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.
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