Homeward Bound

P-Rock - Pointed East

Day 27 - Rock Island, IL to Marengo, IL to Fremont, IN







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Today was my family day. This morning Daughter Rock (now K-Rock) stopped by the hotel as we were checking out and took us to this cute little diner for a great breakfast. We had good conversation about school, politics (I hate to discuss politics, but she made me) and various and sundry topics.

After that we rolled northeast toward Mother Rock's house. (We need a name here - help out followers! Mother Lode? Volcano? We need something catchy!). For me, this was a great flashback to my college years. My undergraduate work was at a small midwest liberal arts college (similar to K-Rock's Augustana College) about an hour south of Rock Island called Monmouth College, in Monmouth, IL (Where the corn grows wild...). At any rate, when I was in college I never owned a car, but did ride my motorcycle du jour to and from school when weather permitted. NOTE: Snow flurries were just fine back in the day. So the first leg of our route today was along the same general route I used to slog on the old Honda 350 and 550 from my youth.

We stopped in at Mom's house for a great meal and to sit and chat for awhile. We were watching her new hi-definition TV and Blackie and I were noticing that the picture just wasn't up to snuff for Hi-Def. Well after some poking around we found out that her cable guy (who apparently wasn't too sharp about a lot of things) did not use a high-def cable for her TV - so I had to run out to the local store and pick one up and get her set up properly. She was insisting that she was going to call Charter Communications to discuss this. Now knowing my mom as well as I do, I want to show some pity for the poor person (probably in the Phillipines) that will be taking this call. When Mom's on a mission, get out of the way!

Blackie and I then rolled on, with me almost getting hit by a car right in front of Mom's house. I was too focused on leaving and not focused enough on the fact that I do indeed NOT own the road. My next bright idea was that after all we've been through, why not finish strong and we'll just roll right through downtown Chicago on the way back... No using the by-pass. No wimpy traffic avoidance strategy. Mano-a-mano with Chicago's finest driving public. Traffic ended up not being too bad and with a few minor slowdowns we blasted through at great peril to life and limb and ended up here in Podunk Indiana. We thumb our noses at Chicago drivers.

I meant to take a picture (but forgot - I'm like that) of my rear tire, or what's left of it. I'm pretty sure it will make it home, but it will be by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. It's seen a lot of UGLY roads in the last 28 days, and it's time for the pasture, or wherever old tires go to die. I'm going to miss that tire. It saw incredible scenery, wildlife, the arctic circle, the pacific ocean, purple mountain's majesty, amber waves of grain, Mt. Rushmore and a whole boatload of brake fluid that got spilled on it. And I only had to add air to it twice the entire time it was on the bike.

Tomorrow we stretch for home. Hopefully with good luck, good weather and some postive tire mojo we'll roll in safely.

P-Rock - Stuffed with Mom's cookin.