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Route 66 Trip, July 6

My doughty steed
has carried me though thick and thin. Quite a lot of thick, like not making watertight arrangements for meeting up when we lose sight of each other, but the armchair with a lawnmower engine has carried me today through about 300 miles of often grotty weather without complaining.

The morning ride was fantastic. Just the kind of ride we had signed up for from the start. Lovely countryside, a Route 66 which wandered charmingly but was easily ridden at a comfortable speed, the weather not too hot. We set out soon after 6 to take advantage of the lower temperatures at that hour. Breakfast around 8:45 in Carthage, Missouri.

This was the news stand outside.

Inside, this lady served us breakfast.

The Americans do know how to do good breakfasts! The other diners chatted to us and told us about the sights of Carthage. Outside another passer-by told us a little of the history of the place: it seems Cathage was the site of the first battle in the Civil War. Neither side won.

At this drive-in cinema (theatre, not theater, curiously) outside Cathage, the man whom I asked to take the picture agreed to,

but he made it very clear that he would not have agreed if I'd been French. The British are our best allies, he said. He also apologised for the current US President. (Melissa apologises for the previous one.)

Route 66 comes in many flavours. At worst it is a suburban set of traffic lights, seemingly usually on red. In the boiling heat with a red-hot Harley under you and motorbike clothing on, that is not enjoyable.

It can also be a road past ordinary homes and homesteads, sometimes fascinating but at other times much less so, usually depending on the homes. Houses with people sitting at the porch or collections of rusting vehicles or dilapidated barns are usually interesting. This barn is new, but in the tradtional shape.

There can be surprising adverts such as

or this name for a diner:

We saw signs lamenting the deaths of the dogs who went down with the Titanic. We saw lots of bible quotations. Often near other signs promoting GunsSaveLives.com with slogans like Prepare for War. It is a pity that many interesting sights flash by without getting recorded.

Luckily Mark got this

Then again, often Route 66 is a fast country road through rolling countryside and if the weather is good, the riding is like nothing else.

 

We got split up just before Galena and luckily reunited quite quickly. While waiting I took this shot of military hardware on exhibition. Galena is a quite run-down ex-mining town, presumably of galena lead ore.

Soon after that, we were into a little pocket of Kansas and then over another border into Oklahoma. The plaque

suggests that the Galena lead benefited these tribes.

Soon after this we had one of those cock-ups which can happen when there are several independent vehicles trying to keep together. It was probably my fault. I had got ahead slightly, on a very fast road (75 mph max) and just at the wrong moment there were road-works, lots of huge trucks and a toll booth. I paid the toll and pulled into the side to wait for the other two bikes. Nobody came except more huge trucks. I spoke to the Highway patrol who said no accidents had been reported. But they did say that there was a R66 turn off just prior to the toll booth, obviously a turn I had missed. To cut a long story short, I went on to Tulsa and found a classic diner (Tilly's Cafe). Pete and Melissa went on to Tulsa then Stroud, and we were only reunited in Oklahoma. This section coincided with the passage of the remnants of a hurricane, quite a lot of rain with some lightning visible, which made the afternoon's motorcycling distinctly soggy. I was lucky that Mark, Lynn and Val were near Tulsa in the car and joined me from Tulsa through the mostly driving rain the hundred miles to Oklahoma, so I had another vehicle with sat-nav to follow.

Today was another long driving day, over 300 miles. We are now back on the original plan and hope to avoid the problem recurring.

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