Well, here’s a late final update on the last day of the trip.

With fresh motivation and a long day of riding and stops across Kentucky, we headed out to catch the Jim Beam distillery at opening time.  They offer a quick tour of the grounds and two samples chosen daily from their brands. Ours were Basil Hayden – my favorite bourbon, and Booker’s – a little hot but still good.

Trailers waiting to be filled at the Jim Beam distillery

Next up was a mostly straight-line ride to the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center.Heaven Hill bottles dozens of brands of bourbon and hundreds of other spirits at this facility. We tried Elijah Craig (uninspiring) and bought a bottle of Elijah Craig 18 Year – the oldest Bourbon bottled.

A few miles of nice backroads brings you to Maker’s Mark to finish out the western Kentucky distilleries.  The Maker’s tour was the most interesting, as it’s the only one that actually goes through the operating distillery. I got to sample the mash at each stage of fermentation, which was cool. You can easily taste the progression from sweet to sour. We grabbed a quick bite at the Toll House Cafe on the Maker’s Mark grounds, and then got on the road to trek toward eastern Kentucky.

Next up was the Four Roses distillery.  The brand has been absent from the US market for decades until recently, but there’s beautiful Spanish mission-style architecture. The booze wasn’t bad – I’ll look for it in the store to try again.

Four Roses Distillery

A few short miles of twisty backroads lie between Four Roses and the Wild Turkey distillery. By this time it was getting late in the afternoon, about 4:15, and we missed the start of the last tour. Fortunately we were able to get our stamp, buy an American Honey shirt for a friend, and hustle to Woodford Reserve – the last stop on the trail.

We made it to Woodford just before closing, so we missed the tour, but we did get a glass to try from the guides and got our final stamp for our Bourbon Passports.

At this point it was about 5:15, 85 degrees, and no clear destination.  The original plan was to stop in nearby Frankfort and then head south to Asheville the next day for the Biltmore estate and a couple laps on the Tail of the Dragon.  But the weather reports called for rain all the way up and down the Blue Ridge mountains, and if there was one thing I wanted to avoid more than the oppressive heat, it was hot rain. We decided to head east and pour on some miles in the relatively cool afternoon temps to get to Charleston, West Virginia.

With the sun setting and the temp dropping, these were fairly comfortable miles, even though we’d been riding all day. Once we got close to Charleston, I decided to just book it all the way home – there’s nothing I wanted to see in Charleston or in between, so I figured I’d rest up and maybe go to Ocean City after a few days at home.  The ride across West Virginia was uneventful, but as the sun disappeared, the threat of wildlife ratcheted down our speed.

As luck would have it, we didn’t encounter any wildlife, but I did get a cosmic F U in the form of a truck tire tread. It was about 2:00AM, just outside of Frederick, Maryland – only 30 or so miles from home, when I saw the amorphous blob of rubber in the road. I swerved, but still clipped it with my left foot, causing excruciating pain and bending the bolt that attaches the shift lever to the frame.  I pulled off onto the shoulder, got the boot off, and checked my foot for damage – it was swelling fast and hurt like a mother, but with only 30 miles to go, I quickly got the boot back on to get home before it popped from the swelling.  I was able to hook one of the foot guards under the lever to shift up and get it into 6th gear, and booked it down 270.

Purple Foot!

X-rays showed no fractures, but the doctor was surprised given the lovely shade of aubergine that my whole foot had turned.  It’s been over 3 weeks and it still doesn’t feel right. Oh well. It could have happened on the first day of the trip instead of the last, and for that I’m grateful.

So this afternoon, as I was laying half-naked on my completely sanitized and germ-free bed at the $52/night days inn trying to stop sweating like a diseased hog, I started thinking about how to get home as quickly as possible.

For the first part of the trip, I was going west, to unexplored territory. I had never been west of the mississippi, other than a brief school trip to LA a dozen years ago, and a few layovers in airports. So every day was something completely new, and even if it sucked, I was learning or discovering something. Even the long days, like from Tucson through Mesilla and El Paso on to Alamogordo, had interesting stops and some conversation. But the last two days – a long sleepless ride to Springfield, without enough time to spend reading the exhibits at the Museum of Westward Expansion, and another long hot ride with nothing of cultural or intellectual significance into the suburbs of Louisville – really drained me, physically and mentally.

I felt like I was now close enough to home that the adventure was gone. Hell, I rode to Indianapolis in a single shot just a few months ago, and rode these same roads down through Kentucky on the way back just a few days later. It no longer starts a conversation when someone asks where I’m from and I reply “Maryland” like it did when we were in the backwoods of Arizona or southern Texas. So there’s a real sense of the meat of the trip being behind me, and it’s taking its toll on my motivation.

Riding through 95 degree heat in racing leathers might not have been the best idea, but it was a lot more tolerable when I didn’t know what the next hill or curve would reveal. There were so many occasions in California where a gentle turn around the hillside would open an incomprehensible, sweeping vista of desert or forest or mountains. The intercoms were abuzz with constant exclamations of “Holy shit! This one’s even better than the last”. Once you get to the flat lands of the Midwest, there are no turns, no hills, and the only sweeping vistas are more fields of whatever crop they plant 8,000,000,000,000 acres of, that hasn’t even started to grow yet. With no distraction from the ball-boiling heat, each day’s ride was just a miserable toil with no rainbow and no pot of gold.

So anyway, those are the reasons I was cranky tonight. But after moping for a bit, I realized what I had written when I started this trip – that yes, motorcycles are terrible means of transportation, but the point is to make the most of the trip itself. So tomorrow I’m going to put my ill-suited gear on, check out some distillery tours, sweat my ass off and bitch about the lack of a vent-zipper on the back of my jacket, and suck it up and see the rest of America on my way back home. With any luck the weather will hold off long enough to get back to the Dragon on Wednesday for an encore run or two. And next time, I’ll spend more time on planning the last part of the trip to keep it more interesting. Who knows how many cool things I passed the last two days without even realizing it.

I sneezed in my helmet today. Usually I am able to coordinate the head, lip, and tongue movements so that this is a non-issue. For some reason that didn’t happen today. It’s … everywhere…

We got up around 8:00 today, had a mediocre breakfast, and got on the road. Our destination was just outside Louisville, near the start of our tour of the Bourbon Trail – 6 distilleries which offer tours and tastings. And a free t-shirt if you visit all 6!

It was a miserable ride for the first few hours – nothing to look at, hot as hell, and straight roads.  We did hit a nice section around Natchez, Indiana, on Highway 150, with some good curves. There were a ton of other bikes out – the road was nothing impressive if you ride near mountains, but given our surroundings, this was the first decent motorcycling we had seen since we left California, so it was much appreciated.

We grabbed lunch at Papeno’s Pizza outside Palmyra – the air conditioner inside was struggling to keep the place at 84, but it felt like the most comfortable ice box ever to us. Just another 50 miles to go to Shepherdsville, where we pulled into our hotel. Distilleries open at 9:00 tomorrow, so we’ll try to get the earliest start we can to avoid the mid-afternoon heat.

We took a quick ride down to the Fourth Street Live area to find dinner. Unfortunately most of the places were closed by 9:00, but we were able to get salads and a drink.

4th Street Live in Louisville

Today was a pretty cool day.

I slept in a bit, which felt good, and bought tickets to tomorrow’s AMA races at the Springfield mile.  Then I headed out on foot to check out the city. I walked down the river a bit and then up to Front St. On the corner of Union and Front there’s a little sign for the Cotton Museum – I didn’t know why there’d be a cotton museum in Memphis, so I popped in. It was surprisingly interesting – highly recommended to anyone who passes through Memphis. It turns out Memphis was the center of the cotton market, and the museum had a ton of information and exhibits on related topics, so I finally got the rest of the story on the history of the blues, the economic forces behind sharecropping, and the realities of “equality” for post-emancipation black americans. Really fascinating.

Streetcars in Memphis

After that museum, I was heading toward Beale to check it out in daylight when I walked by the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art. Seemed like a bizarre combination, but since I minored in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (specifically Japanese Art and Architecture) and am recently fascinated by Judaic studies, I couldn’t resist. It’s at the bottom of what seemed to be an office building, and seemed to have many more wings than you would think could fit. There were some amazing works on display, but it was a little heavy on Chinese artifacts, and a bit light on history and explanatory dialog. Mostly I was curious why the combination (my guess is that Belz was Jewish, wealthy, and liked Chinese sculptures). Some great photography of the diaspora by Frederic Brenner – I would have liked to spend more time, and again, some background or context would have been helpful for the ignorant but curious, like myself. My list of things I’ve been exposed to on this trip and need to read about later is impossibly long at this point.

It was nearing dinner time, so Dad suggested we head toward Charlie Vergos Rendezvous, near the Peabody, for some pork BBQ. We stopped at the Peabody lobby for a few drinks, and happened to arrive shortly before the “duck show”. There are ducks that live on the roof of the Peabody (for a few months at a time before they’re replaced by fresh ducks to avoid being too domesticated), and every day they are paraded by a Duck Master down a special elevator, across the red carpet, to the fountain in the lobby. They hang out there, swim around, preen, and generally look adorable for customers until the evening, when they are paraded back to their, uh, roost I guess. The Duck Master gives this very grandiose speech while wearing his tux – a cute tradition.

The Peabody Ducks doing their thing

Outside, there’s a Duck Walk – duck prints in the concrete with the names of past dignitaries (I heard two stories – that they were past Duck Masters or past owners of the Peabody hotel). I dubbed it the Waddle of Fame and we went to the alley to find Rendezvous – there were people lined up out of the restaurant and filling the alley, so we put our names in and went  back for one more drink.

The Waddle of Fame

The charcoal BBQ pork ribs were very good, and the brisket was decent. I liked everything about the BBQ in Austin better, I think, but we’ve had a lot of great meals on this trip.

Mmm, dinner

After dinner we took a quick lap around Beale street, found my requisite sticker for the pannier, and watched some street gymnasts do super-human tricks for tips. Then it was back to the room for bed. We have a very early start tomorrow – need to be on the road by 5:00AM to make it through St Louis and into Springfield in time for the AMA Flat Track Races at 1:00

Our second day in New Orleans, we walked down the river to the French Quarter – a few blocks, and had po’ boys at Johnny’s. I had shrimp – it wasn’t bad but there wasn’t much to it other than good bread and fried shrimp. I’m sure I missed the secret. There was some kind of street event being set up on Royal St along the absurdly expensive shops. Other than that, not much to see in the Quarter other than bars.

The Mississippi cresting near the top of the levies

We made our way home, talked for a while, took a quick nap, and then headed back out to the Quarter to experience the nightlife.

We ended up stopping (for no particular reason) in 3 Irish Bars. First up was Flanagan’s. The bartender was a dick – I guess it was part of his act but it was obnoxious and we left after chugging our first beers. Next up was The Boondock Saint – this bar was opened by two New Orleans Homicide Detectives, and had a bunch of police badges from across the country in the roof beams. Thought that was a neat touch. They have a TV in the corner that plays the movie in a loop. The bartender was cool and the drinks were cheap, so we stayed here for a while. New Orleans is a pretty pet friendly city, so dogs are allowed in many of the bars, including this one. Definitely liked that.  Last up was Ryan’s Irish Pub. Not much going on at this one and it was getting late, so we had one drink and walked back.

I think this was the first day since I left that I didn’t get on the bike once. It was nice being able to walk everywhere.  Tomorrow will be a long and probably hot and boring ride up the interstate toward Memphis.

Today was a free day in Austin. The roads around Austin, Hill Country, are only slightly better than the roads across the plains, so there didn’t seem to be any good road trips. Instead I ran some errands. I stopped in Ducati Austin to pick up a t-shirt, and chatted with the service manager Bull. He told me about some great roads and a cool museum down near Leakey, Texas. Unfortunately the museum is only open on weekends, and it was about a 5 hour round trip from Austin. I plan to come back to Austin for the F1 and MotoGP races next year, so I’ll definitely plan to make the Lone Star Motorcycle Museum and routes 335, 336, and 337 (the Three Sisters).

We grabbed lunch at Chuy’s, which is a local chain of Mexican restaurants. Food was pretty good. I was also able to get the bike cleaned up at a car wash and catch a quick nap.

Tonight we went to B.D. Riley’s Irish Pub on 6th street – the pub was actually built in Dublin and then moved to Austin – cool story. The menu proclaimed the fish and chips as the best thing, but it was kinda so-so; the jalapeño deviled eggs were great though. There was live music at 6:00 – always a good thing.

Dad was tired after our marathon drinking the night before, so he headed off to bed. I went to the Lucky Lizard Museum of the Weird – a goofy little sideshow museum with a bunch of fake oddities. Got a t-shirt and looked at two headed calves. Tomorrow would be long – we had an hour and a half ride to San Antonio to check out the Alamo, then a couple hundred miles to Louisiana.

This morning the only thing on the agenda was getting down to Austin. Only 200 miles, so it was a fairly easy day, other than that oppressive heat. We made it into Austin fairly early and checked in at the La Quinta near the Capitol. The rooms are decent, price is right, and it’s in walking distance to 6th street.

We went out early for some BBQ at Iron Works – widely reported to be some of the best in the city. We had the sampler platters with beef ribs, brisket, and sausage. We had planned to stay out until the live music started at the bars – around 8pm, but after a few margaritas at the Iron Cactus, we decided to go back to the room and be lazy for a bit before heading back out.

Iron Works BBQ

We went to the Blue Moon Rock and Blues bar a little after 7 and caught the South Side Ramblers and some decent blues, then moved on down the road (half-sloshed) to listen to the Eric Tessmer band at Friends – awesome guitar work. A few slices of pizza and we were tanked and ready for a nap.

The Blue Moon in Austin

Today was a really long day. We got an early start with a quick breakfast and the 17 mile trip out of town to the White Sands National Monument. These are white gypsum sand dunes that stretch for miles between the mountain ranges. It’s become a little recreation area – families were sledding down the dunes, cooking out, and hiking. Not the most interesting park, but the dune scenes were pretty wild, and I got to take the Multistrada off the pavement for the first time, riding around the sandy loop road.

White Sand Dunes

Dad and I on the dunes

On our way back into Alamogordo, we stopped for gas and ran into another motorcyclist. He asked if we were going to the rally in Ruidoso and said that’s where all the other bikers we’d seen were headed. A quick check of the GPS showed Ruidoso wasn’t too far out of the way to San Angelo, so we scooted up Route 70 to check it out.

Just before we got out of Alamogordo, we saw a sign for the World’s Largest Pistachio, so we pulled in to check it out. I love this kind of stupid roadside stuff.

World's Largest Pistachio

Route 70 has a few stretches of curves as you cross over the mountains, but was otherwise pretty straight and uninteresting. The rally was part of the AMA Aspencash poker run – not a particularly large rally, but there were some cool custom bikes to gawk at. I’m fairly certain I had the only Italian bike there – mostly H-Ds with a few Goldwings. Lots of trikes.

Bikes at the Ruidoso Convention Center

At this point, we were only about 50 miles from Roswell, so once again we decided it was worth going out of our way to check it out. Roswell also has an H-D dealer – they had a cool 2000 Monster M900 for sale – tons of aftermarket parts, but generally tasteful. They wanted too much for it, though – $6000. I bought a small tool kit since I need a phillips head driver to replace my driving light bulb; when I checked out, the cashier asked me where I was from. When I replied “Maryland”, she asked “Where’s that?” I didn’t know what to say, so I said “Outside DC”, unsure whether that made things more or less clear…

Around the corner was the International UFO Museum and Research Center – a lofty name to be sure, but it was cute and they seemed sincere about their “research”. I found a sticker for the pannier and we headed out of town into the barren Texas prairie. We had about 300 miles to kill and it was already 5:00PM – we’d been on the road since 8:30AM and would lose an hour upon crossing into Texas.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center

The ride into San Angelo on state highways was as you would expect – boring. To top it off, since it was Sunday evening, everything was closed except a Dairy Queen. The Blizzard did nothing to combat the abnormally uncomfortable heat in Texas. I don’t know what it is, but I experienced the same thing coming out west two weeks ago. Texas is just oppressively hot and unpleasant. Even when we were riding through actual desert at comparable temps, it didn’t seem as miserable as the 95 degree dusk through Big Spring. When the sun finally started to set, it dropped to 86 and stayed there, but it still didn’t feel any better. We couldn’t wait to get checked into a room with air conditioning.

Today was another long one – about 500 miles, and we were really missing the great twisty roads we had left behind in California. But, we still got to do some great things today. Pure white sand dunes, an impromptu rally stop, and aliens – we got to see a lot in exchange for a few boring hours on the highway. Tomorrow will be an easy 200 mile ride into Austin, where we’ll stay 2 days and look forward to catching some music on 6th street.