Day 6: Grand Island, NE --> Davenport, IA

Miles today: 466
Total miles: 2409
Route: I-80 East

Half of Nebraska and all of Iowa.

Last night, some severe thunderstorms moved through the area where I was staying. Given that this is late August on the Plains, I expected to hit a few patches of rough weather on my ride. In fact, I devoted much of my thinking while on the bike to worrying about what I would do if got caught in a tornado. 15 minutes till Judge Wapner. So, rather than continue my tour of semi-interesting 2-lane roads, I decided to get on Interstate 80. In truth, after the serenity, solitude, and god-awful loneliness of western Nebraska, I think I was just looking for company, and I was desparate enough to welcome the company of RV's and big-rigs on the interstate.

I-80 is familiar territory for me, as my family took it from New York to Colorado and back pretty much every summer growing up. 3 kids in the back seat, no AC, and grumpy parents up front, stuck together for 3 or 4 days. Riding a motorcycle at 75 MPH is remarkably similar to riding in a car at 75 MPH, if you're the little kid stuck in the middle backseat and every window is rolled down all the way. Bugs hit you in both situations; by the end of the day, you have trouble walking, and you're a little deaf.

Not much of consequence happened today. The interstate, (or "superslab," as bikers call it), presents a heretofore unseen set challenges. People just don't see you, for one (they don't see you on 2 lane roads, either, but the physics are different on the interstate). Second, you're constantly fighting to stay out of the way of trucks. Following a truck is not advisable, because not only is the air choppy, but a trailer tire could blow at any moment, with unpleasant results for the motorcycle rider if it happens right in front of you. And, oh yeah, it's a good assumption that truckers really won't see you, even if you can see their mirrors. And, the interstate is really, really, loud. And on this particular day, really, really windy. I've talked about the effects of wind before; nothing's changed since then. Note Old Glory's stiffness:

By the afternoon, each stop gave me a mini-crisis-of-confidence. On the bike, in traffic, I felt pretty much in control of the situation-stay out of the way of trucks and cars, keep a good following distance, look ahead, anticipate, etc.; stopped, at a rest area, watching the traffic go by, how could I possibly feel calm in the middle of that? This was not the irrational anxiety one might feel, say, in anticipation of an awkward social or academic setting, where the buildup is always worse than the actual experience. In those situations, I'm told, letting go of irrationality can actually make the experience pleasurable. In the present situation, the very absence of fear would be irrational, which was probably the scariest thought.

I resolved to keep going thusly: I'm in the middle of Iowa; if I don't keep heading east, I'll still be stuck in the middle of Iowa, it'll probably rain on me if I stay here, and my head hurts. I'm not going to crash, or get run over, or die, because I can't. I just can't.

Rational, no?

And, perhaps most importantly, the Holiday Inn in Davenport has a Holidome. When I was 6, staying at a motel that had a pool and video games was the best part of the trip. I could beat my older brothers at the video games, and they would try to drown me in the pool, and one of us would end up sleeping on the floor. That would be me. But not tonight; tonight, my stuff would get one bed, and I would get the other:

When I pulled into the Holiday Inn front parking lot (which I found without any trouble-it was not a conscious choice to exit the interstate when I did, nor to follow the road past 4 other motels, but somehow I knew how to get to the Holidome), I took off my jacket and rested it on my seat. Sweat poured out of the sleeves, forming two pools on the ground.

This made me laugh. Only 2 more days to go.