When I woke up today, my sleeping bag was soaking wet. Even though it was wet and the temperature outside was only 40 that night, I was still warm in my sleeping bag, but I figured that if I was going to camp for three months, I was going to need a tent that wasn't going to drip onto my sleeping bag. What was going to happen if it did actually rain? I found out that there was a Bass Pro Shop in Louisville, KY which was only about 30 minutes up the road. I decided that I was gong to catch the group later in the day and exchange the tent and get one that I was happier and more confident.
When I got there, I spoke to Megan in the Customer Service department. She was very helpful! She said that I should just go pick out another tent and we would credit the other tent to my new tent.
I went up to the department where the guy in the department helped me pick out another tent. I ended up deciding on a small two man tent that didn’t require stakes and had a rainfly and was also very small when packed up. I took it back to Megan in Customer Service who was very helpful. She exchanged the tent with no problems and even let me use my “Bass Pro Points” to pay for some of the difference. They were all amazed when I told them my story about why I needed the tent and that I had ridden over 3600 miles so far.
After finishing everything at Bass Pro Shops, I headed off to catch the group. I thought that I would catch them in Mt. Sterling, KY since it was a late gas and lunch. I programmed the destination into my GPS and headed out towards Mt. Sterling. Along the way, I went to kick shift and couldn’t find it. It must have came off between Bass Pro and somewhere before Frankfort Kentucky. I wasn’t about to go back. It was almost 50 miles since I had remembered using it. That was way to far to go back and who knows if I would even find it. I’ll try to see if I can pick up a new one at a Harley dealership. They always have some extra parts laying around that they are not going to use.
When I was riding though Frankfort, KY, I saw the last few riders in the group riding across the overpass. I was really surprised that I had caught them this fast and riding on a different road than I was on. Anyway, I swung up the entrance ramp and caught them a few minutes before they were going to arrive at the Kentucky Vietnam Memorial. I followed the group to the memorial and it was a pretty neat place.
The memorial was in the form of a sundial and the point of the sundial would land on the name of the person killed from Kentucky in the Vietnam War on the day that they were killed. The names were spread out all over the memorial. It was pretty neat.
The Kentucky Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
The Sundial at the memorial
They had all the motorcycles lined up on the driveway. By that time on the RFTW trip, there must have been about 400-450 motorcycles with the group. It was pretty impressive seeing all those motorcycles lined up.
The motorcyles all lined up at the memorial
After the memorial, we headed out to Mt. Sterling where we got gas and ate lunch on our own. This was the first meal that I have had to pay for since I left California.
I made it to West Virginia
The next stop on our trip was the wave pool in Hurricane, WV. It was at the Valley Park Wave Pool. They had a nice spaghetti dinner for us. It was pretty good. We camped out on the grass in between the facilities. There were almost a hundred people camping out at this point. It was neat to see all those tents all over the place.
When I went to set up my tent, I found that one of the tent stakes had the elastic broken in one of the two main stakes. I was able to get the tent up anyway. It is much nicer than the one that I had before. Thanks Megan, for helping me get the tent exchanged! I really like this one and it will be much nicer camping in this tent.
I finally got to sleep and I will sleep in because I’m going to watch the NCAA Division III Track & Field Meet in Marrietta, OH. I saw that Hamline’s 4x400 relay team made it to nationals, so I am going to watch them run. I am less than 100 miles away from where they are running. I can’t be this close and not go watch them run. Just in case they made it, I put a Hamline Track & Field t-shirt in my bag before I left Las Vegas on May 11th. I guess it was an omen!
