Day 14 - Concordia to Fairview Heights, IL

The wind was still blowing this morning but much less than yesterday (or maybe we were used to it by now?) We had about 150 miles of moderate winds today. When you see wind mills, it’s a good bet it is going to be windy.

We were truly thankful that the winds were more bearable today, as this is how the conversation went yesterday (according to Michele's accurate recollection) while in the thick of it:

Rob: It's a bit breezy, yes?

Michele: The wind is insane.

Rob: You are doing fine. 

Michele: No I'm not. If these winds keep up I'm going to rent a car and drive myself home.

Rob: It's only 30 more miles or so of the strong stuff.

Michele: You said that 30 miles ago.

Rob: I was wrong.

We made our way south to I70 and took the interstate east just past Topeka where we picked up US50 east. We rode east on US50 for the remainder of the day. Funny thing, the Wing's weather radar showed the wind storm expanded today and was actually following us. Luckily we were never in the the strong "yellow blob". 

When we rode through Topeka, we saw a huge gain distribution facility.

We also saw some huge tires. Each of these are about 4+ feet wide!

We crossed over the Republican River again today. Although we didn’t see the Democrat River, we did ride on the Clinton Parkway. I don’t think this road was actually named after the 42^nd president as this road was in Kansas.

As Fall has now arrived, we've seen corner farm stands with pumpkins and passed this pickup with a rather large pumpkin weighing down its bed.

Note the bumper sticker on the side of the truck. I hope the Democrats out there reading this now feel they have had equal treatment on this blog. :-)

We saw more fields of milo yet to be harvested. We had to look up this crop on the Internet since it has baffled us the entire trip. The color is really interesting especially first thing in the morning when the sun is still low.

We made our first stop after 145 miles around 10am. We took the opportunity to fill up the bike with gas. The Wing took 4.5 gallons of fuel which equates to a miserable 32mpg. That is the worst mileage We’ve ever had in the 95k miles of riding that bike. Our assessment of “moderate” headwinds for today is obviously relative based on yesterday’s wind storm but based on the mileage, they were quite severe. Without the benefit of the higher elevations, the wind's impact on the fuel mileage today was much greater than yesterday.

We crossed over into Missouri around 11:30. Michele realized this once she saw the "Leaving Kansas" sign, promptly followed by the official Missouri state sign.

Soon after, about half way on our 500 mile ride today, we stopped in Warrensburg, MO for lunch. The winds had finally calmed down to a slight breeze and the temps had risen to about 80F.

Continuing on US50 through MO took us through mostly farmland. Some of the views were really idyllic.

We rode through Jefferson City and Michele took a picture of the top of the Missouri State Capital.

We made one more additional stop about 70 miles west of St. Louis where we put on our chilly pads to keep us cool for the last hour. We were a long way from the 32-degree mornings of Colorado!

We crossed over the Mississippi and entered Illinois.

This trip we went around the city of St. Louis instead of going through it as we did two years ago. We did however get a view of the Arch in the distance.

A short time later, we arrived in Fairview Heights (about 5pm) at our hotel. After dinner we reflected on the nearly 1,000 miles in two days, we traveled since we left Colorado yesterday! Our Mighty Wing has carried us far with more to do. Except Rob discovered that the reverse gear cables need adjusting, requiring Michele to now push him backwards out of parking spots. (Michele's note: this must be fixed pronto--pushing a 1,000lb bike uphill, even a few feet, is not girl's work.)

Tomorrow we’ll make our way to West Virginia for our last night on the road.