In 1997 I was attending a large car show and walked into the vendor area. There was a Gibson Guitar trailer with some special guitars on display. The one that caught my eye was a signed copy of B. B. Kings famous Lucille. This instrument was the 70th Anniversary Edition. It was listed at the low low introductory price of $28,000. Yikes. I must have been drooling too much in front of the locked glass case. One of the Gibson reps walked up, unlocked the case, and pulled this instrument out. I was afraid to touch it. $28k was pretty much beyond what my hot rod was worth. The rep told me hold it like I owned it. I wrapped both arms around it, (not typically the proper way to hold a guitar). An instrument like that deserves a real player. I am not that. I very carefully returned it to the rep who placed it back in the case (after wiping my drool and fingerprints off of it). The hook was set – I wanted one. My first born was still not quite up to the $28,000 trade value. After much soul searching, I came home and purchased an Epiphone version of the same guitar. (Epiphone is made by Gibson but not quite the same status or quality.) I shelled out my hard earned $800 and it was all mine (minus the B.B. signature of course). Ever since that day, I wanted to get as close to the real Lucille as I possibly could. B.B. named his guitar Lucille after an incident in a juke joint in Twist, Arkansas. Guess where we’re passing through on this journey. You have to want to go to Twist – it’s not on any beaten path. By the way, I still can’t play. Thanks to my riding buddies for making this possible.

It seems that whenever I travel this direction, south down the center of the country, the weather is smoking hot with very high humidity. This time was the rare exception. It was 42 degrees F. The plan was to meet my friends at 9:00 at a spot that’s about an hour from my house. Due to some technical difficulties that time changed from 9:00 to 10:30. My path to get there runs through some of the busiest roads that central Indiana has. The delay was actually a good thing. Rush hour had a chance to finish up some. I was ready to go. It’s been a while since I had a chance for a motorcycle excursion. The planned route only covered 235 miles. When we parked for the evening, we had traversed 247 miles over some really good roads and some really bad ones.

The ride to the west side of Indianapolis was not very exciting. That’s a good thing. We met up at a chain restaurant and managed to escape without having breakfast. We gassed up at the station close by and headed out.

Several hours, several miles, and several degrees warmer, we cruised into our home for the night in Springfield, Illinois. Bikes are all running great and I’m running low on energy. Dinner was served at a Mexican restaurant next door. Perfectly within walking distance.

We’re rapping up a few last minute things to get ready for tomorrow’s launch. Hope we can see a few more sights tomorrow. We did manage 95% of the day without getting on interstate. Thanks Mason. Nice job.