3000 mile Motorcycle Ride: Seeing an old friend and Riding through a Tornado.

Todays 400 mile ride is about an old friend and in the end riding through a tornado.  I guess on a 3000 mile motorcycle ride you have to learn to expect the unexpected.  On this day I will get caught in the rain a couple of times.  Waiting one storm out in a road maintenance shed.  It's all part of the adventure.

Early morning I set off from Merrill in Northern Wisconsin and ride to Fairmont Minnesota.  A small little town near the Iowa border in southern Minnesota.   I stop to visit the grave of a childhood friend who died many years ago.  Passing away in tragic circumstances, due to no fault of his own.   Separated by many years I look back on it and rationalize that some people are just too good for this world.   Someone that I spent a few summers with so long ago has come to mean a lot to me, for reasons I really can't understand.   I was good to see his grave and celebrate his short life.  I feel that we may all have an angel watching over us, he might just be mine.


This was the first day into a 3 day ride to Denver Colorado.  I had promised the fantasy football league that I'm in, that I would come to Colorado for the draft party.  It was the excuse that I made to ride my motorcycle for a week and a half.

After visiting my friends grave I set off from Fairmont with the skies growing dark.  I start to run into some rain.  In the distance I can see the sheets of water coming down.   I turn around and plod my way around the storm using the GPS and my Hi-Def Radar App on my smart phone.  Riding around country roads through rain and wind I finally make it into Iowa.

With the storms behind me I stop to fuel up.  A lady comes up to me and ask which way are you going.  She points to the storms that I just rode through saying, "dont go east the radio just said there are tornados on the ground over there".

 After thanking her I laugh and think to myself its good to be alive and on the other side of that storm.   It's funny in life how we spend a lot our lives navigating around storms of one sort or another.  It's another 30 miles to Spirit Lake where I stop for the night.  Only 700 miles left for Denver.