Jesse James died here

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. – It’s Heineken time here in the city that saw the birth of the Pony Express and the death of Jesse James.

I covered a pathetic 471 miles today and didn’t even make it to Kansas, largely because I made frequent stops to fuss with my XM radio problem. Once I resigned myself to iPod entertainment, I laid down some serious miles, but by 4 p.m. I had decided that St. Joseph would be where I stopped.

I had pulled off of U.S. 36 at Macon, Mo., for gas at a BP station, so I did a Garmin survey of the St. Jo motels, found the Motel 6 is in the same neighborhood with the upscale motels and phoned in a Motel 6 reservation.

There was nothing left to do but sit on the bike, twist the throttle, listen to music and wait for the Motel 6 to show up. It did about 6:15 p.m.

Dinner was “endless shrimp” at a Red Lobster next to the motel: 2 helpings of garlic shrimp scampi, one of Cajun shrimp and one of Teriyaki shrimp, washed down with two Heinekins. The waitress said some people have ordered as many as 25 helpings (10 little shrimp/helping), so I felt a little less gluttonous.

I would have to do a 651-mile, 12-hour ride to make Alma by tomorrow night. Even with gaining an hour by crossing into the Mountain Time Zone, that would have me flirting with darkness and completely wrung out. So I’m taking it easy and shooting for St. Francis in western Kansas for tomorrow evening, which will set me up for an easy ride up into the mountains on Wednesday.

I guess having 64 years and more than 300,000 BMW miles in my mirrors means I don’t have to keep proving stuff to myself and I can adopt a more rational approach to motorcycle travel.