Back home from the central rally

[watchman]

Rick and I got home about 3 hours ago. Rode in the rain from ES to Lake Ozark, MO. Normally is takes us about 6 hours but today it took us 8 hours. Usually we cut through the country on some nice curvy roads from ES to just south of Branson hitting Hwy 65. But as they also run through a river bottom and with all the rain we thought we should not take any chances of local flash flooding. So we left ES and rode east on Hwy 62 all the way to Hwy 65 and then headed north.

At Springfield we could a big green cloud north of us so we turned off of Hwy 65 and headed east on I-44. We pulled off of I-44 in about 3 miles as there was 1 to 2 inches of water standing on the road during the down pour. We had lunch at a truck stop and then started on toward home.

We came upon a spot of I-44 that had water over the road. A car had stopped or slowed for the water and a semi had clipped the rear of the car and the truck ended up in the medium in about 4 feet of water. At times it was raining so hard we could hardly keep our glasses clean enough to see. Also it started to cool off so the glasses also where fogging over. Only one close call when a mini motor home crossed the lane line and got way to close to my handle bars.


We came up to the city of Lebanon on the junction of I-44 and Hwy 5 and fueled up. The rain was lighter as we again headed north on Hwy 5 to Lake Ozark. And we finally ran out of it just south of the Lake.


The rest of the trip was a burn up Hwy 54 and then on toward home on Hwy 63 for me and Rick turning off on Hwy 24 at Moberly. From Moberly Rick and I both have about 25 miles further to our homes.

As I arrived at the house, my wife Liz, was just finishing up washing her bike so I pulled up and quickly unloaded my stuff and got the bike washed and put away. Pretty lucky right?

Well that was the ride home, I will write more about the rally later. I am going to bed early.

[blowndodge]

Glad you got home safely watchman!!!

[ringadingh]

Sounds like the trip home was quite an adventure, glad you made it home safe.

[socwkbiker]

I updated the pics from the central rally. Go check out the new stuff!

[bobt]

Jim
Great to see you made it home safe. I just wanted to thank you for the great ride you led on Fri. It was a very good experience, especially the switchbacks going up Mt. Juda. Well anyway thanks again and I hope we can do it again sometime.

Bob

Switchbacks? I love switchbacks!