flood warnings. In the south a big High pressure heat wave. I thought about it for a while and decided to avoid the storms and just ride and find a place when we got tired of riding. Best Idea of the trip, no real plans.
June 1st we took off from Largo FL and headed up the express way, I like going up US 19 way better than I-75, much more relaxing ride than the Hectic I-75, plus we get to hit the Biscuit Barn for breakfast and see AJ before taking off. I love getting the Sausage egg and cheese biscuit smothered in Gravy.
We were going to try and get as far was possible today since we were fresh on the road and we had 3,300 miles to go, we headed to I-10 and ran I-10 to Louisiana where we ran into our first traffic Jam, it was bad. A truck had flipped over in the bumper to bumper traffic, I set my Navigation to Amarillo TX and avoid highways which then directed us off the stopped highway and we continued on, I was traveling on a decent road called alt-10 and was moving a long at 67, thinking it was 60, I had not seen a sign and the road was pretty desolate, Sun was down and it was dark, no lights. I then saw a sign 55 MPH and I went to hit my brakes, some corn fed swamp rat Sheriff was waiting for me there. I am sure when I-10 is shut down he is waiting right there to write tickets. $145, oh well my bad I gave him the opportunity.
I was done at that point we had put on 756 miles and I was ready for a drink or two. I came up with a new drink tonight Bourbon Coke Float LOL.
We got up the next morning with awesome hangovers and moving slowly, I went down for some free breakfast. We packed up and headed out towards Amarillo TX. It was over 700 miles but we wanted to start getting further north, plus I wanted to have a steak at the Big Texan, just a cool place to go.
So we headed out on I-49, not a real bad road but I was going to be glad to get off of this road, it was one of those speed bumps every 30 yards, just annoying, but the bike was smoothing them out pretty well. We were right in the middle of that High pressure front that was sitting over Texas when we hit Dallas, we were on the outer ring and of course traffic came to a stop. Road construction had snagged up traffic pretty good. My Bike show it to be 106 degrees out and my phone pretty much backed that up, we stopped for gas and stood in the shade for about fifteen minutes drinking water, I looked up Denny’s and we headed for some Shakes to cool off.
After leaving Denny’s we did not get far and the heat just sapped us both, I looked for a cheap hotel and wow did I find out.
We took showers and cooled off, well as good as possible with the AC barely working. Holes in the curtains tile was loose on the floor place was even a bit trashy for me. Floor looked like it had not been vacuumed in month’s lol. Sun went down and we left for Amarillo TX where we got a Holiday Inn express for the night, much better LOL. I was watching the weather and there was two storms blowing in and we would be riding in them tomorrow so we decided to stay in Amarillo for another night to see some of the sites around there and hit The Big Texan.
We also hit the Cadillac Ranch
The next day was a nice morning, we left after a good night’s sleep heading out with no plans of where to stop, just let the navigation take us on towards Washington State, when we left Amarillo I had meant to stop for gas, just to top off the tank, but I guess I was not thinking that I would not see a gas station for 47 miles. Just open highway and hardly a car, was quite nice to be on a backroad highway. But I was down to 50 miles on the Gas left, the cool feature to find a gas station on the bike came in real handy, we didn’t see any towns at all, no signs for a town. The Navigation took us 17 miles out of our way to Dumas TX, yes that is how it is spelt LOL. We found a nice place Alberts Manor House Restaurant, where we had a very good breakfast.
We ventured 500 miles today and that was enough, I do not remember Denver being so big, I really didn’t realize it was Denver till I saw the Stadium. But we made it through there and decided to stay in Loveland CO, we hit a Cracker Barrel and then found a hotel. The Best Western had a Harley wash LOL.
We had some beers in the room and we noticed some people sitting out back in the Pavilion and could not resist the view. We ventured out and met some people enjoying the stay there; they had been there all week and were leaving the next day also, one of them had some Gummy bears he had to get rid of before getting on the Air Plane in the morning. ;?) It was a nice evening hanging out watching the sun go down over the mountains.
