The Road to the Stomp: Day One :  Cool Struttin’ with John Hardy BBQ turns Biblical

Sunday April 26, 2009

Canton, MO

Biblical. That's the only way to describe day one of my road trip. I left Minneapolis about noon with the temperature hovering in the low forties. After a chilly hour and a half of riding I stopped in Rochester, MN for the obligatory meal (BBQ pulled pork sandwich)  at John Hardy's Bar B Que and later at Best Buy for a 2 GB memory card for Marlena's camera, thanks girl!

Finally I escaped destination Rochester aka the Mayo Clinic and the Midwest home of Big Blue (IBM), at approximately 2:30 P.M. under darkening skies with a lot of ground to make up.  I hit the throttle hard until I was nearing Waterloo (Iowa) , then all hell broke loose.  Now I know how Napoleon must have felt except instead of battling the armies of the Seventh Coalition, my battle was with the elements.  It rained so hard that I had grey out conditions near Cedar Rapids, IA.  This is not good if you are riding a white colored motorcycle and visibility , even with lights on, was down to less than 3 car lengths.  To make matters worse I was soaked to the bone because I did not don my rain gear as I figured it would not fit over the layers of clothes and winter jacket I had on to fight the cold.  Big mistake.  The combination of a temperature still in the low forties, soaked to the bone and the wind chill from traveling at highway speeds was the perfect recipe for hypothermia.   When I could no longer fight off my uncontrollable shaking I pulled over at one of those dual A & W and KFC restaurants in the middle of nowhere Iowa.  The look on the teenage employees faces as I waddled into the deserted restaurant was as if they had just seen a ghost. 

Still full from my meal at John Hardy’s, I ordered a coffee, more for the warmth than anything else.  I settled down in a booth and called my daughter, Genevieve, to give her an update and hoping to bide a little time until the storm died down and I could get my shaking under control.  But this was not to be. 

Perhaps it was the fact I had tracked a trail of water across their establishment, including the large puddle of water forming under my table.  Perhaps it was the fact I had only bought a coffee and in their calculus I had overstayed my purchase.  More likely  though, it was the fact I was on a motorcycle and shaking like a heroin junkie going through withdrawals and they thought that they were about to be robbed.

I notice the staff whispering to each other while giving me the “stink eye”.  Then one of the little shits musters up the courage to tell me:  “Hey mister, if you don’t leave now we’re calling the sheriff”.  The lawyer in me immediately kicks in along with the anger and adrenaline.  My fight instinct is telling me this is discrimination, something I was all too  familiar with having represented many a motorcycle club member over my years  practicing law. 

Luckily for me that my flight instinct won the argument as that same experience also told me I didn’t want to get into a pissing match with some narrow minded deputy sheriff in bumfuck Iowa with an exaggerated sense of self-importance.  I probably shouldn’t rush to judgment on the local constabulary but if they are anything like their community’s youngens, I want no part of them.  With a moan of disgust and dread, I saunter out of the fast food Formica dump making sure to flip them the finger as I go.

After ten or fifteen minutes  of white knuckle, terrified riding in the pouring rain it finally stopped. “Finally”, I thought to myself, “…now I can make up for lost time” as I resumed my trip in the early evening hoping to make it to the home of “Make A Buck Chuck” Chuck Berry, Wentzville, Mo. Unfortunately, God had other plans and decided to throw pestilence at me.

Still wet from all the rain and traveling at highway speed, I had no choice but to  drive through the clouds of insects hovering over the roadway directly in my path.  It had the effect of causing the bug splatter to cling to me, my gear and the bike.  I looked like one big adhesive fly strip. While I make no claim to be an entomologist, based upon the proximity of my route to rivers and the time of year, I am fairly confident it was a May Fly hatch I just encountered. 

When the clouds started to look ominous again and it was not from insects, I wussed out and pulled off the road for the night in Canton, Mo.  I stayed at the Comfort INN where everything was comfortable but the price. Not even the make your own waffle bar or the free entertainment in the form of the construction crew drinking in lawn chairs outside my first floor window in the parking lot well past midnight could make it worth the price.

Anyway, I'm out of here in two minutes (7:14 AM) so Hold On I'm Coming.