On the Road Again (Day 1 and 2)

Wednesday (Day 1) we drove 820 miles to Ottawa, Ill. This is west of Chicago and gets us past the traffic for an easy start in the morning. We had a little problem with Gerry's bike, as one of the tie downs pulled out of the track on the floor of the traler and one of the fittings on the wheel chock had a loose bolt. As a result, one strap came loose and his bike was partially laying over toward the wall. It was still being held by several staps, but the plywood wall did rub a spot of his paint on the very edge of his fairing. No other damage has been seen. We resecured the bike, broke out the tools and tightened all the bolts of the wheel chock mounting hardware and added a strap over the seat like we did on the Gold Wing. The other 4 bikes all seem to be riding well. I am driving as smoothly as I possibly can and not making and sudden movements. Mac is on my case for accelerating so slowly and driving so gingerly... but it works and the bikes are riding well now. Kind of like when I was in High School and the driver's ed teacher said you should drive like you had a cup of hot water on your lap and don't want to spill any. Now there is a picture for you. I hope it makes up for the lack of a pictures from these two days. I didn't think anyone wanted a picture of I-80 and truck traffic.
:-((

Thursday (Day 2) We traveled from Ottowa, Il to Sidney, Ne. Sidney is near the western edge of Nebraska about 75 miles east of Wyoming. We have traveled about 1,700 miles so far and stopped here for the evening. Sidney is probably best known as the headquarters of Cabella's. We have about 500 miles to go tomorrow to get to Coalville, UT where we will unload the bikes and prepare to pick up the other three Phat Pac members at the airport in Salt Lake on Saturday morning. We were very fortunate today, as we had pretty strong winds, but they were from our rear quarter and actually helped the fuel mileage. My truck is getting 11.8 MPG for the trip so far. We estimate the trailer and bikes probably weigh a total of about 8,000 lbs. The Duramax Diesel and Allison transmission make easy work of it and we roll along efffortlessly at about 70 MPH on cruise control. We are seeing lots of motorcycles almost all of which are traveling East. Most are loaded indicating that they are on trips and not just local rides. I can't wait to unload and beging clocking some 2 wheel miles. There is just something wrong about a bike being in a truck or trailer. They are meant to be ridden. We thought about getting my dad up in the bed of the pickup and having him mount my motorcycle and riding a few miles up there in the wind. We decided against it as the local Law Enforcement Officers may not have the same sense of humor, plus we did not bring a wire brush to clean the bugs from between his teeth. Windmills are everywhere out here... between corn to alcohol processing plants and windmills, I would say that the west is doing their part for renewable energy sources. Good for the farmers.. these folks need a lift!