Day 7

Today's ride was really beautiful! We got off to a slightly frenetic start, though. At 5am, Gosh was trying to hit the road to put some miles behind us, get me a rear tire, and avoid a storm. I don't know about how other people handle conflicting goals but the Gosh gets a little goofy. By goofy, I mean really frustrating to be around. It didn't help that the lobby didn't begin serving coffee until 7am. It also didn't help that I asked him to blog about his fabulous experience at Harley. Oh hell, it all helped really, because he was able to find cause for all his frustrations. I get it.

At 9am after finding some Yamaha folks that would be open on Monday near our end point for the day, we headed out. Highway 7 south met up with highway 50 east and was really pretty. Highway 50 has not been disappointing, either. It's neat to roll through the little towns- and I hope I don't sound condescending (as I live in Sparks... "Huh? Where's that?"). There are some really pretty little towns. Brick and stone houses and buildings that have been around long enough to change purpose, stay the same or stand empty as a testament to what is current, has been considered important or is no longer necessary. And green? Everything is SO green!

We also saw alot of dead animals on the side of the road. We saw raccoons, mice, squirrels, armadillos, possum, a dog, a cat and a few turtles. We saw and swerved around a turtle crossing the road. We saw other motorists do the same. Silently, I prayed the turtle would make it and part of me wanted to cry. I tried to put a tangible reason to the sadness, like: it says something about us two-leggeds when a turtle can't cross the road safely, or a symbolic reason like: turtles are an ancient animal that deserves better than to die unceremoniously on the highway. Realistically, it's probably just me trying to handle to idea of mortality. Yeah... JUST that... ha! So simple.

Though it looked like we were in the middle of a storm, it never really rained. Still, we pulled into a Super 8 in Mt. Vernon, IL. for the night. Kewpie loved her walk through some open fields and we went to Steak 'n' Shake for dinner. YUM!

Oh, did I mention the FAT Mississippi River? Or the flooded fields? Or seeing downtown St. Louis from afar? It's really hard to capture it all...

This is Kewpie on our morning walk in Blue Springs, MO. She LOVED the fields! And somehow, when she was on her leash, she kept wanting to cross the road...

Self portrait in the morning.

SheNayNay packed up for the trip. This was in Jefferson, MO... at the Conoco.

Kew catching some shade in Jefferson, MO.

I planned to start this entry with the question in my head while walking Kew this morning... "Why does Kewpie want to cross the road?" It seemed apropos after seeing all those other animals who tried unsuccessfully and rooting for that little turtle. I had planned to write some clever analogy about her trying to cross the road and us trying to cross the country. I was going to point out that none of those animals were trying to get hurt, that Kewpie wasn't trying to scare me... that none of it is really about anyone else other than the animal trying to accomplish whatever it is trying to accomplish and no amount of explaining will really make sense to anyone else. "Why are you headed to Gettysburg?" Well, to get to my sister's wedding, duh! But really, we are just on our own journey.