In 1981 my friend Gregg and I cooked up a plan to take a long motorcycle trip. I had never done anything like that but I felt like I was ready. We put together a “plan” (sort of). It consisted of a couple of hours with a Rand-McNally Road Atlas and a general idea of where we wanted to go – “general idea” was the operative term on this. We were taking camping gear and figured we could find a tent site just about anywhere. Reservations were not required.

That’s a far cry from where things stand today. You need reservations to use a McDonald’s bathroom. Without the constraints of reservations, we headed to Colorado. When we got there we sat at a picnic table and decided that we wanted to see Mount Rushmore. That’s exactly what we did. Over the next several years we made several similar excursions and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Unfortunately time has had it’s impact on me and extremely long motorcyle trips push my comfort level to the breaking point. About a month ago, a few of us made the trek to the Sturgis Motorcycle Ralley. That’s about 1200 miles each way from my house. Given the way the world works today – we had a meticulous plan as to where we were going to sleep every night of the 2 week adventure. It’s to the point where you need to get a reservation to enter some of our national parks. In some cases you are told that you need to be at the gate at a certain time. If you aren’t there within 15 minutes of your allotted time – no entry. So much for spontenaity.

After I got the hang of trip planning, it became an enjoyable exercise. One of the best parts was the connection I got with my passenger. You don’t get a lot of “wiggle room” two-up on a motorcycle. The physical and mental closeness was always a big positive for each trip. Now that I’m older, handling a big touring motorcycle with a passenger is not something I feel comfortable about. I miss the closeness and the adventures.

I made a decision to try to recapture some of that enjoyment. We’ve been a lot of places (48 states and 5 Canadian provinces) so I needed some inspiration. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos recently and decided to use some of the creators that I enjoy the most as inspiration for the trip I had in mind. Hence the “YouTube Tour” title. I still had to make reservations but with some specific targets in mind, I was anticipating this trip more than I had other recent ones.

What to do about the mode of transportation. Hmmmmmm. We own a perfectly good diesel pickup truck. It gets really good fuel mileage (unless you’re pulling a big metal box, aka camper). Arrangements were made. The truck got a bath and we were ready to roll. Unlike my motorcycle trips where interstate highways were to be avoided, taking the truck meant we could get to destinations in fewer miles and hours by driving the interstate system.

Now you have the background and my motivation for the current excursion. Day 1 pointed us through Indianapolis and St Louis. Ugh. The distance covered was 502 miles and it seemed like at least a thousand. Getting through Indianapolis can be a real challenge on a good day. There is so much road construction that is just never-ending. Couple that with every young person on the road thinking they are Mario Andretti. Speed limits mean nothing. Cutting across 4 lanes of high speed traffic is the norm. Every mile reminded me of why I don’t travel on interstates usually. It was ugly. I’ve driven in a lot of major U.S. cities including Chicago, Detroit, L.A., San Fran, etc. I believe that Indy is right up there at the top of the “I fear for my life driving here” list. St Louis has also always been a place to avoid. Today it was much less stressful to navigate than Indy.

We ended up in Springfield, Missouri. I-44 was as rough a road as I can tolerate. It was one-step removed from a gravel road. There was 30 miles of continuous road construction. A saving grace for Springfield – they have a Buccee’s. If you’ve never been to one, you should plan to visit soon. Make sure you make reservations for getting there.

I chose the easy way out for dinner – another poor decision. We ate at the Holiday Inn. If I was generous, I would say the food was mediocre. That doesn’t mean it was cheap. Too late, I discovered that there was a Ruby Tuesday across the street. Oh well, I would have had to drive there. Tomorrow is another day.