Day 04 Unique Roadside Attractions

Day 04  - Louisville, KY to Rockford, IL: 3 states (KY, IN, IL), 440 miles 10.5 hours on the road, 9.5 in the saddle.

Today was a long day, which I knew it would be in order to fit everything in that we wanted to see. Our route out of Louisville took us on some great, winding back roads through beautiful horse pastures. We crossed the Ohio river into Madison, Indiana, where we stayed in 2013 on our return trip from the Harley Davidson 115th anniversary. We traveled through several quaint, small towns USA. Stopped for a few road construction bridge work, hello summer. And passed a truck with a picture of Uncle Sam pointing with the words "Have you prayed today?". 

Hmm. All these interesting signs make me wonder are they telling me life is short. Be kind. Enjoy every minute. Or was it because of today's first planned stop, which I found while trip planning and looking for roadside attractions. I'll admit it's an unusual roadside attraction but definitely interesting. 

In Franklin, TN, just off US31N, you'll find the grave of Nancy Barnett set smack-dab in the middle of the road. The story goes that Nancy's family fought the county from moving her grave when they wanted to place a gravel road directly over the site. As a compromise the county built the road around her grave. Yep, I think all those crazy signs led up to this interesting roadside landmark.

Before arriving at our next planned stop we endured a few road detours, more signs of summer, which took us on roads more traveled than we'd prefer. We grabbed a quick bite at Dairy Queen before heading to our next planned stop, the Town of Morocco, Indiana. My dad was stationed in the country Morocco back in the late '60s, early '70s and I have some great childhood memories from our time there. This was another gem I found during the trip planning. It originally added about an extra 15 minutes to our already long day but with detours it probably ended up being closer to 30 minutes extra. We didn't head into the town. Just a quick photo op of the welcome sign capturing our passing through and then we were back in the saddle for the last long leg of today's route to Rockford, IL. 

To help make up some time we took the interstate the last 120 or so miles. Storm clouds were forming all around us that it appeared our chances of getting wet were pretty high. It was a hot afternoon so a little rain might help cool things down, but I was also perfectly content with staying dry.

As we made our way across the interstate and miraculously avoiding the rain I took the time to reminisce on life and how blessed I am. Life really is wonderful. 

Today was a tank-to-tank day. Basically, you ride until the next gas stop, about 130 to 150 miles, fill up, hit the head, hydrate, and then back on the road. We've ridden tank-to-tank on many trips in the past but this one seemed a bit more exhausting. Maybe we're just not as seasoned as we once were or maybe we're just a little older. I had to laugh though when Curtis said he feels like we're riding bed-to-bed this trip.

We avoided the rain all the way to Rockford. The dealership had a few vendors, some food and drink stations and live music. We didn't see any info about the ride in so we asked a couple of employees if they knew anything. After some asking around they came back with nothing. Hmm.

We stayed for a bit to relax and hydrate. When a member from the motor company, Nathan, introduced the next band and spoke a little bit about Harley's 120 celebration I took the opportunity to meet him and ask if there was a planned ride into Milwaukee tomorrow. He said no that this homecoming was mostly about music and all rides were self guided. He was a very nice guy.

Tomorrow we ride our final few miles into Milwaukee. 

Day 05 The Arrival

Day 05  - Rockford, IL to Milwaukee, WI: 2 states (IL, WI), 120 miles 1.75 hours on the road, 1.5 in the saddle

We made it! After 3.5 days and 1500 plus miles we safely arrived in Milwaukee. It rained last night and a bit this morning but when we saw an open window in the weather that looked decent so took off about 9:30. I also put my rain gear on just in case our window didn't stay open but it did and we safely arrived at the Harley Davidson Powertrain operations center about 11am. 

We saw very few bikes on the road into town, which I thought was odd and for a quick second thought maybe the event was cancelled. But since we were a bit early and the weather didn't look too good I erased the thought and kept riding. 

There weren't many bikes at the Powertrain Operations but the demo bikes were set up a long with the brand new CVO road glide that Curtis couldn't take his eyes off of. They also opened the factory tours at noon so we waited around a bit and enjoyed the self guided tour which is very impressive. Very neat, organized and smoothly operated. We learned that when we sent my motor up for its rebuild it would have been done at this location. Interesting.

After the tour we walked back over to the bikes on display so Curtis could get another look at the CVO. It was nearly 1pm now and within a few minutes it started sprinkling so we hopped on the bikes and headed to the hotel to check in.

As luck would have it, our room was ready even though we were a bit early. The bike parking at the hotel is covered and very well marked. Yay! We quickly unloaded, changed, then  walked down a few blocks to grab a bite to eat at Miller Time pub. By now it was raining so the walk was a bit wet but we are very happy to be in Milwaukee.

Tomorrow we'll head to the Harley Davidson museum and check out the festivities at that location and maybe head down to House of Harley dealership.

Day 03:

Day 03 - Knoxville, TN to Louisville, KY: 2 states (TN, KY), 290 miles 10 hours on the road, 7 in the saddle.

Beautiful weather and great roads today. The bikes continue to run great. 

While eating breakfast at the hotel this morning we met at very nice couple that's also heading up to Milwaukee for HDs 120th celebration. By chance, they hooked up with a representative for the motor company in Fort Lauderdale, the southeast "ride in" location, and have been riding with the group everyday. It sounds like they're having a great ride. Maybe we'll meet up with them again in Milwaukee. 

The GPS continued to throw us a few hiccups. The first hiccup occured while trying to leave Knoxville where we found ourselves trying to navigate our way out of downtown Knoxville. Eventually, after a few not-so-nice words spoken through my intercom headset we were back on track and riding through some beautiful country.  

Not too far outside of Knoxville, up on a hill, was a huge display of well placed gravestones and a huge banner that read "Prepare to met God".  Hmm

Our route included US25E through Kentucky, which is an absolutely beautiful road. It does include a tunnel, but this one was well lit and fun, unlike the tunnels on Blue Ridge Parkway. My eyes don't do well in the dark and some of the tunnels even had curves. But, again, I prevailed and made it to our hotel safely to rest up for another very full day tomorrow. 

We took a side trip before landing in Louisville to tour the Maker's Mark distillery. Wow! Impressive! The grounds are maticuluaous. Including the women's restroom. 

The tour was fantastic which include tastings of four varieties. Sadly, we didn't finish all our tastings since we still had another hour and half ride to the hotel. Our tour guide, Taylor, did a great job educating us on everything Maker's Mark. Definitely recommend the tour if ever in the area.

Getting to the distillery was an adventure. The GPS continued to be questionable. We stopped for gas about 15 miles from the distillery and double checked directions. My Google maps showed a different route than Curtis'Waze and Garmin. We picked Waze and headed out.

When our tour guide mentioned if you didn't take the scary route to the distillery you may have seen some of our rickhouses, buildings where they store some of their barrels.  Well we didn't see any rickerhouses because we rode in on the scary route. Beautiful country but the road looked like someone's driveway with a couple extreme up and down hills. 

We decided to skip the dealership stop since the last two stops didn't have much. We were tired and ready to check-in to hotel grab a bite to eat. Tomorrow will be a long day as we make our way to Rockford, IL.

Day 02: Smoky Mountains

Day 02 - Columbia, SC to Knoxville, TN: 3 states (SC, NC, TN), 270 miles 10 hours on the road, 7 in the saddle.

Another great start to a full day of riding and fun with comfortable weather and light traffic. We spent the first 100 or so miles on I-26 to allow us ample time to spend in Maggie Valley. We then traveled some nice roads by Lake Lure through small towns such as Bat Cave and Chimney Rock. I really enjoy riding along side creeks, rivers and lakes. It's definitely my happy place.

We arrived in Maggie Valley just before noon, grabbed a bite at a local hometown restaurant, and then spent a couple of hours enjoying the Wheels Through Time museum. A must see for any motorcycle enthusiast. This was our second visit but with so much to see and several new exhibits, it's nearly impossible to see everything in just one visit.

One of the items on exhibit was a route planner attached to the motorcycles handlebars. Something like this would have been very helpful yesterday during our GPS issues. Thankfully, Curtis' Garmin seemed to work as expected today. We also had our Google maps that I created last night as a backup. 

After leaving Maggie Valley we turned onto the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed about 60 miles of absolutely beautiful scenery. The weather was cool but comfortable (I added a layer before leaving Maggie Valley). Parts of the road were a bit challenging for me but I prevailed and made it safely over the mountain. I really don't know why I continue to have so much fear on the tight, hidden curves. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the groove and then the next minute I'm tensing up. Ugh. Will I ever get over my fears? 

We're a bit disappointed with the "ride in" Harley Davidson dealership events. Nobody seems to be able to tell us much about the rides, such as who's leading and routes they're traveling. Oh well. We are quite happy with riding our own rides and will see what happens tomorrow in Louisville. 

We have a pretty big day planned tomorrow which includes a tour at Maker's Mark distillery. Fun.