June 15 Day 19

Where are Tom and Lennie Now? -Click Here For Our Current Location

No photos for today, just a little info on how our day went.

This morning we woke up and while we were getting ready, Lennie turned on the news on TV. We learned that our route change yesterday paid off, the news was reporting that Oklahoma City received 7.25 inches of rain yesterday !!! There is a lot of flooding, and the reporters where calling the area Soaklahoma City. So, the decision yesterday was a good one.

However, this morning, outside our window in Wichita, it was pouring down rain. A look at radar showed that it was a small rain cell and would pass quickly. So, we packed the bike and trailer and within the hour, we were on our way.

The forecast was pretty wet looking for the whole day. We were able to get the first 100 miles behind us before we hit some showers and had to put on our rain suits. Around Kansas City it was pretty dicey, the rain was coming down pretty hard, and the traffic around that town was heavy. Lots of people jockeying around between lanes, and lots of stop and go type stuff. You have to drive like everyone out there it trying to run you over. :)

Between Kansas City and St. Louis, we had a few small rain cells, including one that was pretty heavy, but most of the that area was ok. As we got closer to St. Louis, we looked at radar, and determined that we could stop for gas, and shed our rain suits for the remainder of the ride. Which is good, since the rain suits, along with the high humidity, are pretty uncomfortable.

The last hurdle of the day was St. Louis. Of course, we hit that area about 5:45 PM, and rush hour was still going full blast !! We had a lot of crawling along in first gear areas, a lot of dead stop areas, and a ton of cars weaving in and out of lanes vying for position :) A real pain in the rear for a bike with a trailer. Things finally started moving along and traffic got lighter, and soon we were back up to full speed heading east on Rt 70. We eventually crossed the Mississippi River, and headed on to Effingham, Illinois for the night.

We did see the Kansas City Royals stadium, along the road earlier in the day. Oh, and a bunch of corn!! Not much else out this way. We did notice that there were a lot of farms that are flooded in the midwest area.

Tomorrow we have one more ~500 mile day, and we will arrive back home !!!

Both Lennie and I have to work on Thursday and Friday, so I will likely not make the final blog updates for the trip until over the weekend. I'll add a map of the entire route, fuel data, etc, for anyone interested.

Below is our route from today, we covered 542 miles, bringing our current trip total to 5896 miles.