East of the Mississippi–June 2011

June 11 - 23, 2011
A long time ago, a promise was made to a little girl.  That promise was that a wedding cake would be made for her and her husband.  There was just one small issue in fulfillment of that promise – the wedding was taking place two thousand miles from home!
The next best thing?  Be there for this event.
The mother of the bride to be and my wife have known each other for decades.  Thus, we’ve known the little girl her entire life.  Well, then – is there any way to turn this into a motorcycle trip??
Two full weeks on the road.  We’ve come close (see the Mt. Rushmore/Yellowstone trip in 2010), but this one is going to take effort in not only getting there, but then actually having to go to a wedding – and coming home!
In addition, wouldn’t be nice to plan the trip in such a way that we’ll get to do a few things along the way?  I’m also going to try and hit as many states as we possibly can.  Going maybe a bit out of the way to get there, but what fun is there in simply ‘shortest distance, fastest time’ on the old GPS?
First intermediate goal – we have six days to get there.  It really shouldn’t take that long, but there’s time built in this schedule to take our time and do a couple of things.

Near Ruidoso, New Mexico

East of Roswell, New Mexico

A small advertisement along Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas

Dorothy statue - Land of Oz Museum - Liberal, Kansas

The following image needs a bit more than a simple caption.  At the time, my supervisor is a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan.  After all, he’s from Massachusetts, he just can’t help it.  The manager we both work for is from southern Illinois.  The local team in this area?  You guessed it, another iconic sports franchise, the St. Louis Cardinals.  That answers all of the questions about this image – except the sheep.  Let’s just say, it’ll be a discussion point that’s best left to be face-to-face.  It’s hilarious!

Gateway Arch (officially, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial) – another icon of the area, built to represent the westward expansion of America back in the mid 1960s. 
“Yes, people actually ride up to look out over the area, dear!”

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

“Oh, no!  You know how I get…”
“You’ll be fine!”

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, Missouri

She was just fine.  The elevator that takes you there and back was pretty amazing.  And small!
Our plans had us staying just east of the St. Louis metro area that night, in order to avoid traffic the following day entering the city.  Overnight quite the storm front passed.  Now what?
This is why we had these types of days built in to our ‘get there’ plan.  We’re not anxious to ride into this – and ride in it for hours, if it can be avoided.  We learned that lesson in the trek to South Dakota.  Yet, we’ll be booted from this motel by 11am.

Regional weather.  Lay low for a few hours?  Sure!

A plan!  Let’s kill a couple hours, doing the Budweiser brewing tour!  This will allow more time for this storm to continue to track east.  If we have to ride in rain, at least it would be an all-day-long ride, like we had back in Wyoming and South Dakota.
The rain had passed, and for a couple of hours, we enjoyed seeing how water and grains are turned into beer.  No, the horse does NOT contribute to the process, according to their handlers.  I still don’t believe it.  I’d bet there’s at least one in every group that thinks so.

Clydesdale draught horse - St. Louis, Missouri

Once we left the St. Louis region, we crossed the southern end of the state of Illinois, and headed toward Kentucky.  The eastern part of the state commonwealth is where both the lodging for the weekend is as well as the area where the wedding will be held.

Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory - Louisville, Kentucky

The tour was very cool; highly recommend it, even if you’re a casual fan of baseball. 
Of course, another great person from this community is Muhammed Ali.  Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to see the museum dedicated to his life and causes, but that can be another stop at another time.
We found out that we’re good to show up a day earlier than expected – so onward to the community of Stanton, Kentucky – population, around 2500.  This is an image of the parkway that was to take us to this place.  Amazing!

Bert T Combs Mountain Parkway - eastern Kentucky

The route here (approximately):

Approximate route from Arizona to Kentucky - the scenic route?

I did do a single day-ride in the immediate area.  Lots of twisty roads, lots of scenery.  I did manage to find my way to Nada Tunnel, but I was a bit busy trying to make certain not to get lost.  I’m also tired.  I headed back to the room, and enjoyed a peaceful afternoon – nap time!
Thru the groom’s side of the family, this magnificent location for this wedding was chosen.  It was owned by the Combs family.  As in the same Bert Combs that was the governor as well as a judge in this commonwealth 40 years ago. No photos shared here on the blog with the family matters that took place, but I’ll share this one: 

Fern Hill Farm - Stanton, Kentucky

This farm was twenty-odd miles away from where we were staying.  Needless to say that I had to forego alcohol consumption.  Wise move on my part.  It gets DARK out here in the woods!  We had a great time!
With the wedding over, Sunday was the day that everyone packed out and headed home.  For the immediate family, it was only a few hours to Tennessee.  For us?  Nearly 2000 miles to get home.
“Well, we’re this close…we’ll wander back thru Tennessee ourselves.”  More tourist stuff?  Sure – how about a little town called Lynchburg?  I hear they make liquor there – in a dry county.  Go figure…

Spring where water to make Jack Daniel's whisky comes from - Lynchburg, Tennessee 

They hold the facility tour every day, including Sunday.  Unfortunately, there’s just no souvenirs you can buy on this day – gift shop is closed.  Something about laws against that sort of thing in this county…
After this brief excursion, we return to ‘wander’ mode.  Routing was now set to keep us on the northern side of Alabama, then we’ll cut thru Mississippi into Arkansas.

Huntsville, Alabama

Traveling further east, there had been a pretty severe storm a few days earlier, big enough to set off some huge tornado activity thru a wide stretch of this region.  Certain areas we could have ridden thru, we bypassed.  There were some in the northern end of Alabama that just couldn’t be avoided.  My wife had never seen such destruction shortly after it had happened.  Another area we traveled thru had recently be completely cleared, but it was quite evident that there had been a community devastated by weather.  Sidewalks, driveways, and foundations were all that was left; the rest had been cleaned.
Moving away from this, now the bike gets pointed in the direction of southern Arkansas, but to get there, we do need to get thru Mississippi.  Another landmark that neither one of us had visited was the Natchez Trace.  This is a 400+ mile route that has been used for hundreds of years, first by indigenous people, then by European settlers.  It turned from a path to a wagon trail in the early 1800’s. 
As the steamboat became more prevalent, the use of the Trace became primarily a northbound-only route, as it was much faster to take the Mississippi river downstream.  An excellent article about the history of the Parkway is at Paving the Trace

Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi

Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi

Greenville Bridge between Refuge, Mississippi, and Shives, Arkansas

Crossing the bridge took us into Arkansas to our lodging in El Dorado.  Next to the motel was a family-run BBQ place.  Southern-style cooking and hospitality.  It’s nice when you can park the bike, take the time to get cleaned up, then walk to dinner.
The next day, a thread of rain chased us out of Arkansas and into Louisiana.  When the weather’s nice, it’s a lot more enjoyable taking some of the older highways we have.  However, when the weather gets ugly, I’m more of a fan of Interstates, drainage and sight lines are typically much better.
We hit quite a front of rain – so much so that it didn’t feel comfortable; I had to let this one pass.  There was a closed-down store  that had an awning; we’ll park here for a bit.

"Are we having fun, dear?"

I got this picture while we were waiting.  Proof that it is true a bad day of motorcycle weather is still (sometimes) better than a good day at work!
Our next destination takes us to Euless, TX, one of the many suburbs of the Dallas/Ft. Worth ‘Metroplex’.  Some sports-ball team plays here.

Coach Tom Landry (1924 - 2000)

AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas

The tour was great – one day we’ll take in a game with 90,000 other crazy Dallas Cowboy fans!

AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas

The next stop was in San Angelo, Texas.  It’s west Texas, it’s hot.  Not quite as hot as it is back home, but the miles are beginning to wear on both of us.  Along a two-lane highway, with a posted speed of 75MPH, a rest area came into view.  A bio-break, another dose of water…man, where are we?

Rest Area near San Angelo, Texas

The west Texas view we had for what seemed to be hundreds of miles.

Along US-67 west of San Angelo, Texas

We didn’t make it home – another opportunity to rest and cool off in Las Cruces.  June in the desert?  Now, I know why we took that northern route on the way there.  It was hot, but not nearly as hot as it is now.  We do need to get smarter at how to stay cool on two wheels.

Approximate route home from Kentucky

As of June 2011

I got to thinking…just how many states have we been now on this motorcycle?  Twenty three?  Getting to the rest of them is going to be a challenge!
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