California...Finally!!!!!

Finally, we have arrived in California! What a trip! Due to the extended travel days from the severe weather we've been through, I haven't been able to add another update until now. So, here's a brief recap.

Friday, May 9, I met up with the Pennsylvania group and we left St. Charles, MO for Colby, KS. We rode through heavy rains all morning. Take a look at this motley crew:

Rain continued until the last hour and a half out from Colby. However, once we arrived, more threatening weather was coming our way. So, the hotel management allowed us to park our motorcycles up on the walkways of the motel to get them out of the weather.

Saturday morning we awoke to showers. Then the weather broke. However, the closer we got to Colorado the colder the temperature got. At our first gas stop in Colorado, we put on rain gear on top of our cold weather gear just for an extra layer of warmth. Little did we know what a foreshadowing act that was. Thirty minutes later, we rode through one of the worst storms I've ever ridden in. The temperature dropped to 38 degrees in the storm with a wind chill of about 10 degrees. Then, for the next hour we had constant winds of around 30-50 mph with a combination of heavy rain, hail, and sleet. Fortunately, everyone made it through safely. Then, we thought we had cleared all the bad weather. HA!!! During lunch, we had more sleet and snow. Yes, that's actually ice on my motorcycle seat!

We finally arrived in Fort Collins, Colorado to the Bones Barracks. Although it was sunny, it was still cool.

On Sunday morning, we left Bones Barracks with 23 motorcycles for Richfield, Utah. Again, weather played a factor. Our primary route was closed due to snow in the mountains. Our secondary route was closed due to snow in the mountains. So, we went to our tertiary route. Ironically, to avoid snow, we traveled north into Wyoming and across and down through Salt Lake City to our overnight stop. The extra travel meant we didn't arrive at our hotel to late in the night. During the day we had wind gusts over 50 mph. Again, we had to adjust to more adverse weather conditions.

Monday, we left our hotel and rode to St. George, Utah where we were hosted for breakfast by the local Patriot Guard Riders chapter at the Honda-Yamaha dealer. They did a great job and even had the local media there to cover why we were riding across country. If we weren't on a mission of such importance, I certainly wouldn't have been riding through the weather we'd been through. Here's some shots of the visit:



We left St. George and headed through the desert to Las Vegas. It didn't help our luck any. We still had high winds. We left Vegas and crossed into California. On the way down to LA from Barstow, we again rode through yet another weather event! We had misty rain and fog so heavy that we could not even see the motorcycle in front of us until we were within ten feet of it. That stayed with us until we reached our hotel. Finally, after five days of adverse weather conditions, we arrived at our destination!

Well more tomorrow (hopefully).

Last but not least, today's essential question: What are some of the virtues of working through adverse situations? (Of course you have to answer in some narrative format! No one word answers!)