Lauri had an 8:30 a.m. class, so she dropped me off at the northside McDonald's to get my blogging and Wifi fix. She showed up about an hour later and we hung out awhile, then drove up to Lafayette where she returned an art history book to the Ivy Tech bookstore. Then it was off to retail heaven at Meijer's where I got a microfiber eyeglasses cleaning cloth to replace the one I left at home. We went to some friends' house for grilled pizza dinner and a pleasant evening of conversation while the boys enjoyed the swimming pool. Since we were up late last night, we bagged it about 9 p.m. The bike had the day off and never left the barn.... read more

I got up about 7 a.m., showered and rode to Shaprio's Delicatessen for breakfast with my Indianapolis BMW Club friends. Ordered turkey hash from the bizarre-looking cashier with the heavy blue eye shadowed raccoon eyes. Rich arrived from his triathlon about 10 a.m. and we headed for the track about an hour later. The traffic management this year was remarkably good and we got good parking spaces in the infield. We cruised the vendors and I picked up some accessories for the GoPro HD video camera - a spare battery, a 16GB SD card and a chest mounting strap. The bike events were fun, especially the H-D race at the end of the day. The bad news came when I pulled my Garmin Zumo 550 out of the tank bag, which had been stuffed into my ... read more

The UPS truck never showed up yesterday, so they put it out for delivery today. I saw around all day - mowed the grass, reinstalled Firefox on the VAIO laptop, did all kinds of busy work to occupy myself - planning to hit the road as soon as the package with my Kathmandu pants arrived. I finally gave up at 5 p.m. and sent emails to Rich Nathan and Maria to that effect. Naturally, the UPS truck arrived at 5:15 p.m. with my package. So I had a quiet evening at home, finishing up my packing, rather than a frenzied dash to some motel in central Illinois. I hope to be on the road shortly after 6 a.m. tomorrow. The Citgo station's pay-at-the-pump system was working today, so I topped off the tank and also updated ... read more

I was up at 5 a.m., having slept soundly once again on the Hometics Smart Foam mattress cover on the bed in Steve and Nicky's guest bedroom. I packed my bags and hauled them downstairs where I drank a cup of coffee and did some last-minute computer stuff. Steve rousted Lisa out of bed and put her into the car seat to accompany us to the airport and we were out of the driveway about 6:50 a.m. It looked like all of Las Vegas was flying when we got to the airport, but I checked by large bag and dragged my carry-on through the TSA checkpoint with no problems. After the tram delivered me to Concourse D, I phoned Maria to let her know I was ready to get airborne. At Steve's suggestion, I got the ... read more

We had a leisurely morning - I got up about 7 a.m., came downstairs and made coffee with Nicky, then worked on the blog. Nicky had to work in the morning, so Steve and I lounged around with Lisa watching a movie on TV. After some vacillation, I decided to go swimming with the gang at the Lifetime Athletic complex. Having left my swimsuit at home, I unzipped the legs from my Columbia cargo pants and let them serve as swimwear. I took my GoPro Hero HD video camera with its waterproof housing, which turned out to be a good decision. We got there about 11:30 a.m. and the pavement around the pool was already blazing hot to my sensitive, never ever unshod feet. Steve and I followed Lisa into the pool and tried to shoot ... read more