622 miles, 10 hours.

After figuring things out last night, we planned on sending Tamara home from the local airport- the flight was at 2pm. We went out for a morning walk (in the rain) and went to a downtown mall called the Tower City Center. We needed breakfast and a large duffel bag for Tamara to take her riding and camping gear home in.

The Tower City Center is a major hub for Cleveland, but we didn't find anything other than breakfast; the shops didn't open for another couple of hours, and none of them looked like they'd have a cheap duffel bag. We went back to the hotel, and Tamara suggested we find a Target on the way to the airport. Good idea! So, we packed and went down to the bike, then sorted through "her stuff" and "my stuff" so we wouldn't have to do much of that after we left the parking garage.

Target was a good choice- we found a huge duffel bag for under $20. Since it was raining and we were standing in a strip mall parking lot, we quickly loaded things into it, then pondered how to get the duffel bag wedged on the bike for the 10-mile jaunt to the airport. I put it on the topcase and then gave Tamara the shoulder strap. It seemed to work well. I rode to the airport and dropped Tamara off curbside. It was sort of uneventful, but I didn't want to be in the rain any longer than I had to.

My next stop was about 20 miles south at Rick Roush Motorsports. Even though it was a large shop, they only had about five rainsuits to choose from- not five models, but five TOTAL. I ended up choosing a two-piece Vega suit that was a size large, since the only medium I found wasn't quite big enough to go over all of my gear. The large was certainly too large, but I didn't have a lot of choices.

Once I put on the rainsuit, I opened the throttle and headed west. Slabbing across the middle of America isn't fun, especially in the rain. After the first hour or two, the rain slacked off enough that I was able to remove and stow the rainsuit. It's amazing how much easier riding is when you don't have so many layers on.

After a couple of minor stops, I was into rural Illinois. Through a combination of factors (high speeds + winds = bad MPG, not to mention stupidity) I ran out of gas. I was completely surprised- I hadn't been watching the tripmeter or gas gauge, and my mental tripmeter hadn't started worrying yet. I normally get 250 miles out of a tank, but I ran out around 150 miles. So instead of 50mpg, I was getting under 30mpg- ouch! No wonder I hadn't been paying attention to the tripmeter.

Of course, getting gas was an Adventure, and not in a good way. I coasted to a stop under an overpass and rolled the bike off the freeway. In fact, I was able to hide it behind the concrete support posts, like police would do if they were trying to catch speeders. That kept the semi trucks from getting worried and changing lanes because they saw a bike on the shoulder. I then removed all of my moto gear and changed into walking shoes- the GPS said the nearest gas station was at least 3 miles away.

I then climbed up the embankment to the top of the overpass. The road going over it was just a chipseal road, and the GPS called it "county road 5" or some similar thing. That wasn't promising. So I started walking towards the supposed gas station.

There were signs of life at the first house I went past- a bonfire and hammering coming from the roof. So I walked around the house until I found the occupants. After some discussion with them, the woman (we'll call her Mary and him Matt) came off the roof, clutching two beers. She said they didn't have any gas- the only nearby gas can was for a two-stroke weed eater (that's what Mary does for a living, apparently), and they had a car with zero gas in it, since neither of them can legally drive- apparently Matt will go back to prison if he drives. Mary tried calling some of her friends and didn't have any luck finding someone that could help.

Fearing I would be used as an ingredient in their meth cooking operation, I excused myself and continued down the road. About a mile past Matt and Mary Meth's house, I saw a house with a bunch of farm equipment outside. I figured that was a good sign- farmers usually have gas for their equipment. I knocked on the door of the small house but nobody answered, so I figured I'd wander back toward the barns to see if I could find anyone. Luckily, a light was on in the shop.

It turned out to be the guy who owns the place- we'll call him Quincy. He was a fabricator, and the farm equipment in the yard were pieces he needed to repair. Whatever the reason, I was glad he was working on a Friday evening (it was about 7pm at this point). He was more than willing to help by giving me a gallon of gas, even finding an old oil jug to put it in (so I wouldn't have to return a gas can to him). Once he heard I was a ways away, he offered to drive me back to the bike. I took him up on it, and offered him $10 for the gallon of gas. He didn't want to take it, but I told him "please, take it so you will be willing to help the NEXT guy that needs help." He agreed to that.

Quincy was a typical Midwest farmer. He was equally lean and quiet. He obviously put a premium on conversation and didn't really want to waste it on me. It isn't that he was rude or didn't like me- he was friendly, yet was more than happy to remain silent. We rode back to the bike in near-silence, which was a little difficult for my OCD mind. I thanked Quiet Quincy for the ride, then began filling the bike and getting ready to get on the road again.

I figured I'd keep riding west until I got too tired or something. Well, the "something" ended up being rain. As I got west of St. Louis it started to rain fairly heavily. I found a cheap motel and decided to call it a night (it was past 10pm). I checked into the motel, then turned on the Weather Channel. It turns out that Hurricane Ike was headed north, dumping tens of inches of rain as it went. However, the rain I was entering was another wet front that was happening before the hurricane came through. I had just barely reached the front of it- I'm glad I called it a night!

Really, I can't complain about the rain too much. Most of the day was dry- I ended up running 400+ miles out of 622 miles in the dry. Tomorrow's going to be wet too, but it's "headed east" so hopefully I will miss at least some of it by sleeping as it passes over.