We left Friday morning on our motorcycle trip with three other couples and one other guy from our Gold Wing Road Riders chapter. Meeting everyone else at a centrally located truck stop, we all had breakfast first. Then got on the road about 9:45 a.m. It was already in the 90s when we left, and temperatures soon rose above 100 degrees. Now you would think that the breeze would feel good. But being safe motorcyclists, we were in full riding gear - jeans, riding jackets, and helmets. We also had cooling gear - a vest for Steve and a neckband for me, the kind you soak in water then the evaporative cooling is supposed to help. It did, somewhat, but it was still brutally hot.
Our destination was Fort Wayne, Indiana. A familiar city to us as we used to live less than an hour southwest of the Fort. We headed south and into Indiana. Finally stopped for a break. Wouldn't you know it, the gas station we stopped at did NOT have working air conditioning! We stayed in the shade, tanked up on water, and many of us even soaked our shirts to help stay cool. By the time we hit Auburn, where our hotel reservations were, we were about done in.
Thankfully, the LaQuinta Inn where we were staying let us check in early. We cooled off a bit, then rode another 20 minutes to get to Fort Wayne.
I must say that this really wasn't a whole lot more than a nice trip with friends and an expensive shopping venue. We were only there for the last day and a half of the convention, and all we did was go through the vender show. It was still fun but not worth the price we paid. We ended up buying some oil filters, patches, and souvenir shirts. Got a few giveaways including a teddy bear from Progressive motorcycle insurance.
When we returned to Auburn on Friday evening, we decided to go to Applebee's, within walking distance of the hotel. Also within walking distance of WalMart, and also within walking distance of (you guessed it) a geocache. So after a nice Applebee's dinner, we all walked back to the hotel and I soon afterwards walked back that way to get the cache. Ended up walking all the way around the WalMart building but did make the find. Returned to the hotel to find the lobby empty and then Steve not in the room. So put my swimsuit on and got ready to go down to the pool. Then Steve returned and told me some were in (the solo guy's) room. Since I already had my suit on, went swimming instead. Refreshing but there were way too many young ones whipping soaker balls around the pool area to make it relaxing.
Returned to the room about the same time Steve did, we relaxed a bit then called it a night.
Saturday - we woke up, had the hotel breakfast, then everyone got on the bikes and we headed back to Fort Wayne. Still brutally hot again. Did more shopping, and this is when I won the bear. I'd tried about a dozen times on Friday without any luck. Came back today, sat down, and nobody else sat down in 7 other spots. They finally let me play on my own. I won, of course, and they asked me what prize I wanted. The bear, of course. And they gave me one. They ran out of bears not too long after so got lots of longing looks from co-riders as I carried it around.
Headed back with our group in the early afternoon. We took some time to cool off then went to lunch at Mad Anthony's Brewery in downtown Auburn. One of those places with all sorts of cool old stuff on the walls, and good food too. Only one of our group had a beer since we were still riding.
After lunch we headed for the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum. On our own, Steve and I probably wouldn't have gone as we've been there before. But went with the group, and nice to revisit it. The a/c, if it was there, wasn't working well so that was the only drawback. And -yep- there was a cache. One of the co-riders walked behind the building with me to see what caching was all about. Too bad it was only a film canister cache.
Back to the hotel for another cool-off. Steve and I both went swimming, this time we were the only ones there so nice to have the pool to ourselves. After that, Steve watched a movie while I went out, yep in the 100 degree weather, and walked to two more caches. Grand total of four for the trip. Met everyone downstairs for supper about a half hour after I returned. We all walked, again, to the Steak & Shake next to Applebees and had another nice dinner, other than the fact that they didn't seat us all together when all they would have had to do was clear one other table. Oh well.
Sunday morning, it was noticeably cooler, thankfully so. But the wild card was an approaching storm front. Had we gone the same route home that we'd come down on, we would have headed right into the storm. So we headed north then west, and escaped it. Blue skies not long after we crossed the Michigan border. An uneventful ride home from that point, still quite warm but not nearly so bad as the previous two days.
Today was back-to-work. Reality bites when you've been off work for 10 days....
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