The bike is sitting quietly in our garage after a long but uneventful trip home from Cedar Rapids, IA.  We rolled for 5,305 miles and saw a lot.  The last stop with our friends happened about 75 miles from home.  We didn’t talk much about the trip.  All of us were anxious to get home but not back to every day life.

We managed to stop at the National Motorcycle Museum earlier today.  Two weeks ago it had been on our agenda but we skipped it to avoid some storms that appeared to be near the museum.  We had made a wise choice as the storm turned out to be a tornado according to the people that sold us tickets.  I am sure a lot of effort has been put into making that museum the quality place that it is but my heart wasn’t in the visit.  I’ve included a few pictures of things that caught my eye.

We managed to cover about 460 miles today and were in our garage by 9:30 PM.  After the museum visit, we found some 2 lane roads that were really nice and got us onto I-80 in short order.  We took I-80 south until I had to find something different (interstate is not to my liking).  We found US-136 across Illinois.  Somehow Rantoul, Illinois always manages to be on our route home.  (The only real thing I know (or imagined) is that Rantoul used to be the home of Vetter Fairings.  The best known was called the Windjammer and it was really popular.)  We got gas in Rantoul and hit Indiana 28 at the state line.  The rest is very familiar.

Would I do a trip like this again?

No.  It was too many miles with no down time or time for plain old sightseeing.  At times I felt like I was getting too old to handle the 900+ pound bike plus our luggage and us.

Did I enjoy the trip?

Let me answer that tomorrow after I sleep in my own bed.

Will I take another motorcycle trip?

Let me gas up the hog and we’ll roll.

Arriving at the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa, IA.

A tribute to Evel.

The first solo ride I ever took was on a Honda Dream.

In the barn, the trip meter needs reset so we can start the next adventure.