Day 3.
Tuesday July 22nd, 2014.

I have always been an “early morning person”.
It is 6:00 a.m. I am already packed, have the bike loaded and am underway for the day. It promises to be another exciting one. I have an idea of the direction I’ve chosen to head in but have absolutely no clue of what I will see, encounter and experience. Oh, such anxiety and anticipation! I look forward with the joyous innocence of a child.
Sunrise and sunset are 2 of the times of the day, when through the lens of a camera I can take advantage of those magical rays of light during these “Golden Hours”, to enhance my photography.
These golden hours, to me, are “The Greatest Light Show On Earth”!

I push on with my journey and several miles down the road I come across a crop duster doing his thing over the cornfields, flying parallel to the road I find myself on. So I issue the challenge and the race is on!
He is very perceptive.
He swooped over me, “wiggled his wings” at me and was out already in the distance turning for another sweep of the field before I could finish shifting into 5th gear!
As he approached me again, he was close enough to feel like I could reach out and touch him from my perch on the bike. He had a big smile for me. With a grin on his face, he saluted me with a touch of his helmet with his fingers as he made another pass.
I pulled over and took out my camera. I used the next 20 minutes or so for photos and captured some quick shots of him as he flew by me with each successive pass.

As I suited up and prepared to continue my journey, he gave me another close flyby and waved to me. I understood that to be a well wish, fare thee well and goodbye. He pulled up into the bright blue sky of the morning almost doing a 360 degree loop as I took off and was way off in the distance and became just a speck in my rear view mirror as I kept my eyes on him for as long as I could.
Not too long afterward I came across a farmer already hard at work in the fields. I stopped to chat with him. He was wonderfully friendly towards me.
It is folks like this I enjoy spending time with. The sincere warmth, and friendliness makes me want to be like such good folks and seems to rub off on me. These are genuinely nice people I seem to come into contact with. I think to myself quietly. This is how I believe life and personal relationships should always be wherever one goes.
I take it to be a blessing to have an opportunity to share their company even if only for a short moment of time. These become unforgettable memories and I use my remembrance of them to always send good wishes, thoughts and spirit to them.
Fascinated with my bike, all bedecked with gear, he is curious about my journey and the spirit I exude with the excitement with which I describe the journey so far. I begin to share my story with him.

I make it to Red Cloud, NE. The junction of NE highways 136 and 281. Turning south I point myself towards the state of Kansas. I am in search of Lebanon, KS which lies somewhere along this stretch of highway a few miles ahead of me.
As I approached the Nebraska/Kansas stateline, I took a few minutes to stop and experience the wide open prairie that lay before me.
Retrospectivey I found out that I was close to Harland County. A wide open space of seemingly nothingness – as it might seem to the naked eye, but to someone close to the land, to someone who has had to live and survive as so many others before me have had to do, it is a place teeming with life. Animal and plant life so naturally and delicately intertwined. Of special mention is the birdlife of this area. A few miles behind I had crossed the Republican River - a main water source provided to the area which is a natural habitat for a host of resident and migratory birds that have made this a corridor of life for themselves.
I pressed on.
Aaah, Lebanon, KS. The geographical center of the lower 48 contiguous states of America!
It’s been a long time coming.
My heart begins to race again with excitement. The excitement of being able to reach and experience the location. A location that lays claim to a unique place in the geography of our country – as do so many others I know and can think of. For now, it is one more such place that I will be able to certainly add to a host of places of my interest, of which I will have and have had the blessing and good fortune to have visited and experienced in this lifetime.
I’m getting closer and closer - with each passing mile, with each passing minute.

On location here was a small - let me correct that – TINY, but well built Chapel.
I stepped in, made a small monetary offering/contribution and said a prayer.
After rehydrating my body and an hour and a half of rest, I resumed my journey westwards towards Colorado along Kansas Highway 36.
On-going road construction work forced another stop for close to a half hour. It was a section requiring escort by a construction worker vehicle, as the road had been shut down to one lane only. The road was being re-paved.
The heat of the day, the heat of the fresh asphalt being laid down combined to make for an extremely hot environment. I did not miss being in an air-conditioned car/vehicle. The smells, heat and sweat added to the experience of the moment. I felt in touch with the outdoors.
Off in the distance along the dirt road running perpendicular to our stopped point, about a half mile along, I could make out a piece of agricultural machinery being put to use in the fields.
The traffic guard responsible for our safety control had said it would be at least a half hour before we could be escorted along the way. It would take the guide vehicle that long to get back to us, so our only alternative was to wait.
Having a little time to kill, I turned onto the dirt road to get a closer look at the activity on the farmland.
It was a brand new Combine Harvester at work in the fields. I choose not to say hard at work because my first impression was how easily it seemed to be performing its function. Later research on this would confirm to me that it happened to be not only the top of line model in it’s brand/class, but also the most powerful and productive Combine Harvester on the market today ( July/August 2014) and holds the Guinness World Record for harvesting.
A truly impressive machine!
I made it back to the main road with perfect timing.
The escort vehicle and I arrived together and without having to stop, the guard waved me into line to join the convoy of now moving vehicles.
So riding on freshly laid asphalt, so fresh it had not even been painted/striped yet, I overtook all the vehicles ahead of me in a safe and timely manner and straddled the lane to maximize my enjoyment of the quality of the roadwork. I do not remember feeling a single bump or ripple in the road surface for as far as I could recall.
This is the kind of road my Honda is made for!
With the bike as quiet and comfortable as it is, I settled in for what has become to me, a most memorable and unforgettable stretch of road.
Arriving at the Kansas/Colorado state line, I again dispatched with my customary state line-crossing photos and continued the journey.
The mid-afternoon sun had started its daily descent although still high in the blue sky of the day.
Visor and sun-shade deployed, I still squinted but continued with the journey.

Shortly thereafter I arrived at the intersection of this highway with US 385. My journey at this point dictated a turn towards the north. I was at the start of the eastern Colorado section of the High Plains Highway.
And so the highway climbed ever so gradually to almost 4000 feet in elevation.
It was hardly noticeable.
Cruising around 70 m.p.h. the topography of the land, it’s flatness, made it easy to take my eyes comfortably off the road ahead and take a good look around at the surroundings.
I could see for miles around. The air was fresh, relatively cool and made for a comfortable ride.
I came to a cattle holding station. This is a place where the beef industry has taken hold for many many years and I have no doubt that it will thrive for many more years to come.
The holding pens were humongous! They stretched for as far as my eyes could make them out.
Phenomenal, I thought. I had never before seen such an industry so vast.
Similar setups I had seen in Garden City, KS some time earlier on another trip, paled in comparison to these.
My journey continued as the highway wound itself through the plains and through the town of Wray, CO which came and went like a blip on a radar screen. Gentle sweeping curves broke up the monotony of the straight sections that went on to the vanishing point of sight.
Massive ranches adorned the landscape. I could see that this territory was all about grazing land needed to rear the cattle. Grazing land that many years ago fueled the greed of land barons for cattle ranching against the homesteaders and sheep farmers who had also moved west in search of a new life for themselves.
My continuing road experience was that of peacefulness, brought on by the comfortable weather and its accompanying piercing silence.
The sun still hung in the blue sky and there was not a single cloud in sight.
It was early evening when I arrived in the town of Holyoke, CO.
No sooner had I arrived at the town limits, I found myself at the other end of town without realizing it. Small town America!
I mad a U-turn and pulled into a gas station to fuel up for the night. My eyes had been peeled, on the lookout for a place to stay for the night. Everything was dilapidated, empty and so un-inviting. I had passed one nice looking hotel, so after taking on a full tank of gas I doubled back to find a room.
No luck. All booked out!
I doubled back to the far northern edge of town so I could comb the streets better to find a place. No luck.
The sun had begun its descent in the evening sky.
I remembered that at the entering city limit, I had seen a motel sign, so I headed there in the hope of finding a place. It’s parking lot was full I was skeptical.
Pulling up at the front office I steadied the bike on its side stand in the not so firm gravel/stone driveway.
I was apprehensive. The last thing I need now is for the bike to “keel over” onto its side. At 740 lbs. (336 kg.), plus the additional luggage in excess of 160 lbs. (72 kg.), I would embarrassingly need assistance to pick her up.
This feeling of uncertainty and nervousness did not sit well for me. I recognized the feeling, which in the past has led me to trust my instincts in situations like this, that this was setting up to be a not so pleasant situation. Luckily for me, I always carry a side-stand pad purposely for times and conditions like this. I opened the right side storage pocket on the ST, fumbled amongst the plethora of miscellaneous doo-dads in there amongst all the odds and ends and pulled it out.
Placing it under the side stand it afforded the bike more surface area to better steady her up on the gravel.
As I approached the front door, I could hear voices from within. There was no door knob. The door was shut and through the mounting hole of doorknob, or should I say where the knob should have been, I could see someone attempting to get the door opened from the inside. He was going about it all wrong. It was immediately obvious to me that he was not quite sure how to go about this. (My years of building maintenance experience was paying off now).
Calling out to me he apologized for the inconvenience and asked for my patience while he tried to get the door opened.
In my usual friendly and somewhat diplomatic manner, I asked him to suspend his efforts while I tried to assist him from the outside.
So “whipping out” my ever-present Leatherman utility multi 19-piece tool, I proceeded to release the door catch and open the door.
I was greeted with a big smile and yet more apologies.
“No sweat buddy. I just got lucky”, I responded.
So on with formalities, I was rented the last remaining room for the night. My maintenance work qualified me for a 20 dollar discount on the nightly rate. Cool! I was appreciative.
I will not go into detail on the room condition, but suffice to say, after unloading the bike and getting luggage into the room, I had to go out into town again to find some bug-spray!
After disinfecting the room as best as I could, I went back into town to try and find some cooked food for dinner.
On this night, I fancied some Chinese fried rice for dinner. But after walking into a locked establishments’ glass door, whose sign clearly indicated that they were open, I became the proud owner of a bruised nose!
I ended up getting a “take-out” pepperoni pizza from the next door establishment. Everything else was closed and it was not even 7:15 p.m.
This part of town turned out to be a community of migrant and construction workers. Rather dilapidated and void of the whole gamut of amenities and conveniences en masse, as I have been exposed to in a whole host of more populated centers of the larger cities of America.
So back to the motel, I put the bike onto the sidewalk right up to the motel room window.
I could not stand her up comfortably in the gravel. That gave me peace-of-mind.
I then proceeded to air out the room and expelled insect carcasses to the great outdoors.
I settled down for my meal and shower.
Too tired to watch TV or make journal entries, my bedtime prayer offered my gratitude to the Good Lord for another safe day of riding. I fell asleep promptly, albeit uncomfortably to get some much needed rest.
Despite the discomfort of the room condition, I slept soundly. I must have been very tired.
My 60-mile ride along the High Plains had been very pleasurable in motorcycling terms, making for another high point/experience in my riding life. The flatness of the land at such high elevation was a unique experience for me. One that I will not be forgetting too soon.
It had been a 383-mile day of more cornfields, beautiful stretches of asphalt, cattle ranches and perfect riding weather.

Next - CS Day 4.