Day 21 - St. Charles, MO to Columbus, OH

We decided last night to depart earlier today to avoid as much of the hot day as possible. We were waiting at the hotel breakfast area before they opened at 6am, and got the bikes on the road at 6:30. The sun was starting to peek above the horizon.

Interstate 70 East would be our route for the majority of the day. We soon crossed over into Illinois within the first hour or so. Being a skinny state, we were soon in Indiana also. The morning humidity blanketed the fields.

At 10:30 we took a fuel and bio break. Since we left an hour and a half earlier than planned, our lunch stop was only 20 minutes away. We decided to push on for an hour to make more time before lunch. About 20 minutes west of Indianapolis, Tom got on the CB and said "I assume we're still in Missouri?" Rob responded,"We've gone through two states, we're in Indiana!" So funny. To Tom's credit, the Illinois and Indiana welcome signs were not especially obvious. Not so with Ohio, can't miss it!

We were fairly hot after lunch with temps at or near 90, so the chilly pads came out of the coolers and around our necks.

Traffic was intense around the major cities today - St. Louis, Indianapolis, Dayton and Columbus.

This billboard on the opposite side of the road told us to go to Yosemite. Done!

A few funny sights of the day: Welcome to Brazil water tower, a huge golf ball, a blue pinto (that Rob said is older than him) that Rob kept a safe distance due to their habit of exploding (LOL), and a dude in an orange shirt riding in the back of this pickup (on a major interstate! Michele thought it rude to take a picture.)

We made it to our hotel before 4pm. The first floor of the Hampton Inn Heath is still being renovated and the lobby smelled like turpentine or varnish--stinky. Luckily the room did not.

For a few months ahead of our trip Michele had planned to meet her former Columbus, Ohio coworker and friend, Mechele, for dinner. They both have unique spellings of their names so how could they not be good friends?

We all met at nearby Pappy's on 79. The ladies caught up on work gossip from days long ago. After dinner we decided to hang out in the hotel lobby area and finish off the bourbon and whiskey that the guys brought on the trip. Michele and Mechele giggled about various topics and soon the guys were giggling as well. We think we snookered Mechele into joining us for our next Kentucky bourbon trail ride in a year or so.  She got this snap of us rather silly after 3 weeks and nearly 7000 miles of riding!

Around 11pm we had to call it a night, as Mechele had an hour commute back home and we needed to rest for our last day of the trip. Tomorrow we are home!