From Valentine, Nebraska. 1,061 miles from Lexington. I am hopeful that will be three riding days, but everything will depend on the weather.  And I sure wish that graphic had the tracks from Norfolk, Virginia, so that it would show coast to coast. I did not have my gps keeping the tracking points on that first section of my trip. When I get home, I will add some kind of lines to make the graphic complete, but I will have to have my home computer to do that.

This has been my longest ride at 475 miles.  I rode from 7 to 5:30 with a 20 minute break for lunch. But I didn't need the buttes to remind me of my butt this time. I just had to start that sentence with a "but." Snicker.

The wind was the story of the day. The forecast was for winds that were 15-25 mph with gusts of 33 mph. Wind is a problem for this little bike. Did I mention that it doesn't have much power? Going up a hill or going against the wind can really slow this bike down. The hill is obvious. But the wind is just as bad. Well, you can imagine it. If I am going 55 mph, then there is a 55 mph wind hitting me squarely in the chest since I don't have a windshield. But if you add a 25 mph wind to that, then there is an 80 mph wind hitting me square in the chest!

So I began the day thinking I may have to ride all day in fourth gear at 45 mph. I didn't think I would get very far. But after 30 minutes or so, I made a turn to the east, and the wind was coming from the southwest. That meant the wind was hitting me on the back corner of my shoulder, resulting in a nice push from behind. Suddenly I was cruising along at 58 mph and hardly using any gas! Nice!

It worked like that for most of the day, so I took advantage of it and stuck with the riding. Besides, it was a great day weather-wise, and I don't know how many of those I will get. It started out pretty cold at 41 degrees when I left Riverton, Wyoming, but warmed throughout the day, ending at 71 in Valentine. Gotta take advantage of that kind of weather too.

I could not help but think of my friend Terry from Pikeville. His favorite saying when working on a project with me was, "This is too easy!" He knew that problems were to be expected. Things usually do go wrong. And when nothing goes wrong, it is too easy! That's what I was saying all day. "This is too easy."

The bad news came when I got to my planned destination - Gordon, Nebraska. I had picked out a small motel in that small town because it got good reviews on Google. When I arrived, the place was out of business! That meant I had to ride an extra 90 miles to get to Valentine, Nebraska.

And that 90 miles was the worst of the day. Not, as you would think, because I was tired. I was actually feeling pretty good. But because the wind had shifted so that it came from the South instead of the Southwest. That meant the wind was either directly across my right shoulder or actually hitting my chest at an angle. And the wind had really started gusting - to 35 mph. That was enough to make the bike want to slide to the left on the road. When an 18 wheeler was coming, and I was slipping to the left, I really got nervous. I had to slow down to about 45 mph so that I had enough traction to keep from slipping so much. That was uncomfortable and made me nervous, but I still made pretty good time.

All in all it was a very good day. I'm glad I made so many miles when I could because there is some rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. I'll have to see if it is enough to stop me. Probably not, but we'll see.

But I did have bad news this evening when I got my camera out to download the pictures from it. I opened the back and discovered that there was no SD card! I had left the SD card in my laptop last night, so all the pictures I thought I took today I did not really take.  I didn't take very many anyway.

But I have a couple of interesting ones from left over from yesterday I'll share now.  I was cruising along when I saw this guy stopped on the side of the road going the other way, so I stopped to see if I could help.

I met Jacob riding a Suzuki Marauder. When I asked, he said he had a warning light come on regarding a sending unit. He said the bike was running fine, and he thought it was just a false signal or a wire loose on the warning light. He had decided to continue on his way to Oregon and then down the Baja California Penisula.

See? That's the deal with modern fancy motorcycles. You never know when a sending unit is going to go out or when you will get a false warning signal. I don't even know what a sending unit is or what it would send or where it would send it. I'm pretty sure my little simple bike doesn't send anything anywhere and certainly doesn't warn me about it. If it runs, it's good. If it doesn't run, something is broken. Pretty simple. I guess Jacob agreed. His bike was running so he was heading on down the road.

Then I stopped for gas and saw this guy pull up to the pump:

I don't know where I thought combines got their diesel, but I have never seen one at a gas station before. I talked to the owner standing there in the hat, and asked how much it would hold. He said about 50 gallons. I said my tank only held 1.8 gallons. He said, "I'll bet you get better mileage that I do though."

Well, it's been another good day on the road. Thanks for sharing it with me.