June 5, 1997 Carlyle Lake, IL N38d39.007, W089d19.822 We left Champaign today! WooHoo! This is the first time taking off where we didn't have a self imposed todo list. Every day for the past 87 days I've had a must-do-before-our-trip list. It hasn't felt like much of a vacation so far. We took off at 12:30 today from Tom & Lisa's house and drove South West along mostly state roads. Along this route there are Amish and Menonite communties. Several years ago Sharon and I stumbled across them as close as 20 miles SW of Champaign while riding on the county roads that primarily local farmers only use. We passed a man and his son riding in what looked like a horse drawn cart from Little House on the Prairie. However, rather than Michael Landon driving the cart the man was dressed in black pants, white shirt suspendors, and a wide brim black hat that made him look more like Yentl's father than Laura Ingalls'. A little later we saw a horse drawn black buggy cart. It was like one might see in a 19th century industrial London era movie like Elephant Man. The only things bringing the scene into modern times were a bright fluorescent reflective triangle pasted on the back of the cart and the modern paved road. A bit further in what seemed like the middle of nowhere since there hadn't been a house visible for a couple miles we came across 20 women all wearing long blue plain dresses and white bonnets. They looked in high spirits as if they were headed off to a quilting party. However since we didn't take the county roads this time, we didn't see any of this even though I'm sure we were passing right through these Amish communities. We drove on the state roads. Sharon only just started driving a motorcycle last year and has only driven about 2k miles. Now she's riding a 1000cc with approximately 150 lbs of luggage (including luggage system), and it's a dualsport bike meaning that with the high ground clearance and her 5'5" stature, she's on her tippy toes at stop lights. She's doing extremely well, however she says she would rather not take the often times potholed and gravel roads that make up the county roads. We decided that we would not cross the border until she felt comfortable riding on dirt/gravel/potholed roads, and even then stick to main roads for the begining of the trip. We did have option of taking only one bike, however she decided last year to take a second bike for reasons of storage, spare working bike, independence, and self accomplishment. We had planned to go visit Cohokia, an Indian burial ground near St Louis which happens to be the largest manmade pile of dirt in the world. Since it was getting late and we didn't know of any campgrounds in that area, we decided to skip Cohokia. We had lunch about 5:00pm in a little town of approx 200 people called Pocahantas, in their "City Park". We ate some sandwiches, chips, and brownies we packed before we left. We stayed at Carlyle Lake at the Eldon E. Hazlet State Park Campground. N38d39.007', W089d19.822'. This is one of those Corps of Engineers Dam/Lake projects turned into a recreational area. Being a week day there were few people there. Most of the campers were retired folks in their campers or Winebegos. We pitched our tent in a primitive area at the end of a little peninsula into the lake...very nice. We registered our campsite with Judy, our campsite host. Judy and her husband have an RV near the front of our section campsites. She's responsible for registering campsites #1-64. Judy has a little garden of flowers she's planted around the RV. There's a hunched up black painted wooden cat with a friendly smile in her garden bed. Near the side walk that leads to her RV there's a 3"x4" red mail box on a wooden post that Judy says is for the bills. They have a new green Saturn parked next to the RV for when they want to run to the store. Judy said "You don't have to work tomorrow?" We told her we're heading to South America. She told us how that they were now full time RVers and that 7 months out of the year they were here, and the rest of the time they spend down south in Texas and Mexico. Judy went inside and grabbed a Corpus Christi newspaper which just happened to have a picture of some beaches and resorts. She warned us not to drink the water, and said the people in Mexico were very poor. I asked her where she went. They crossed at Brownsville, TX and went to Matamoros for the day. 6/6/97 Sam A. Baker State Park, MO N37d14.287',W090d30.638 We packed up our stuff and were on the road by 9:00am. When we drove into Murphysboro about 70 miles South, We looked for a local diner to have some breakfast. Sharon and I prefer the local diners to the fast food restaurants, There's alot more local culture and people watching to do in a local diner. If we're lucky sometimes we stumble across the local morning gathering spot, where most of the retired farmers gather to talk and drink coffee. We found a place called Tippey's Restaurant, and parked in back as the sign told us to do. A young slightly overweight woman with big hair, hoop earrings, several gold braclets, and bright red lipstick greeted us at the rear entrance and told us, "You just have a seat where you'all like". On the wall is a big plackard that reads "CATFISH FILLETS all YOU can eat!". We ordered Virginia's special which consisted of 2 pancakes, 2 sausages, 2 bacon, orange juice, coffee, and hashbrowns for $4.95. The waitress told us we will be having the last breakfast of the day. It was about 10:45am. While we were waiting a black man in his 50s walked in and sat in the dimly lit back side of the restaurant which had maybe 4 of it's 35 tables full. He gave the waitress a cheery "Everything's fine" smile with an over eager head nod and then sat in the dimly lit back of the restaurant. He ate his meal and was gone before the all white lunch crowd of about 50 people filled the front of the restaurant. While the scene said nothing definite, it hinted of lingering opression that reminded me of stories I had heard of this area happening 3 decades ago. We crossed the Mississippi river at Cape Girardeau and were headed towards one of 7+ Mark Twain National Forests. While in Cape Girardeau at a stop light, a guy in an BMW R100GS (same bike Sharon is driving), pulls up and says hello. Jim asks if we were looking for the BMW dealer. We could use a couple parts, so we said yes. He led us to the Grass Roots BMW run by Dave Bork. We told Dave about our suspension problems and how the front steering wheel wobbles under slow speeds. He suggested checking out the steering head bearing tension. The R100GS turned out to be a little loose. The R80GS turned out to be loose as well, however tightening it down we noticed a notchyness which means possibly having to replace the race and bearings. This is a couple hour job and since he was the only one in the shop, he wasn't prepared to do it unless we pressed him. I picked up the bearings since he had them in stock and decided to have this done at a later date. The oil pressure sensor had been dripping oil recently, so I picked up a new one of these. A woman by the name of Karen and her husband showed up and we talked about the bikes, and various riggings to deploy the kickstand on a bike that is too tall for it's rider. Sharon showed her our pull string mechanism, and she showed us her bolt on kick stand tang. Our pull string mechanism worked great until we put a tank bag on, and so are now looking for a different modification. We finally left 3.5 hours later. Jim and Karen recommended a campground to stay at just North of 34 on 143. Jim said that 34 just West of Marble Hill was written up "somewhere" as being in the 10 best motorcycle roads in the US. So naturally, we decided to go that route. It is most excellent! Full of twisties and hills through a green forest. We camped at the Sam A. Baker State Park N37d14.287',W090d30.638. camping was $12. We chose a powered campsite so we could recharge our walkietalkies we use for our bike to bike communication system. I've rigged up two motorola 10 channel VHF walkie talkies with a remote push to talk button that mount on the jacket. I use a HJC chatterbox helmet headset and mic mounted in the helmet. It's a 2 watt system which should give us 5 miles of range when talking on a plane. However, we're using stubby antennas. Stubby VHF antennas are about 3 inches tall. The whole system tucks away nicely in our jacket, and plugs into the helmet when we put it on. We're carrying a recharger that will recharge our batteries in 3 hours or less. I'm not sure how legal these are in other countries. While these are legal under FCC in the US, they may be illegal frequencies in foriegn countries. In Belize I hear that CB frquencies are illegal and may be confiscated. The radios are hidden in our jackets, however the push to talk button is mounted on the outside of the jacket and are clearly visible. June 7&8, 1997 Norfolk Lake- Cranfield, AR N36d24.492',W092d19.160' R80G/S 22100 R100GS 14407 As we were driving through the beautiful Ozarks with it's twisty and hilly roads that wind through the forests, Sharon pulled over and said that her bike had run out of gas. This was a bit alarming since she had only gone about 250 miles since last fillup. With the tank bag in the way, Sharon has a difficult time switching to reserve while riding. We filled up at Alton, MO. There turned out to be quite a bit of fuel left. a few miles futher down the road, she had the same problem. When driving the R100GS uphill, the bike on occasion behaves as if it's running out of gas. During our two day stay at Norfolk lake, I pulled out the carbs, inspected the jets, floats, float valve, fuel filter. I couldn't find any problems, but after checking it out the problem seems to have gone away. Our camp site had an interesting group of people. We nicknamed our three neighbors as extended family, white trash, and swedish bikini team. White trash was tearing down ~10 year old saplings in this tree poor campsite to make marshmallow roasting sticks. Extended family had about 6 adults and 8 kids. Swedish bikini team was named for a couple of the bleach blond women that hung out in their bikinis. Overall, the campsite was pretty deserted with only 20% of the campsites full. It was nice being off alone, but I'd hate to be there on a busy day. Lake Norfolk is set up for tourism. There are little motels all over. The lake which is another Corps of Engineers project is teaming with fishing boats, pontoon boats, water skiers, and wave runners. Scuba diving is also popular. Several years back I had come down here to do some diving, however I don't remember it being so touristy. I think I was on another part of the lake. Sharon and I thought about renting a wave runner for a while however at $55 per hour plus tax and gas and restrictions on where one could go, we opted not to. We picked up some groceries at the Consumer 29 grocery store. I counted 21 handicap parking spots outside of this medium size store. I guess there are a lot of handicapped vacationing or living in the area. Another thing odd about this grocery store is it didn't have a liquor department. I was hoping to pick up some table wine to go with our pasta and garlic bread. I was wondering if this has to do with being in the bible belt. The two biggest differences I've noticed along the road after leaving Missouri are the large number of churches (almost all Baptist), and all of the Armadillo roadkill. Armadillos don't exist in Illinois, and I haven't seen them in Missouri. We saw more armadillo roadkill than racoon, possom, and domestic animals combined would be found in Illinois. The creeping Kudzu line looks like it start here as well. June 9, 1997 R80G/S - 22334 R100GS - 14630 Hot Springs, AR - Gable's Inn B&B. We rode down highway 412 to Harrison AR, and then turned onto highway 7. Highway 7 is very scenic as it rolls through the ozarks. It's another good motorcyle road with hills and twisties through wooded areas. I don't think it got above 2300 feet driving throught the Boston mountains of the Ozarks. We drove by Dogpatch USA where the comic character Lil' Abner is from. It's an amusement park that looks like it went out of business a while ago. Highway 7 must see alot of tourism since there are signs all along the way to get your souvenirs at places like Booger's trading post. We had Chinese food for lunch in Russelville where it started to rain. It rained all of the way to Hot Springs. Even with our rain gear we managed to get wet. My waterproofed Gortex-lined leather hiking boots were taking in water, so were Sharon's waterproofed Harley boots. We needed a moral boost and so decided to stay at a motel. We drove through part of the town and doubled back to check out some motels. The motels were cheap around $20-$25 per night, however they smelled of smoke, looked a little seedy, and the sign posted claimed "No refunds after 10 minutes". Across the street was a beautiful old mansion that had been made into a Bed and Breakfast. It claimed to have been around since 1844. It was set back in a cultivated garden and had an iron gate of such intricate style that is rare to find today in the US. From the outside it seemed a bargain at $85 per night. Nobody answered the door when we knocked. We called by cellular phone and left a message. Since it was raining, and we were tired and wet, neither of us had any desire to get back on the bike. We just sat on the porch and waited. After about 45 minutes, Karen the owner pulled up and asked "Can I help you?". She had been out getting groceries. She had said that Mondays were her day off and that she really didn't want to take anyone in. She said she had plans in the morning, and that she had recently had heart surgery, and she was tired, and blah blah blah. All the explanation wasn't necessary, since we had decided to continue on after her first sentence. I think she felt guilty turning away two motorcyclists in the rain. I would imagine the romance of running a B&B wears off after constantly having to entertain, serve, and clean up after strangers that appear at one's door. Karen gave us directions to the Gables Inn which is a recent B&B run by Judy and David. They just bought the B&B about a year ago and seemed eage June 10, 1997 R80G/S 22539 R100GS 14827 Farmville, La - Lake D'Arbonne State Park We drive through Southern Arkansas off on some small state roads that seem to get little traffic however are in good shape. Most of the area is forested with patches that are clear cut and look terrible. Near these clear cut areas we drove by some very poor homes where people seem to make the best of what they have. One of the homes we drove by look like it was put together with random scraps of whatever might keep the rain out. Clearly alot of work went into this Bob Vila nightmare. Another home we drove by had the driveway lined with car wheel hubs all painted gray. A little ways down from these homes, the road was littered as if a tornado had hit a nearby dumpsite. 10 miles futher and the trees were more grown in as if the area had gone a half a century since the last clear cut. The homes around here were much larger ranch style with porches, obviously owned by relatively wealthy people. It was strange to see such dispairity so close. Chickens seem to be the business around here. There are large rows of chicken barns with their giant cooling fans blowing chicken guano aroma that can be smelled for miles. At the corner of LA 15 and LA 550 there's a gas station/grocery/bait shop we stopped in to check on directions to a campsite. The owner Paul says "You got steel plates in 'dem pants fer yo motoseekle?" I tell him "No, but they keep me protected." I tell him I'm looking for a campground that my map says is at the end of 550. "Well I don't know about dat, but der is a state park nar here. Get back on dat road da way ya came, Go on down to fawnville, and take a right on 2 and it'll be on yer right. I look at my map, and there is a town called Farmer Ville where he described. "What kind of work d'ya do?", Paul asks. "I'm a computer programmer." "WOOOOEEEEE, You outa my league!!!" Out of the back corner an old man in a rocking chair pipes in "Lotta money dar..." Paul says, "I can't even work my T.V. Got my grandson to do dat. Where y'all from?" "Illinois." Paul's eyes get big as he takes a step back ,"Oooo, You is a LONG way from home!" We decide to buy some milk for our mac & cheese, and a piece of rubber tubing for the gas cap vent, after Paul is done paying the egg delivery man for the eggs just delivered. Paul measures out the two feet of tubing we ask for by stretching it out on the linoleum floor tiles which are apparently one foot squares. We say thanks, and goodbye. Paul tells us to stop back in here next time we're around. As I'm waking to my bike, a young black girl wearing a bright pink shirt, shorts and glasses quietly says, "Shor is a pretty bike.." We get back on the bikes and ride on and find the campground by Paul's directions. People in their yard or porch wave to us as we pass by. We've been maintaining our fine dining but have adjusted to our new 3rd world country budget while still in our home country. Tonight our degustation consisted of elbow pasta avec fromage blanc and fresh canned premium albacore also known as Poulet de la Mer or "Chicken of the Sea". For dessert, we're having some leftover crusty bread with leftover Blue Bonnet (margarine) and confiture de fraise (Smuckers Strawberry preserves). This dinner cost us $3.00. The other night we ate some just add water Thai noodles which for again around $3.00 wasn't bad. We just happened to have some Belgian chocolates that Dad and Lee gave Sharon for a belated birthday... They made an excellent dessert. Another time we finished off the Grand Marnier we brought as an after dinner apertif. Sharon made notice of how my eating etiquette has changed to a more pragmatic style suited for camping. I won't mention the details, but I'm sure Emily Post would not approve. June 11,12 1997 R100GS 15007 R80G/S 22747 Alexandria- Valentine Lake About 2 o'clock, we stopped off at a deserted national forest campground to make some lunch. Just after we ate lunch a small old red pickup truck with three people crammed inside drove by and passed our camp site. 5 minutes later, a skinny wild hair bright blue eyed guy comes over energetically walking through the woods. "Hi, my name's Gary". He tells me there are blue berries around here, and then tells me his name again. I introduce myself, and then he tells me he's in the landscape business and so knows how to spot blueberries. Gary looks like he's been in the sun alot, smells like alcohol, has a habit of repeating himself, and is very friendly. He tells us that he was heading to a place 60 miles South of Houston, and is now heading back to his home in Yazoo Mississippi. He asks for a map of Texas so that he can show us his route back. Not really interested, I tell him we don't have one. He tells us, he's got one and runs back over the hill to get it. When he comes back a young heavy set blond girl, named Tammy, who looks like she's still in highschool comes waddling over the hill after him. Gary tells me in great detail how they drove out to Houston area, and how they were driving back. His friend, who has been doing all of the driving since 2:00am is taking a nap now. They had driven out there to pick up an inheritance of a house and land worth $25k. However, they had arrived a day and a half too late. The bank had just foreclosed on the property. Also, Gary said, there was no way he was going to pay the $2,500 in back property taxes on it since he ain't even from Texas! Gary, who claims he's younger than he looks says he's 38. They told us how they met. When Gary was married, Tammy was friends with his wife. Gary left his wife for Tammy. With some hesitation, Tammy says he waited for her until she was 16, and now they've been together for a year a half. Gary told his wife, "If ya want'n a divorce, you do it. I ain't messin with no paper work!". Tammy works for Gary's mom now. However since they just took off on this four day trip to Houston area, she's not sure if she's going to have a job when she gets back. However, she says that's fine since she thinks she can get a job at McDonalds or Wendys. After about an hour and a half we were thinking that this unexpected visit may never end, so we packed up our lunch dishes and suited up while they talked. and headed South to a place recommended to us by the US Forestry called Valentine Lake. Minutes before Gary and Tammy showed up, I was complaining to Sharon, that I felt like we were missing out on the local culture camping out and eating alot at camp sites. I spoke too soon. Tammy was eager to exchange addresses, and told us a couple times not to be surprised if we got a letter from her because she would write to us. Fearing a surprise visit, we gave her our old address which serves as an adequate proxy. We ate dinner at Tunks which was recommended to us by three different people. They serve Cajun style food in a large restaurant overlooking the lake. If you're from central Illinois or Indiana, it was like a Lousiana version of the Covington Beef House. The have an adjoining Oyster Bar if all you want to do is eat oysters. We ordered Alligator parmesan which tasted like chicken parmesan, crawfish platter which consisted of crawfish etouffee, crawfish cocktail,crawfish gumbo, and a twice bake potato loaded with bacon and cheddar. The acadian beer went most excellent with the meal. Sharon had what they called a Doc special with filet mignon and shrimp sitting on a bed of rice with grilled onions and a cajun style gravy/au jus. June 13, 1997 Lafayette, LA - Super 8 motel We started getting up at 5:30am so that we can do our riding while it's cool. Sharon who is definitely not a morning person is having a rough time adjusting, however she doesn't like the heat either. We're riding with a leather jacket and cordura/gortex pants, gloves and boots. The leather jackets are very well vented, but that's only useful when we're moving near highway speeds. stop and go traffic through a big city can be excrutiating. By 10:00am it's been getting uncomfortably warm. It's still taking us about two hours to break camp pack up and be on the road. I'm not sure why it take so long. We arrived in Lafayette around 10:30am. We hadn't had breakfast yet other than a granola bar we ate before we left the campsite. I told Sharon to find us a place to eat since she was in the lead. Sharon, who was pretty uncomfortable from the heat and stop and go traffic, and not having been off the bike for three hours pulled into the first place she saw which hinted of serving food. It looked like a generic building with a big parking lot in front that had a paper sign in the window indicating that food could be bought here. Inside were five young guys hanging around the door. There were several people standing behind a cafeteria style counter reminding me grade school days. When we walked in, I read the look on people's faces as "You're not from around here, are you?". The inside had about ten tables with ceiling fans mounted above them, all of them empty. Sharon went directly for one of the tables with a ceiling fan directly over it. The stark atmosphere made me question whether we had entered a homeless feeding cafeteria. I asked Sharon if she wanted to hop on the bike and look for another place. She blew up at me for questioning her choice and reminded me that I told her to pick a place without asking since we wouln't have time to talk about it through the half duplex communicators before we passed it by. I apologized and we went up to the white board to see what was being served today. I ordered some BBQ chicken and got some rice with ground pork, and cole slaw to go with it. Sharon got some BBQ chicken with canned green beans. The BBQ turned out to be excellent, the rice with ground pork was wonderful! and the baked beans were pretty good too. After we sat down to eat our food I noticed there were a lot of people coming in for pick up lunch at this time 10:30am. There were some interesting characters that walked in.... I saw two different people performed what looked like a ritual because of similarity and oddity. This guy who looked about 300 lbs quickly walked in the door with his head back, and a double bounce in his step did a loop to loop in front of the door and then double bounced stepped over to the counter with his arms swinging. About a half hour later, I saw another big guy do the same thing... maybe they were related. We were so hot, we decided to take the first motel we could find which turned out to be a Super 8. We crashed inside with the cool air conditioner. I messed around with the computer trying to get some email working. After about 20 tries, I was able to deduce that the problem wasn't software configuration, or line noise, but rather that my ISP had deleted my account. A few phone calls got this fixed, however I've lost all the mail up until this point. That evening we went to a place people from all over were recommending should we go to Lafayette. They told us Mulote's (pronounced Mewlots) is the plce to go for old cajun food. Mulote's is a fun place to go. They have jammin' live Zydeco that the crowd really gets into yowling vowels at the band not like your typical country yehaa. One man would yell out aaeeeeee that would taper off above his vocal cord range. In the background I'd hear a neeeee, owwww, yaaaaha, and a yaooooo. etc. Out on the dance floor, a few less shy would go out and dance. Two girls totally synchronized did a two step to the Zydeco. For dinner I had their special dish which they point out is featured in Euro Disney as cajun cuisine. I had the most incredible breaded catfish with a spicy acadian sauce, crayfish tails, and green onions. The jambalaya was made with carmalized onions, rice and canadian bacon. This came with a twice baked potato with cheddar and canadian bacon, and a side order of coleslaw. To wash this down I had some Mulote's beer which is a dark bitter and goes perfectly with the meal. Sharon ordered a red snapper that was stuffed with shrimp, crab, bread crumbs and green onions which was then fried on both sides giving it a nice crust. As an appetizer we had an order of extremely spicy andouille with grainy horseradish mustard, lemon on lettuce. For dessert it was bread pudding with a rum sauce. Excellent food and a good time... June 14, 1997 R100GS 15374 R80GS 23189 Winnie, TX - Al T's motel N29d,49.765' W094d23.047 It was 77 degrees at 5:30am with 94% humidity. We haven't had much luck with weather. In Champaign, where we left from it was the 5th coldest spring in recorded history. In the South, the weather channel says they are having abnormally high temperatures. Throughout the midwest, there is an abnormal amount of rain fall. While standing in a checkout line at a grocery store, my eyes spotted the headlines on the Sun tabloid. "Bible predicts hottest summer in 2000 years. Thousands will die in 130 degree heatwave!!!" There is a picture on the front of continental US looking like an overcooked mud pie. While in Chicago, we ended up eating dinner in the basement while multiple tornados swept away homes in the chicago suburbs miles away. Last night the weather channel was predicting more rain, thunder storms etc in the area we were heading into in LA and TX. They reported one person was killed by lightning yesterday, and that tornado conditions will exist. Two weeks before 31 people died as an F5 tornado that had over a 1.5 mile base and winds in excess of 300mph swept their subdivision away leaving only the cement foundations. This all happened 20 minutes west of our destination for tomorrow. Two different restaurants we ate at had a goofy Wax envelope enclosing a spoon, knife and fork. Advertising "Sanitized for Your Protection". "The message on the back may be of help to you". On the back are three prayers for praying before eating. One for Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. Each saying thanking the lord for the food".