Springfield, IL to A2, MI - 454 “adventure” miles

 Well, Lucinda’s official factory name is the BMW 1200 GS Adventure. I ended my month-long adventure with a final “adventure”. I departed a little later than usual because I attended a Sobriety Court zoom graduation ceremony for a peer of mine. 

I mentally had sketched out a route home, but almost immediately, things changed. A detour. Then construction. Then another detour. A road closure because of an accident. My aunt had counseled me to take my time, don’t push it and stay another night somewhere and finish on Saturday if needed. Of course, the wind kicked up to about 400 mph...

Then I started to modify the route in real-time as the above factors occurred. I guess I did observe some amazing midwestern sights that were interesting for awhile. Zillions of miles of crops, lots of harvesting in process (which produces blinding dust storms, the appearance of 100s of huge semi trucks hauling the harvests to central aggregation points while spilling lots of the harvest onto the roads, in the air, and covering me with a inch of dust/grains/crap). I though that Lucinda and I got dirty on the Tour. I think her windshield and my helmet were completely sandblasted down to primer by the stuff flying off the back of the trucks. 

In the West, a male is born with boots and a pickup truck. In Illinois and Indiana, a male is born with similar items but also has an instinctual disregard for stop signs and turning left in front of motorcycles. 

Anyway, lots of detours, construction - the usual. Because of the wind, I kept trying to figure out a route which would allow me to go reasonably fast without getting blown off the road by the wind or a huge truck hauling harvested crap that would choke me or blow me off the road.

I made it to near the top of Indiana and became totally lost. Then, the worst possible scenario of my entire trip: I would have to ride through South Bend! Maybe even see the football stadium or some huge catholic edifice. All I wanted to do was get into Michigan and take US 12 or 60 East. I finally got on 60, but it merges into 131 North around Three Rivers. Missed the turn, and had to take 131 all the way up to the dreaded I-94. 

Start heading towards Ann Arbor and stoped for gas (remember this). Continue on, wind gets worse, millions of trucks, thousands of cars. I’m almost home. Move to the left lane to merge onto M14 just past Zeeb road. Lucinda burps  and stops running. I barely get to the side of the road without getting run over by the semis behind me. Lucinda won’t start. I’m afraid I’m going to get blown over on the side of the road. Pull out my phone to call Patrick. Try to start Lucinda one more time and she fires up. Have to wait almost 5 minutes to pull back on to the road. Ride down to the Miller road exit. Lucinda stops running again. Walk to the gas station and get dry gas. Walk back, dump it in the tank, Lucinda starts and we finally get home.

Just about 6500 miles (minus the 2 miles I had to walk) to finish the adventure.