Yellow Man

Instead of following the Yellow Brick Road across Kansas today, I followed the Yellow Man.

For those who have been looking at the daily photo albums, I’m sure it has been hard to miss Dad’s motorcycle jacket – it’s fluorescent yellow (high visibility, as the manufacturer calls it). You see, Dad’s motorcycle has cruise control while Little Red (the Triumph) does not. So, on the interstate highways, Dad always takes the lead and sets the cruise. I follow along behind. You can imagine how hard it is not to look continuously at the back of that jacket. After thousands of miles, this jacket has been burned into my gaze. Even when I close my eyes (I don’t do this while driving), I can see the Yellow Man.

Unfortunately, the state of Kansas did not have much to distract my attention from the Yellow Man today. I don’t want to offend anyone from Kansas, but there was just not much to see from I-70. I’m sure if we’d gotten off the beaten path a bit we’d have had more luck. Despite the lack of natural attractions or landmarks, it is quite apparent that a lot of famous people come from Kansas. We passed, in succession, a town named for Annie Oakley (Oakley, KS), the boyhood hometown for both Bob Dole and Arlen Specter (Russell, KS), the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum (Abilene, KS), and The OZ Museum (Wamego, KS). We also passed an advertisement for the World’s Largest Prairie Dog. Unfortunately, we did not stop to see any of these attractions. I will apologize in advance for those folks out there hooked on the photos and not the text. We rode so hard, I did not take a single photo of the Kansas landscape. There is no album today. I'm also not sure how many photos I'll be taking the next couple of days, either. We are in bee-line mode for home.

The highlight of the day was found at a Rest Area near Topeka. While we had a snack and a drink of water beside the motorcycles, I took a stroll in the shade. Something fluttered away from me as soon as I got in the grass. A baby bird had fallen from the tree under which I sought shade. The bird was too big for a nest, yet too small to fly. So he merely sat there in the grass, his parents worrying over him in the tree above. After a couple photos, we were again on our way. Here is our little friend. I have no idea what kind of bird he is. Maybe some of you can help me identify him?
We did not have hotel reservations when we left this morning. Our goal was to reach Lawrence, Kansas, but we managed to get well beyond it. We finally stopped riding about 3:45 p.m. in Blue Springs, Missouri, which is a suburb of Kansas City about 10 miles from the Missouri state line. We treated ourselves to Hampton Inn.

I have managed to miss the last two state signs (Kansas and Missouri). It was way to stormy to stop as we crossed into Kansas (small hail), and I-70 was way to crowded today as we crossed into Missouri (five lanes of traffic, we were in the middle one). So now I’ve missed only three.
The weather was hot and windy today. Mostly sunny. I think we’ve been smart to head home a day earlier. Despite the storm yesterday, it appears that we will be a day ahead of the next round of bad weather that is heading east. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Tomorrow we have reservations in Mount Vernon, Illinois.

392.7 miles today. 6,243.4 total miles.