We started off in Clarksville, Indiana....just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky.  The last day of our trip.  The weather in Clarksville was a little foggy with light rain.  Nothing major, but rain gear was required.  We took I-65 all they way up, through Indianapolis.  We stopped a few times for gas, and besides taking some time to reflect on the trip, the only thing that really stood out was the WIND on I-65.  It was freakin' WINDY!   Even Brian on his bike that outweighs mine by 600 pounds said he was getting blown around a bit.  There were a couple of time when we passed trucks that I felt like I was going to get blown off the road.  It was a little unnerving.

Outside of the wind at points, the rest of the ride was just reeling in miles and keeping gas in the tank.  I did finally have the opportunity to justify carrying my tool kit with me, however.  Not anything the bike per se, but with the tubes that I mounted on the side of my top box (the action packer).  One of the nuts had come off the bolt, so it was hanging by one bolt while I cruised down the highway.  Luckily, the way they were designed, the bolt was somewhat captive by the screw on top, and the nut and washer simply fell inside the box.  So it was just a matter of putting the nut back on and tightening it (and the other 3 while I was at it).  Quick fix.

After a week of packing stuff and fighting with the space limitations, I came to a realization today.  What I discovered was that I can always fit "one more thing" into my tank bag or action packer (top box).  Especially the action packer....you just need to press harder, and not get concerned if the side looks like it may burst at the top....just put the locks on and roll!

After stopping for lunch in Merriville, Indiana, Brian and I decided we'd get back up on crazy I-65 and took it to 80.  He warned me about the crazy drivers on I-65, and he wasn't kidding.  That was a free-for-all.  From there he got off at LaGrange Road and I contiued on to 355.  Traffic was okay until I got onto 355.  From there on, I just turned the music up on my bluetooth headset, twisted the throttle and put the hammer down all the way home.  Since I was wondering how much gas I had left and didn't want to have to switch to reserve after the engine died at speed, I reached down and switched to reserve before I needed to.  If I ran out of gas, I was really out of gas in the tank.  But I still had my two 30 ounce MSR fuel bottles in the tubes on my top box.  Riding at higher speeds on my bike really affects the gas mileage.  The 70mpg that I was getting in the mountains was a distant memory.  Hammering along at 70mph at sea level was giving me more like mid 40's and I was going to need about 100 miles to get home.  With 96 miles on the tank, I pulled into the gas stations a couple miles from my house.  Surprisingly, it only took 1.6 gallons to fill up.  I got better mileage than expected.  We were taking it pretty easy the last leg before Brian and I parted ways at LaGrange road.  When I got home, I unloaded the amazing amount of stuff that I was able to fit on my little "dirtbike".  I was happy to see that my large folded map of Cherohala Skyway was still in good shape, which is amazing considering how I continually jammed stuff in that thing on the way home today, and really all week long.  I lubed my chain, and in doing so I noticed some links that were a bit kinked.  Probably time for a new chain.  But the bike kept it all together for me.  It was an amazing trip with a good friend.  Brian and I always have fun together...even when things get tense we can always laugh about it later.  It helps that we're both young at heart.  Before we left Clarksville this morning, Brian was already talking about our next trip.  Who knows.....

2,036.7

Home.  2,036.7 miles.  I'll post the final update tonight.

Merriville - lunchtime

Stopped in Merriville for lunch.   Not long after this, Brian and I will part ways...where 80 and 355 come together.   It's been a great trip.  Final blog entry tonight.   Out for now.

Last leg...

Well, it's the last day of our long journey.   We just walked over the the same Denny's where we met the interesting truck driver on our first night.  He's not here today though.   Pretty sure he's a regular as the waitress asked us last time if he was bothering us. 

After we eat, we'll do a final packing of the bikes, check oil, lube my chain, and hit I-65. 

It's a little foggy now...not bad.   Light rain, and reasonable sounding weather.  Rain suits again, but passing on the water logged "waterproof" gloves.  I have a theory about why they got wet....I think I should have put my rain suit sleeves OVER the gloves, instead of inside.  Next time, I'll test that theory.

Food is here.....more later.

Here's the scoop

The plan today was to just hammer out miles.  400 to be specific.  One for each cc of my motorcycle.  Haha.  If this bike gets me home tomorrow, I'll have done over 2,000 miles on it in a week.  Many of them interstate.  It's done it all though.  Back roads, gravel roads, up and down mountains for 4 days. 

 Today our ride started out in Marion, North Carolina.  Almost immediately we hopped on I40 and headed towards Asheville, which was about 40 miles from where we started.   We headed up into Pisgah National Forest and into thick fog.  Dejavu' from yesterday, at higher speeds.  Luckily that didn't last too long...maybe 5 miles.  Then we rolled through Asheville and followed I40 through the mountains and up towards Knoxville. 

 We stopped for gas in Knoxville and I had thought about taking off my rain gear, connecting my phone to my bluetooth headset for some music, putting my sunglasses on, and taking a layer of clothing off.  I didn't do any of those things when we stopped.  Haha.  On the road again, and another gas stop in Williamsburg, Kentucky.  We gassed up, grabbed some junk food to hold us until we could get to Clarksville and have a large lunch/dinner.  At this point, I told Brian I was thinking of taking my rain gear off.  I pulled a thermal shirt off, and checked the radar.  As we were doing this a guy in a pickup truck started talking to Brian.  A few minutes later Brian walked over and said, "That guy is with the local fire department and he said some nasty weather is on the way.  If we put the hammer down he thinks we might make it to Lexington.   So much for ditching the rain gear.  

So we jump back on I75 and I led the way so Brian would know how fast I felt I could go without blowing my bike up.  Typically, I try to hold it to 72mph indicated, which is really 65mph actual.   But I wanted to beat this weather, so I wicked up that throttle and held 77-80mph indicated for 70 miles.  Just as we got started up, I realized (or thought that I realized) that I hadn't closed the cuffs on my rainsuit very tightly.  Damn it!   I thought to myself, "Oh well, not worth losing time" and hammered on.  Then something hit the shield of my helmet.  I thought it was a bug.  Normally I wouldn't pay much attention, but it was right in the center of my shield.  So I wiped at it with my glove, but it didn't wipe off.  Then it MOVED....it was on the INSIDE of my shield.  And it was a spider.  Just great...I have a damn spider INSIDE my helmet and I'm hammering down the road at 70mph.   The cuffs being loose I could take, but not a damn spider in my helmet.  So I tried to get Brian's attention to pull over, and finally did.  We pulled over and I told him that I had to tighten my cuffs and I had a spider in my helmet.  After I got my helmet off, I realized that my cuffs WERE in fact tightened, so that was a false alarm.  As far as the spider, I never found it....for all I know it's still living in my helmet.  What could I do?  I strapped it back on and got ready to pull back on the highway.  We got back on, after almost getting squashed by a semi in our lane.  That would've been just great.  After the spider and semi fiasco, we hammered for 70 miles and got back on the road.  I told Brian I was going to back off a bit because my mileage sucked when we held it that high.

It started raining around Richmond, about 15 miles after our gas stop.  Riding behind Brian, I see him put his turn signal on to exit the highway.  

We pulled over and I asked him "What's up?"

He said, "I can't SEE"

I replied, "But OTHER than that, everything's ok" and stated laughing.

He didn't laugh, and said, "I don't know how you do it"

I admitted, "Dude, I can't see shit either....I'm just using the force"  Haha.

So we wiped our visors down (mine inside and out!), dried my glasses, and we were back on the road.   I was really struggling with fogging on the inside of my shield....but didn't want to open my shield and let it get wet inside and get my glasses wet.

Back on the road again, we soldiered on again for 20 miles or so and Brian pulled off at a rest stop.  

The rain was really heavy.  We jockeyed around the parking area (going the wrong way to get where we wanted to be, and me riding a stretch through the grass to point my bike the way I wanted it).  Brian said I almost ran him over, but he was standing right where I wanted to go and it wasn't that close.  I was trying not to crack up, thinking about something that happened yesterday (and other days, but I just noticed the pattern yesterday) that makes me crack up every time I think about it. 

 Here's what happened...and I can't believe I forgot to mention this.  We were taking an alternate way back from the Blue Ridge Parkway and I was following my GPS directions, even though Brian "knew" the way back.  Instead of following the signs that Brian thought we should be following, the GPS routed me a different way, as it had done in error on other days.   This especially pisses Brian off when the GPS gives bad directions.   So when it happened yesterday, Brian looked at me at a stop light and said, "Why are we going THIS way?"

I replied, "I don't know, the GPS told me to"

Then Brian didn't even say a word, he just gritted his teeth and shook his head back and forth.

(I'm cracking up as I write this)   This has become what I call "Brian's GPS face".

So today while we were riding in the driving rain, trying to stay focused and alert, I thought of Brian's GPS face and started cracking up.  It breaks up the tension.   But I digress...

So we pulled of at the rest stop, and went inside to use the restroom and try our shields and glasses off.  This is probably as good a time as any to talk about rain gear.  My jacket and pants worked well, but even when it's working well, it doesn't take much for some rain to drip down off the helmet and go down your back or front.  So stuff still gets a little wet.  

Our "waterproof" gloves on the other hand are anything BUT "waterproof".  My gloves are freakin' SOAKED.  I have no idea how they call them waterproof.   I held them up to the hand dryer at the rest stop and water was bubbling out the seams.  Nice.  But that's not the best part.  The best part is when you pull them off and the damn fingers come out and you have to fight with them for 10 minutes to get the finger linings back into the fingers of the gloves.  SUPER frustrating.  After this stop, we stopped just one more time to get gas before making the final 40 mile push through Louisville and into Clarksvilled, IN.

I got my "rain mode" figured out.....how to keep my shield fog free and still keep almost all of the water out.  It's kind of nice when you can SEE where you're going while riding in the rain!   As we got into Louisville, the traffic STOPPED.  For the first time in the past week, I felt like I was at home.....in sucky traffic.  We were in stop and go traffic for several miles before Brian pulled off in downtown Louisville.  I thought to myself, "I'm pretty sure he didn't MEAN to go this way".  We pulled over and he told me that he couldn't get over without cutting a bunch of people off (I was ok with cutting them off, personally).  So here we were in 5:30 traffic in downtown Louisville.  I suggested to Brian that I'd use my GPS to find directions to the hotel that avoided tollways and highways.  I did.....and we were only a little over 6 miles from the hotel.  After turning left in front of some cars going straight (oops....wrong lane....thought we were in one of the 2 left turn lanes!), we followed a frontage road and made it to the hotel.

This is the same hotel that we stayed in on the first night.  It's ok....nothing fancy for sure.  Since we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we walked over to the Bob Evans that's about 3/4 of a mile from the hotel and had one good meal.  

When we got back to the hotel, there was some dude in NRA garb at the front desk.  We figured he was here for the NRA convention, so we struck up a conversation with him.  Sure enough, he was a "gun guy".  Instant "good guy" status.  We talked about the NRA convention for a minute or two, but then went on to talk about motorcycles.  He was a "bike guy" too.  He's actually owned 2 DRZ's like mine.  He raved about them and put them on par with the BMW's that he owned.  We chatted at the front desk with him for probably close to a half hour.  He told us about a trip to Alaska that he did.  Interesting guy.  Chip was his name.  

Sorry about the lack of photos/videos today folks....there just aren't any.  We just worked all day to get here.  1,658 miles on my trip odometer so far.....tomorrow is the final day of the trip.  We're planning on leaving a little later....after the morning rain ends.  With any luck, we won't have to ride in the rain again tomorrow.   Until then....signing off.....

Made it to Clarksville

Over 400 miles....the first 30 in mountain fog, the next 170 in the mountains, 90 easy miles, then the final 110 in driving rain.  Finally getting something to eat.  Full story later tonight.

1,500 down

1,500 miles logged now.  Wow.  Just stopped for gas somewhere....about 70 miles past Knoxville.