Day Two - Hannibal Bound

We awoke this morning to low clouds and fog but without rain. This was a definite improvement to yesterday. A quick look at the forecast told us that we could expect relatively dry weather. Good news!

We had our breakfast, packed up the bikes and were on our way by 8:15am. Today's route was mostly Interstate except for a nice connector (Indiana 1) between 275 and I-74. Starting in Ohio, we moved along I-71 towards Cincinnati. We routed south of Cincinnati to dip into the northern part of Kentucky and then westward into Indiana. We picked up I-74 and rode that up to Indianapolis.

I had been tracking a few rain cells about two hours outside of Indy. As we approached Indy, these cells merged into a larger cell just as we approached. The rain started off very lightly but quickly turned into a monsoon. We exited I-74 as soon as we could (about 2 miles) and ducked into a gas station. We only got slightly damp thanks to the excellent protection of the bikes. While it continued to pour rain, we took advantage of the Subway sandwich shop at the gas station and had lunch. By the time we had finished lunch, the rain had moved on and the roads were quickly drying. We topped off the fuel tanks and continued our journey west.

We moved along I-74 through Indiana and into Illinois. We picked up I-72 and road through the Tallgrass prairie (all I saw was corn) past Decatur, Springfield, and then crossed the Mississippi into Missouri were we stopped for the night in Hannibal at around 5:30pm CST.

We rode approximately 550 miles today through 5 states and still had time to get a quick shower from Mother Nature. :-) We saw a lot of interesting landscape changes. From vast expanses of agriculture to hills and rock formations. We even saw blue skies and the sun!!

Tomorrow we'll continue trekking west across Missouri, catch the northern tip of Kansas, and end our day in Nebraska. The weather forecast for Grand Island Nebraska looks clear during the day but with 1-2 inches of rain overnight on Friday. Let's hope we get in before the rain hits.