Day Two - St. Louis, Missouri to Limon, Colorado
Another fairly boring day. The summer of 1995 was one of record high temperatures, and at times we were riding on a 10 degree lean angle into the 100+ degree wind just to continue in a straight manner. The trip across Kansas is a bit tedious, but after awhile it sort of takes your breath away. I remember looking out on the horizon, and wondering if the house I was looking at was 5 miles away or 50. The vastness is truly remarkable. Once we hit Oakley in the western portion of the state, we exited and headed west on U.S. 40. This road is almost a perfectly straight two lane country road. There are a number of small towns to travel through, and to stop and get water. Traveling on U.S. 40 is preferred to the interstate, you can travel just as fast, and in Kansas it's easy to pass slower traffic since you can see another car coming for miles. After we crossed into Colorado we began a slow bend northward towards Limon. We were skirting what looked to be a major thunderstorm, we even stopped to take some pictures. But in our hurry to outrun the storm, we almost ran out of gas. Fortunately the one gas station in Hugo was open. We pulled into the motel, where I had stayed on my last trip out west, just in time to batten down the hatches. No sooner had we covered up the bikes than the skies opened up.