talerider On Friday 07 July, three weeks from this post, at 0730, I begin my summer journey of 2,624 miles.
The purpose of this journey is to visit a friend in Belleville, IL, then jet down to Lousiville, KY, for Imaginarium, motor directly to Colorado Springs for the Rockey Mountain Fiction Writers Retreat, and end the journey with a two-day stay in Dodge City, visiting the spirits of the Old West. And all of this on Baby Blue, my 2008 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Class.
I’ve spent a year planning the routes and the towns at which I’ll be spending the night: 21 days on the road; 11 different cities.
Mapping the trip has been fun, interesting, and vexing. A few times I thought I had my routes and stops well planned, so I printed the map for each day.
Every so often I’d pull out the maps to look them over, and I’d discover a problem with a particular route: sometimes Google Maps had me on an interstate when a state highway was the same distance and took the same amount of time.
Sometimes, I noticed the length of a day’s ride was more than I like to spend on two wheels. I try to keep my two-wheel daily journey to 250 miles. Not a far distance, but one that allows me time to stop to visit some of the small towns that the interstates have forgotten about. I’ve met some interesting people and experienced some interesting sites.
Plus, at my age (68) I have OMBS* and have to stop more often to allow my body to expend the extra water I had taken in at the previous stop to hydrate myself.
Although I average 35-40 MPG, I don’t let the five-gallon tank get too low. When the odometer hits 120-130 miles, I stop to fill up. I’ve been on a few long stretches of state and county roads that had no gas stations for many, many miles. Although I carry an extra 1/3 gallon of gas in one of my saddlebags, I don’t want to run out of gas in the middle of a rural area that looks like a scene from a Stephen King horror novel.
So, I stop often to drain and hydrate myself and to fill up Baby Blue.
I leave at 0730 on 07 July from my Lawton, OK, home. The first couple of miles of Journey 2023 are on I-44 because that’s the only way to get to the state highways I’ll travel on the rest of the day.
My first day’s trek takes me through the Oklahoma towns of Apache, Verden, Okarche, Kingfisher, Cushing, Hominey, Bartlesville, and, finally, Coffeyville, KS, where I will spend the night.
This first day is 314 Miles, 5 hrs 55 mins. I’m going beyond my 250 because I’ve always wanted to visit Coffeyville–where the Wild Bunch, also known as the Oklahombres, finally met their end when they tried to rob two banks at one time. I’ll have a bit of time to visit some of the historical sites and meet some of the people.
Perhaps I’ll meet the two Bills–Dalton and Doolin.
Be well and at Peace. Safe Rides,
TaleRider
*OMBS: Old Man Bladder Syndrome
