Saturday, March 22nd. 4:30am. Already been up for an hour, vegetating in the shower in a vain attempt to wake up. I don't like starting my day with coffee so I hope my multivitamin kicks in soon. It's gonna be a long day.

My breakfast tastes like shit. I always eat the same thing before these rides. I should probably try something different next time. I'm not sure what tastes worse, a multivitamin stuck in your throat or the bland oatmeal I've prepared.

The weather reports said the highs of my destination were to be around 48-50 degrees. Not bad. According to the detailed hourly weather reports I can leave Georgia at 50 degrees that morning and make it the whole 540 miles with minimal temperature change. Of course that would be expected and boring, no adventure in that! The temperature drops and never went back up for the rest of the day.

48 degrees in Georgia.
44 degrees in Tennessee.
42 degrees in Kentucky.
38 degrees in Illinois.
38 degrees in Missouri.

My travels across the Mississippi River are greeted by a welcoming landmark of westward travels:

Quite a holy experience:

I meet up with my aunt who just so happens to be working on a Saturday. She works in the building next to the church and has a direct view of the arch, quite a nice job I'm sure! She rides, along with my uncle, and have put on quite the miles in a short time. I jokingly ask her why she didn't ride into work but I already know the answer why, I can feel the 5-series BMW's heated seats as I lean over her car to say "hi". My jealously could be cut with a knife! But road trips in cars don't make as exciting stories of stupidity so I am in luck!

But I do curse the weatherman under my breath.

I only stay for about 10-15 minutes, the purpose of my journey is not only to visit a national landmark, but to do a good deed for the day.

I haven't seen my great aunt Ruth in a few years. I normally see her every year at Christmas time but for the past few years my family has stayed in Georgia to be able to relax a little more than previous years. Her health has been getting worse lately but she always still sends me Birthday and Christmas cards every year, very thoughtful! I always send hand written "Thank you" cards back but I never think that's enough for all she's done. So I told myself not too long ago that I'd take one of my rides to her house to pay her a visit and spend some time with her.

I give her a random call just before getting into St Louis and she is incredibly excited that I called her, as I normally do not outside of holidays and such. She asks me what I'm up to today and I tell her I'm coming over to visit... I don't think she believed me.

I trek back over to Illinois and stop by her house. She was so excited about me stopping by that she called my Grandma and Grandpa over to join. I didn't think I would have enough time to stop by their house too (half an hour away) so this was great. We had lunch and talked for a little while. She gave me homemade cookies to take with me on my trip :) And my Grandma brought me homemade cookies too :) :) Awesome! They laugh when I say I came 500 miles for a 30 minute visit, I knew they'd get a kick out of that.

I head out and snap a picture on my way out:

My Grandpa on the left, Grandma in the middle, and my great aunt Ruth on the right.

Time to head home.

I was told to be really careful. The flooding is still really bad up there. For most of the interstate in Illinois (57 and 64) the water level is still really high. This is driving deer and other animals out from their habitats and onto the roads. There were 3 separate times on the way home I noticed deer just walking along the side of the interstate.

Illinois was also really bad with wind. I-57 North/South wasn't bad but I-64 East/West was awful. There was an almost constant crosswind blowing south and I spent most of the time going straight with a bit of lean. This completely wore me out, as I had to fight the wind a bit to keep it straight.

The last town in Illinois going south is Metropolis and I see a sign advertising a giant "Superman" statue off the interstate. This is absolutely worth a picture! I take this opportunity to take a mental break and search for the statue. I thought it may be right off the interstate but they had me go into town. Just what I thought! A tourist trap to sucker you into the town of Metropolis, bait and switch! I wasn't having it but I had to find this statue.

Wandering around the town square I thought hope was lost, until I saw what I came after:

Not really what I had in mind. I guess 1.5 stories tall is kind of "giant" but after seeing the 630 foot tall Arch in all its glory, I was a bit disappointed. There were other people driving up taking picture so I'm sure I was not the only one with these feelings. We all looked at each other and didn't say a word, but we were all thinking it: "you got conned into this crappy town too, huh?"

Get back on the road and trek it all the way back home. Time for bed. What an understatement.

1100 miles, 20 hours.

Not bad considering the cold but this means I need to do another Saddlesore before trying the BunBurner Gold (1500 miles in 24 hours) as this doesn't put me even close to the required average of 63mph. Without stops I could have done it in 18 hours so there is hope!