Conneaut, OH to Union City, TN Thursday, August 12
It was only 73 degrees when I walked out to the motorcycle, but the humidity made it feel a lot warmer. Back into the heat so I was on the road shortly before sunrise. I hit Cleveland at 7:30 but took a route that went well outside of rush hour traffic. It was uncomfortably hot by 11:00 AM but I got through Columbus, Cincinatti, and Louisville and picked up the Western Kentucky Parkway to cut across Kentucky.
The parkway is a great road with little traffic but the thermometer on the motorcycle was reading 104 degrees. Around 2:00 some clouds appeared and I was initially grateful to have them. Around 3:00 I looked up ahead at suddenly very dark, threatening skies. Within a mile I was in heavy, gusting rain that was throwing the motorcycle all around the road and made it nearly impossible to see. I couldn’t believe the sheets of rain being pounded across the road in front of me.
The visibility was so bad I didn’t feel pulling over to the side of the road was an option and there were no overpasses to hide under. I bailed out on the first available exit and was having trouble seeing the road since I still had sunglasses on and it had gotten very dark. Once again I realized I was so scared that I was shaking from head to toe. That’s two days in a row… I kept telling the weather “Be nice! Just let me get to a gas station.”
It wasn’t pretty but I pulled into the first gas station I saw and got under cover. People at the station were telling me they had gotten off the road because they didn’t think they could see while driving their cars and they couldn’t believe how bad the storm was. No kidding?
I took my time fueling up. It looked worse. I parked the bike and decided to wait it out in the Subway attached to the gas station.
It took about an hour to let up and I returned to the parkway in light rain watching storms to both the north and south. I connected with Purchase Parkway that headed south into another storm. Since I didn’t enjoy the first storm all that much I actually got the motorcycle parked and into a convenience store before the second storm hit. As the rain started to slow the people at the store warned me the deer would be out in numbers since the temperature had cooled due to the rain. I only had about 40 miles to get to my planned stop in Union City, TN so got back on the road, and fueled up before stopping for the day by 8:00 PM.
I had a busy evening trying to get everything spread out to dry… The first storm had blown up so quick I hadn’t gotten my rain liner on and had gotten soaked to the skin. For the record — hard rain hurts through a mesh jacket.
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