2011 Mid Life Crisis Tour

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ST. FRANCIS, Kans. - I was on the road by 7 a.m., just minutes after sunrise, with the red rubber ball of the sun in my right mirror.
About 15 miles west of Chillicothe, I caught sight of a rainbow off to my right, an artifact of the line of scattered showers I'd seen advancing out of Kansas when I checked the weather radar earlier.
By the time I got to St. Joseph, Mo., I had seen three more rainbows and caught a few drops of rain. Counting the rainbow I saw above Jim and Lauri's house yesterday morning this makes 5 so far and the trip is only two days old.
It looked like showers were dead ahead, so I pulled into a McDonald's at the east edge of St. Joseph, parking under a gas station canopy, and went in for breakfast and Wifi. I had a parfait and large coffee as I studied the radar, finally determining that I could shoot the gap between a couple of showers on either side of U.S. 36.
My guess was a good one and I managed to stay dry, even though I found lots of wet pavement.
I gassed at Seneca, Kans. and again at Smith Center, stopping about 2 p.m. for a Subway lunch in Phillipsburg where I saw a bank time and temperature sign reading 101 degrees.
Fortunately, the humidity was within reasonable limits and the heat wasn't as miserable as it could have been.
I phoned in a reservation at the Empire Motel in St. Francis before I got back on the road after lunch and arrived in St. Francis about 3:45 p.m. I was surprised to see a note on the motel office door announcing that they were out to lunch and would be back in an hour.
I went across the street to the convenience store and drank a bottle of Gatorade, phoning the office a few times to see if the owner/managers were back. Finally, I rode back to the motel and hung out until the owner and another woman were dropped off by another couple. It turns out that they had gone to lunch and run out of gas.
He asked if I could pay in cash so he could buy some gas for his car, so I forked over a couple of $20 bills for the $37.84 motel room. I received my change all in coin, which I didn't bother to count.
I holed up in the room, cooling off, until about 6:30 when I hiked east along U.S. 36 to a Mexican restaurant I'd visited two years ago. The food was disappointing but filling. I came back to the room and dozed until Maria called, then rode west a block to the Dairy King for some soft serve ice cream.
Now I'm back in the room contemplating an early evening and an early start tomorrow. I covered 454 miles today.

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Photos

Buggy boots
My feet were peppered with grasshoppers all day.

Coffee and Wifi
The scene at my table at McDonald's this morning.

Room 9, Empire Motel
You get what you pay for.