Day 21

It was humid and foggy this morning, the humidity making it feel cooler by quite a lot than the last few days. I went to bed at midnight last night, too busy talking with people earlier in the evening put me behind schedule. For some reason I awoke around 6:30 this morning, never able to fall asleep again even though I tried. I didn't need to be up early as the only thing I wanted to see was the Harley museum.

After an hour on the road I stopped to fuel up the bike and grab some breakfast. There was nothing that caught my eye at the hotel in the morning and I wasn't really hungry. Shortly after the stop the traffic volume starting picking up drastically as I neared the Chicago area. Other than the museum, today is not a day that I would ever want to repeat. I decided against riding through the city of Chicago, which was probably a good choice, becasue even on the I-294 (Tri-State Tollway) bypas it was a frenzy of high speed craziness. It was mostly 4 lanes, up to 6 for short stretches, with almost everyone driving in excess of 120kph. The only ones driving slower were the thousands of trucks on the road. What made it even crazier was the 5 toll stops, where the cash lanes were always on the right, so there was a lot of zig-zagging across the road as cars, trucks, and me on the little bike all switched lanes. The only time my feet touched the ground in 240km was at the toll stops. Needless to say, once I got to the first rest stop in Wisconsin I took a nice long break.

I also crossed back into the Central time zone today, gaining back another hour that I lost going east. That made it 12pm at the rest stop, 340km into the day at that point and in the 4th state of the day as well. The last two days I've felt like I've been in a race so tomorrow the plan is to slow it down and maybe get off the interstates for a while. I'm piling up the kilometres though, having put down just as many in 3 weeks so far this year as I did in 4 weeks last year.

It was so nice to get off the bike once I got to downtown Milwaukee for a few hours at the museum. Seeing so much history of Harley-Davidson and all that's associated with that was super cool! Ever since I was a kid I've been enamoured with the whole biking culture, especially thinking of the freedom of the open road. Some of that is lost in the world we live in now it seems, but the history brought back nostalgic feelings of a time before I was even born (if that even makes sense). Everything was so new and raw back then, especially seeing the bikes people travelled on. The Harley-Davidson brand has a tremendous history, cutting edge technology as they developed over the years. It's that history, combined with them producing the best bikes on the planet, combined with the people that ride Harley's that formed why I ride one as well. Too have a tiny part in the history really is epic. There's always some that bash the bikes now, but they retain the classic look that no other brand can (although they sure try to imitate) and in my limited experience they build a solid bike that can put up miles.

The only disappointment I had was that the million mile bike is not in the museum. It was at one point, but has been moved to the motorcycle hall of fame in Sturgis. It's the only Harley that's got 1,000,000 miles on it, former Wisconsin Senator Dave Zien was the man that rode the bike all those miles. 1.6 million kilometres is almost beyond belief, a point I will never reach in my lifetime I'm sure. It sure should be in the museum in my opinion.

My timing when I left there was terrible once again, right in the heat of rush hour, on a Brewers game day. I rode right by the stadium where the Brewers played tonight, and it took me 45 minutes to ride 20km to the hotel I had booked for tonight. Would have been cool to take in a game had I thought of that earlier. Once I got checked in I walked over to a Texas Roadhouse that near my room for a nice juicy steak. My server was a younger girl that was almost a carbon copy of one of my cousins, it was so close it was a little freaky. She got a kick out of that, immediately asking if I had a picture, which I didn't. Even her personality and actions were similar, so strange how that can happen. Once I was done with the meal I went to the room to relax and wind down after a couple stressful days of riding. 

If you're not into bikes, these pic's aren't for you

this is the way it should be!

the oldest know Harley-Davidson in the world

the other side of the bike

Replica of the Easy Rider bike, a true American classic

This wall of tanks spans nearly 80 years of colors and designs, really cool

One of the 3 bikes used in the Terminator 2 movie

Replica of the Evel Knievel bike

This is the bike that washed over from Japan after the tsunami. They put it on display as it was found, no cleaning or repairs, so over the years the bike will keep being eaten by the salt

Route today, not including the stopover downtown at the museum