Travelogue -- Dr Bob's Wrap-Up Motorcycle Ride
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21 May 2018, 10:00 PM CT, Warrenton, MO

The weather turned out to be a little better than I expected. It was completely overcast leaving Salina. I thought it would be that way the entire day, but that was not the case. I don't remember just when or where, but it became sunny. In fact, it got warmer than I expected. Maybe I had not checked earlier, but the high today in Warrenton was 81°. I started the day with my normal summer jacket with the rain jacket over it. I did not put on the liner, I was fine without it. The temperature when I left Salina was about 55°. There was some road work on I-70, the traffic came to a very slow roll, maybe 1 mph. That's a little slow for me, so I was stopping and going. I was getting warm. Once when I stopped, an 18-wheeler was behind me, and I waved at the driver and stopped my bike and turned it off and took off my rain jacket and stowed it in the saddlebag. He was quite content to sit there while I did that. I did not need it the rest of the day.

I had to do some engineering today. My summer gloves, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police gloves with the large gauntlet can control the touchscreen GPS. My Harley winter gloves cannot. That has been an issue at times on this ride. I stopped at a Harley dealer this morning to see if they had waterproof gloves that could control the touchscreen. They had waterproof gloves but they would not control the GPS. Then I figured I would use a stylus. I got one at a WalMart. That was all fine except for one thing, I needed a way of holding it on the bike. I cannot take it out of a pocket with these big gloves. I am not even sure I could do that without gloves while riding. I certainly would drop it on the road at some point. At the WalMart I also got some plastic cable ties. I figured I would work out something to hold the stylus. I was unsuccessful. Then I thought, why not use duck tape. Duck tape can fix anything. And I already have some, I carry a roll of duck tape in one of my saddlebags. Here's what I came up with. It works. The stylus is taped to the back of the GPS with just enough length to be able to put the stylus tip to any part of the screen. But I did not need it today, I never used the winter gloves. But I am anticipating some rain over the next three days, so I wanted to be prepared.

Somewhere down the road I approached a bridge and saw that it was crossing the Missouri River. I wanted a picture. The shoulder on the bridge was about 6", not quite enough to park the bike. And there was traffic on the bridge, including 18-wheelers. Not wise to just stop in the traffic lane. After I crossed the bridge there was a shoulder, so I stopped and walked back to take a picture. I had to get on the bridge to see the river, so I picked a time when there were no 18-wheelers already crossing, got my picture, and hustled back off the bridge. Here's the view looking at the bridge. See that 18-wheeler approaching, he is moving over to stay away from me and my bike. I jumped back on the bike and took off.

And here's my picture of the Missouri River. I would have preferred to take the picture from the middle of the bridge, but I thought that might be stretching it a bit.

That's all my regular pictures for today. But I do have something special. This is from my son Darryl.

Back a long time ago, I think it might have been December 1979, spouse Hanna and Darryl and daughter Cindy and I were driving down I-95 from New Jersey to North Palm Beach. Darryl was totally fascinated with Pac-Man. And he was good at it. At one point while driving along, he was in the back seat explaining to Cindy how to get high scores on Pac-Man. I don't remember exactly what he said, I am sure he still remembers, but it was something like this, "...and then you move him off the right side in the middle and count to 5 and then bring him back on..." His explanation was lengthy. I was so impressed. He had hacked Pac-Man! He had broken the software code! At that time I thought he really had the mind for software. That's before the IBM PC. Every time we stopped on I-95, he would run into the gas station and leave the highest score of anybody on the Pac-Man machine. So, Darryl, look what I found today.

This was in a Pizza Hut here in Warrenton. Here's the screen.

A few years later Darryl received a BA in political science at the University of Virginia, and then worked on Capitol Hill in Washington DC for a Representative. Sometime later, he ended up in a different job. Guess what. Working for a software company.

That's it for today. I fell short of my goal of 400 or more miles today, probably because of the time I took engineering a stylus holder for a motorcycle. Only 392 miles. I have another 1,199 to reach home. I already have a total of 6,874 miles. So my grand total will be a little more than 8,000 miles, what I had originally predicted. At the moment, my average daily mileage has been 382 miles. My goal was 350, I am exceeding that.

Good night, see you tomorrow.

Oh, for those of you who think I made a mistake saying duck tape, I want you to know that's what GIs called it in World War II, supposedly because water beaded off the tape just like droplets slipping down a duck's back.