The Return Trip - Across Kansas and Home At Last

If you are reading this for the first time you should understand that you are coming in at the end of the story. In other words, a blog is written with the most recent post at the top, so for a long story with many posts the last post is at the top. If you want to read my blog posts in order use the "Chronological Contents Page" on the top tab bar. Also make sure you read the "Trip Overview."  

Hope you enjoy it!

Jerry

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This was Friday, July 23rd, and day 15 (the last day!) of my trip.

When I woke up everything was completely dry. I have no idea what happened to all those storms that were just a few miles away and closing in fast. There was no way they were going to miss me, but somehow they disappeared.  Well, sometimes you get lucky.

So I packed up and loaded the bike for what I knew was the last time. I knew it was the end of my trip and I was looking forward to getting home, but at the same time I really enjoyed the daily adventure of seeing new places, not knowing quite which way I was going next, and meeting people along the way.

I got a later start than I intended, most likely because I had taken those couple of Tylenol PMs about 1 am. They really work but sometimes more than you want. But it was ok because I didn't have that far to go.

I headed down the highway intending to stop in Dodge City for breakfast, about 60 miles away.

I had stopped in this pancake house for breakfast on my previous trip and remembered it was a nice place with a big breakfast buffet. I had a good breakfast and checked and found I had good Sprint cell service there.  So I checked my emails and sent a few. I also talked with brother Tom and Joanne about their move to Louisville.

I had also been corresponding occasionally with Mark Hopkins, a former coworker at Sprint. He sent me some kind of email the day before asking how it was going. In his email he said "Whatever you do don't go through Dodge City!" 

I wrote back to him and told him it was too late I was having breakfast in Dodge City. To my surprise he responded quickly and said basically that's ok but don't go east through Hutchinson or Wichita (which was the way I went 2 years before, and was planning to go again). He said the fastest way back home was to go northeast through Great Bend and on up to interstate 70 and then east to Kansas City.

Well, I looked at my map and plotted the route on my GPS and I don't recall the details but he was right - there was a substantial time difference between my former route and his way up to I-70. Normally I avoid the interstates just since they are so damn boring. Motorcycles just do not belong on interstates! But I was headed home and the difference of 30 minutes or an hour began to make sense to me.

I wrote him back an email and said that looked great and thanks for the tip. His timing was perfect since I was paying my bill and getting ready to walk out the door.

So that's the way I went. Here is a map showing the route home.

That's about 330 miles and it was a good, fast highway up to I-70 and then a fast but boring run across. I was stretching my gas again and I could see I wasn't going to make it all the way home so I had to stop in Topeka to fill up. Very frustrating since it was quite hot again and I was even more anxious to get home.  I just wanted to keep going and not deal with local traffic getting in and out of a gas station.

I realized I had come over 5000 miles in 15 days and had been lucky enough to have a safe ride up to this point. I became more cautious and backed my speed down on the cruise control to about 5 or 7 mph over the speed limit, which put me about on pace with most traffic. I didn't want to take any chances of getting a ticket at this stage.

So finally I turned on Shawnee Mission blvd just a couple miles from home. It was a strange feeling, looking at the cars and a few bikes around me sitting at the traffic light. They were going to the grocery store or running some little errand, worried about some little thing they had to get done next in their day. But I sat there thinking there was no way for them to know I was half a mile away from my home after what would be 5,600 miles in 15 days. I felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

I pulled into the driveway and beeped my pukey little horn. Susan came out and gave me a big hug and a kiss and I felt oh so relieved. Finally I could relax, let the world stop moving in front of my eyes, stand up and walk around for a while. I went inside and let the dogs go crazy on me for a while. It was a great long trip with lots of memories of beautiful places but it was sure good to be home.

Here is a couple of pics Susan took of me right after her hug and kiss, me sitting there in the hot sun, drenched in sweat, with a full 15 days of growth on my face, trying the get the energy up to actually get off the bike for the last time.

And here is my final ending odometer.

The starting odometer was 46,832 and the ending was 52,432, so the total miles were exactly 5,600.

So then I woke up the next morning and thought to myself - what a great dream I had last night!