June 05, 2011

   It seems we're finally getting going.  Somewhat ahead of schedule and stopped at Bloomington, IL for the night.  We will be dawdling in the morning to wait to pick up a replacement throttle lock that Lynn sent from home along with a lot of spare parts for one sent by Iggy Power of Power Cycles.  Thanks Iggy.  You and your staff have been a great help on my rides and I certainly do appreciate it.
   Generally not much happened.  Sat there and twisted that and watched the scenery go by.  Almost got caught by a thunder storm in lower Illinois but it only dropped a few drops and blew hard for a while.  Of course we wasted time putting on rain gloves and tank bag covers and closing suit vents etc. only to have to undo it all again shortly thereafter when the sun came out.  It was very hot with dashboard temps in the middle of the day at 100+ again.  Cooled down to the 80s later in the afternoon.   Now out of the hills so it's not so hard to ride the little bike.  The only way to tweak the speed is to take advantage of the traffic and concentrate.  Losing concentration seems to drop the speed by 10 mph.  The bike seems to run at between 65 and 75 if you work at it and under 60 if you don't.
An interesting meeting took place this afternoon in Vienna, IL.  We stopped for gas in the middle of nowhere and as we were filling up a gentleman walked up and said "hi, I'm Buck Lemme and you myst be Bob and he must be Charles.  Turns out he is also an Iron Butt Association member who lives locally and had been following the Spot tracke, saw that we would probably be stopping there for gas (nothing else for over 30 miles) and was kind enough to visit.  He also bought our Gatoraid.  An interesting gentleman (is a cattle farmer) and we were very happy to make his acquaintence.  He had seen my previous small bike (The Barbie Bike From Hell) a couple of years ago at the IBA meet in Jacksonville but we had never met. Thanks for taking the time to find us Buck.

Buck Lemme talks with Bob at the pumps before we adjourned to the air conditioning of the store.  Charles was smart enough to capture this.  I of course, forgot I had a camera.

   Will try to buy a new rear tire here tomorrow as this one is wearing very poorly.  Will keep it as a spare.
Goodnight,
Bob

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