It’s only water

BROOKLAND, Ark. – Two weeks and 2,941 miles later, I’m home from my 2009 Mid-Life Crisis Tour.

I’m probably too old for a mid-life crisis, but I like to call it that anyway.

I left Springfield at 7:30 a.m. under partly sunny skies, but soon found myself under thick and threatening clouds as I rode east and south. I stopped for a McDonald’s breakfast of fruit parfait and coffee at Mountain Grove, Mo. about 60 miles down the road.

I ran through the occasional sprinkle, but no real rain until I neared the Missouri-Arkansas border on U.S. 63. About five miles north of the state line, I pulled over to put on my rain jacket and gloves, hoping I could blow through the rain without putting on the rainsuit pants.

By the time I got to Thayer, Mo., which is right on the north side of the state line, I was feeling dampness in my pants and it was raining like a mofo. I whipped in to a Cenex gas station, mostly to get under the canopy, but also because it was a logical place to fill the gas tank.

I took my time about getting properly suited up and shot the photo above before I topped off the tank. That’s a “Welcome to Missouri” sign in the background across the road. A couple pulled up next to me in a pickup truck. The guy surveyed my situation, saying, “Bummer.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “But it’s only water.”

Gassed and waterproof, I got back onto the road and, of course, I rode out of the rain in about three miles and in another three miles was on dry pavement.

I stayed dry until a couple of miles east of Walnut Ridge, Ark., where I ran through a shower that was about three miles wide.

Rather than contend with Paragould and its traffic signals, I turned south off of U.S. 412 onto the Crowley’s Ridge Parkway and took the fun, twisty way home, arriving at 1 p.m.

The dogs seemed happy to see me, but maybe it was just that they knew I would give them treats.