Tonight’s blog will be a bit shorter, as I am exhausted and ready for some sleep! Someone set the alarm in our room for 5:15am this morning so Dawn and I were rudely awakened by the hotel room clock, so we dozed until about 7:30. It was still a little hazy and wet outside, but looked like it was clearing up. We ate some free breakfast and hit the road.

Tonight was the Bud’s Harley-Davidson Bike Night, so we decided to ride a little harder today and take a little more interstate and highway so we could make it from Virginia just south West of Roanoke to Evansville, Indiana. So we hoped on 81 and headed South West. The freeway took us into Tennessee and then we got on 11W into Kentucky. While we were in Tennessee, we kept getting closer and closer to what looked like a storm, but I thought surely we would miss it like we did yesterday…wrong.

When we got into it, it was raining so hard I was soaked within 2 minutes. After about 5 minutes I pulled over so we could put more gear on and I could cover my bag with the he rain fly. We were already pretty wet but we added more layers, I put my coat on and borrowed a pair of Dawn’s gloves. We had to ride in it for a little while, basically through a mountain pass, not very long then we were out of it. I literally did not have dry pants until after walking around Evansville tonight for an hour!

There were parts of the highways and freeways that were scenic but mostly we were just hauling ass to make it across 4 states and about 540 miles to be in time for bike night. We stopped right next to the Corvette Museum to get gas and grab a snack. When we pulled into the gas station there were 4 Corvettes there at the same time. I guess they all go there like a trip to Mecca or something. I guess I can’t judge, we all go to Milwaukee for the HD anniversaries and the museum!

So I have discovered that my steel nerves I developed while attending college in South Carolina are gone…I am terrified of bugs. As I was moving my bike out of the parking spot there was this giant flying thing that looked like a mutant bumble bee and June bug or it was possibly the spawn of Satan buzzing around my right lower fairing, probably eating the corpses of the bugs off of it. I tried to ride forward but it was pacing with me…so I stopped, put it in neutral then screamed. I put my sleeve over my hand and whacked it like a tennis ball. It was literally the size of a walnut, had a yellow head area and a big black body. It’s making me itch just typing about it.

So we jumped back on the interstate and headed up to Evansville. Dawn jumped into the lead after Owensboro and we rode right into their bike night and had VIP parking waiting for us! Their Bike Night takes over a street that has a few bars, restaurants and food vendors on it. It was pretty cool, over 400 bikes and everyone having a good time. Bud’s put on a good show with some good prizes and grand prize drawing at the end. Everyone was really friendly and excited to hear about our trip that they had been following on Facebook and of course by reading my blog 😉 We hung out there till it was all wrapped up then rode our Twinsie CVO’s to Dawn’s parents’ house, which is beautiful! So here I am in my own room writing my blog and getting ready to get some shut eye! Tomorrow I am staying in Evansville to work with Dawn and her crew so I will not be blogging again until after my ride Saturday!

Bike night