Rain, it isn't raining here is it...?

So this morning when I was up at 5 AM and it was still sprinkling outside, I mentally wrote off the ride on the bike for today......  Now fully un encumbered   with the thought of having to go somewhere, I went back to sleep like a baby....

I awoke in a start looking at almost 9 AM,  ..........in the fully bathed beauty of the sunshine in my room.......     Sunshine???  It was raining.........!

Well no problem the lunch is at 11 and it is only 70 miles down to Melvern...  But that was to be the first of many failed decisions for the day...  I dressed with my yellow green shirt and long pants and headed to the kitchen...

Loyce was already up and knew in a heartbeat that I was going to go...  I kind of fooled around and it was almost 10 AM before I had the bike out of the garage and we were off....  Mistake number two...

It seemed to be a nice day so I thought that riding down interstate 35 would be a pain and not as enjoyable so I turned South on US 169..... Mistake number 3...

As I passed the town of Spring Hill, I noticed that the sky was becoming gray ahead of me, and that there were still some clouds......... Aw heck...  But I had put my rain liner on under my outer mesh coat and I had my full face helmet..

By the time I reached Paola, it was sprinkling.... And I tried to turn West to get out of the darker sky...  A good idea, but the road curved around and took me right back to the highway I just got off of...  And before long I was in Osawatomie..   and it was raining hard.... I pulled off into town as I thought I was to leave on a road to the West of there...

In the rain, I never was able to see well enough to find the road, and ended up again going South out of town... Wrong again....!   Eventually I just turned West on any blacktop going that way...  No number or name..  that I could see.

And that worked until I came to a really small town named Lane....  And the road ended against the Marais Des Cygnes River (Marsh of the Swans in French)....  I stopped and got out the GPS from under the seat....

It was already on and knew where we were, but didn't exactly know the easiest rout to where we wanted to go....  It had me backtracking all the way back to Ottawa and then going down the interstate to the exit South of Melvern and then going North for several Miles to get into town....  A sum of 50 miles....  Heck we weren't more than about 10 miles away as the crow would fly...

But it did show that if I went North out of this town and turned West on a small road, I would be over the pesky river...  So I followed along that way, even thought it wasn't the route the GPS wanted...  Now we followed the river here and there as it wandered on the North side of the banks...

Eventually it stopped raining, and I picked up speed....  But still I had to turn North on US 59 back toward Ottawa...  And I looked down and was mostly out of gas....  Do you see a pattern here.....?  I got gas at the next town, and turned West...

That road eventually took me to old 50 and another town with an interchange on the Interstate, but I hoped the road beyond would take me due West, and it would have too, but it was gravelly dirt.....  I gave up and got on the interstate headed Southwest....  By now very late and glad that the travel speed was 75...

This time I followed the GPS exactly, even though it was seemingly farther... But the last error became apparent as I met a bunch of motorcycles headed the other way...   The guys from the luncheon were on their way home...!

The town was small, and there wasn't a bike in the entire downtown...  The lady inside the cafe said they all left about 10 minutes ago......  I just shook my head and walked out....

I rode over by the tailwater COE campground on Melvern lake, that we camp at on sunny weekends, and then turned South to the Interstate where I knew the truck stop had a WENDY'S!!

The return trip was right up the Interstate, where I followed a slower semi and let all the fast traffic buzz right on by...   Still we were going 70 or better..

So I rode 180 miles today, much of it in the rain on the highway, in order to eat by myself in a truckstop Wendy's..  But I looked at it this way as I was cruising along on the way home...  Any day riding a bike on the open road, is a better day than sitting around at home by myself watching the tube....

Loyce was at a quilting lab over at the local fabric store for much of the afternoon, and I ended up over at Wal Mart Pharmacy attempting to straighten out the prescriptions emailed in by the Doctor yesterday...

And after that pleasant task, the rainy riding time looked like a walk in the park...

Retired Rod