1st Day

NOTE: Trip 1st day is May 16. Blog post date is listed above.
This was planned as the longest day. We're fresh, excited and ready to go. See Terri ready to hit the road in the attached photo. Packing was a real fun experience (as always). Plenty of complaints about how little she can take but mostly in good fun. It's a right of passage on these MC trips for her to comment on the lack of stuff she can take. I did a pre-pack the nite before and discovered our lists were pretty darn close to right. I only had to shuffle a few things and pull out 3 shirts and a couple pair of shorts. Now we're both down to our zip off pants if we need shorts :-)
450 miles and 9.5 hours later we landed in Scottsbluff, NE at the Holiday Inn Express. Actually it wasn't too bad. I listened to XM talk radio, the George Strait channel (17), my beloved bluegrass (14) and the first Crosby, Stills and Nash. The new IMC 7mm speakers fit great in the Shoei.It's always fun traveling I-80 on a motorcycle. You get in those 10 truck-15 cars jam-ups with everyone slowing to 70 behind the one slow truck and RV blocking both lanes. There were strong gusts out of the NE at about 35mph combined with the dirty air behind these crowds leading to lots of fun keeping the bike on the road in a straight line. I kept playing tag with 2 or 3 cars between Lincoln and Ogallala. You know this type of driver: it's light traffic, they could easily pass, I'm at 79 on cruise control and they're at 79.25. So they never quite pass and they're always too close at just that time you need to pass that slow moving truck. I speed up, pass the truck, settle back into the right lane, and this other driver just stays right where they are. It would be so easy for these folks to speed up to 81, pass me and stay out front. But NOOOOOO!
US 26 past Lake McConaughy is very nice after the 300+ miles of interstate. After a long hard winter, it's still a few days early to get the beautiful green springtime grasses. A break at the Oregon Trail Trading Post in Lewellen led to a great cheese/braut and lots of coffee for the final push to S-bluff. The trading post was making plans for the Horse-Bike Festival. Now that could be a good time! Chimney Rock looms out of the plain after several miles. I am fascinated with the history of this location. Almost every pioneer diarist mentions this place. This is an icon of the american pioneer migration. Some say the St. Louis arch is the gateway to the west. I say it's Chimney Rock.
After a soak in the whirlpool we went for margarita's at Ole Mexican next door to the hotel. These were some strong drinks and kicked my butt. Terri ordered somethinig with a star. We asked the waitress what the star meant and she said "it's extra popular". Well she didn't tell us it was habanero based. It was fantastic, but Terri just couldn't handle it. The fried ice cream cooled here down.
Today is about 350 miles to Dubois. We'll see our first mountains. And we'll get into town in mid afternoon with plenty of time to explore and rest.