I Just Rode in from Massachusetts and does my butt HURT!!!

Day 1-2 Windsor, Mass to Buffalo, Iowa, 1046 miles.

We started our trip by attempting an Iron Butt Association, Saddlesore 1000 ride, which is 1000 documented miles completed in under 24 hours. We had to have starting and ending witnesses and keep a log of all our stops along the way. We finished up 1019 miles on the Mississippi River at Moline, IL in 2 ½ hours.

We started out in Windsor at Friendly Fred’s at 2 PM with hot and humid weather. I decided to be the designated Kimball by putting on the rain gear when it wasn’t raining. On our trip to Nova Scotia, Mark warded off the rain for about 900 miles by always wearing the rain gear when it wasn’t needed. It didn’t work for me because we hit our first thunder storm just west of Albany, only 2 hours in. I guess we need to take the real Kimball with us for that trick to work.

After a quick stop for everyone else to put their gear on we rode through the storm and back onto dry Interstate. In all we rode through 5 thunderstorms between Albany and Buffalo. Nothing bad enough to slow us down but a little annoying. Once we passed Buffalo, the skies cleared and we had a great ride through the vineyards with the sun setting to the west and the almost full moon rising in the east.

I have to give a lot of credit to everyone for some quick stops for gas and shovelling some food down except for one stop in Pennslyvania where Mary Ann had words with a gas station clerk over one of our gas receipts.

We rolled on through Pennsylvania and into Ohio. The traffic picked up as we came into Cleveland which slowed us down a bit. By now it was around 11:00 so we started looking for a campground for the night. Funny how few campgrounds there are in downtown Cleveland… So we just kept going west onto the Ohio Turnpike. We finally had to get off the highway as Scotts bike was running on fumes. We asked the lady at the toll booth if there was a campground nearby and she said the closest was about 20 miles away. Oh well, I guess we’re motelling it tonite. We took a right off the exit and within 100 yards there’s a big sign- CAMPING. I guess the toll lady doesn’t get out much. We set up in the dark and hit the sleeping bags at 12:45 with 570 miles. Not bad for an afternoon ride.

In order to make 1000 miles we needed an early start so we were up and on the road at 4:50 AM. Lets see, that gave us about 3 hours of sleep.

It was a nice peaceful morning with no traffic,riding through the Lake Erie fog and waiting for the sun to come up. We made really good time until the I-80 split in Gary, In where the traffic slowed us down again. Once we got through the city we were into corn country through Indiana and Illinois.

We got to Moline with plenty of time to spare for our 1000/24 and a nother minor incident with gas receipts for proof of our ending time. Overall it wasn’t a bad ride, not too rushed or tiring. We all just had headaches from lack of sleep and caffeine. We skipped the morning coffee to avoid having to stop and pee every 20 miles.

We toured the John Deere attractions (Moline is world HQ for John Deere) and had lunch. We crossed the Mississippi on the Centennial Bridge and found our campground in Buffalo, Iowa. It was a nice place right on the Mississippi. We had a swim in the river then watched the full moon rise before finally pooping out at about 9:00. It was a LONG day!