No visit to Metropolis, Illinois is complete without saying hello to the man of steel.  We left the hotel this morning around 9:30ish and headed to the center of Krypton, er I mean Metropolis.  We waved hello to the big man and took some pictures around the downtown area.  We’ve been here before and were looking forward to sharing this with our son and daughter-in-law.  Those plans didn’t work out for now so we didn’t go in to the “museum” (which is really the gift store).  I found it funny that Superman is center stage in the center of town while 3 blocks or so away, Lois Lane is relegated to a street corner with a relatively small statue.

I think Lois deserves better.

Reluctantly we moved on to our next waypoint – Paducah, Kentucky.  We chose a somewhat indirect way to get into Paducah via US-45.  On the way we encountered something that typically causes me to have nightmares and to “seek alternate routes”.  It was the dreaded iron grate bridge.  If you’ve never been on a motorcycle crossing one of these it’s a terrible feeling.  The front and rear wheels track in different paths and the bike literally wiggles underneath you.  This is a very disconcerting feeling.  We had to cross the mother of all iron grate bridges today.  This thing was over 1/2 mile long and even with the trike, caused the front end to track strangely.  The pictures below were taken by Jana because I had my eyes closed the entire time.

We somehow survived.

We love our daughter-in-law Laura dearly.  She is smart, funny, and talented.  One of her many talents is quilting.  If you have followed this blog from a few trips back, you will remember my experience with quilters.  They take over hotels, roadways, and the town of Sisters, Oregon with their needles and panels.

We tried to win some brownie points with Laura by heading to the National Quilting Museum in Paducah.  Sure enough when we pulled up there was a giant tour bus on the lot.  I know those are the same people that were in Sisters, Oregon.  I started sweating and my eye was twitching just sitting in the area.  We decided not to go in but there is a good chance one of Laura’s works of art is in there.  (If you look closely, you can see the bus off to the left.)

It was time to move on.  We realized we hadn’t had breakfast yet.  I always think we are going to stumble on a small diner that we enjoy so much.  It typically doesn’t happen.  We continued to search for the appropriate place as we were running down the highway.  Just as we were ready to give up we saw a sign for “The Dinner Bell”.  We had experienced a great breakfast at a diner of the same name in Dove Creek, Colorado so in we went.

The food here was OK but certainly fell short of it’s namesake.  They had a smoking section which never wins any points with me.

The rest of the day was spent putting the miles behind us on our way to Millington, Tennessee.  We had a great dinner across the street at Huey’s before we came back and hit the showers.

For you motorcyclists:

Total mileage for the day 167 (3 day total 527).  Still averaging around 35 MPG on the trike.  The intercom system is way too sensitive.  I have to constantly adjust the VOX setting.  The Harley navigation system is working well – I put in a ton of “waypoints” using the MYROUTEAPP software.  I am running both the Garmin and the Harley nav system with the same route in both.  One of these days, I’m going to leave the Garmin at home.

Tomorrow we’re headed for some interesting sites and starting to explore the Blues Trail.