Day 20, Monday, July 28, 2008 - 362 miles

Destination: Home

This is the last day! After a good night’s sleep, we packed up to head out on the final leg of our trip. The day started out looking
nice but then clouded up. That’s better comfort wise as long as it doesn’t rain! As we neared Des Moines, the clouds thinned
out and the weather was beautiful, for a while. All across Iowa we saw lakes that did not appear on the maps. Many of them
had corn growing in them! I don’t think they wanted it to rain on us any more than we did. By the time we got to the Missouri
state line, it was all overcast again. We made it to Bethany and pulled off at exit 93 so we could get lunch. This stop was
scheduled since the beginning of the trip. Factoid: Chili Rellenos have the highest fat content of any Mexican food.
I still love them!

Dos Chiquita’s is 101 miles from home. Too far for a Wednesday night dinner ride with GWTA but would be good for a Sat!

After dinner, I was getting tired and the miles were making me ache. I stopped at the “Last Rest Area in Missouri” for a quick
break. Since this wasn’t a picture day, I took a picture of the butterfly garden and the requisite Cathy picture. We could see
shafts of rain as we neared Kansas City and hoped for the best. We got about 5 miles from the house before the sprinkles
started hitting us. Thank you Lord! We pulled into the drive, unloaded and unhitched the trailer putting the bike, trailer, and
camping gear in the garage. Everything else made it as least as far as the living room. Stop the clock at 3:00 PM!

We turned the air conditioner back down from it’s 84° setting, turned the water and water heater back on and said, “It’s good
to be HOME!” A trip to the store for some salad and necessities and we were settled in for the evening. My little buddy,
Josiah Shoemaker had mown the lawn last Sunday so that was one worry we didn’t have. (I owe him some money now…) The
mail carrier came by with one of the postal tote tubs half full. He said, “That’s a lot of mail for 20 days.” and we had to agree.

Here are some of the statistics:

· How far did we go? Wow! When I found the answer, I was amazed. 4348 miles! I was thinking maybe 3500.

· How many miles are on your bike? The GoldWing now has 113742 miles on it and we are taking donations for a new
front tire. (I haven’t checked the back one as that takes a bit of crawling on the ground.)

· How many states were you in? 11, in the order visited: Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota,
Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri. At one time as we passed through Iowa, we were only five hours from home.

· What kind of gas mileage did you get? This is what makes the motorcycle shine. We averaged 34.8 mpg with a high of
50 mpg and a low of 25.6 . Usually the lower numbers were from Interstate travel.

· How many times did yo stop for gas? We made 41 gas stops during the trip.

· How much did you spend? I haven’t worked it all out yet but we spent $515.89 on gas, $1313.56 on lodging, and ??? on ???.
Average gas cost was $4.10 / gal, average KOA was $49.45 and average hotel was $82.02 . If you are planning a similar trip,
your costs will vary depending on what you do and what you eat. It seems as if every attraction has a fee ranging from $5 per
person to $25 per vehicle. From memory, we spent about $70 on various park fees.

· How many pictures did you actually take? 934 (Plus the bad ones I deleted from the camera.)

It is now 7/31 and this will probably be the final update. I am thinking about running a tour service in the Black Hills with trips to the
“Center of the Nation”. Cathy “Dances with Buffalo” will sell tickets and sell autographed pictures from the site. We are going to work
in a social stop at the Spearfish KOA for ice cream on the evening runs. (Levi, you will get rich on the tips!)

In the mean time, we want to thank you for your prayers, your encouraging feedback and the love we felt as we shared our
vacation with you. We thank the people we met along the way for making our trip better and enjoyed seeing old friends in
GWTA as well as our families. I feel we have some new friends as well, especially the Spearfish KOA crew and Mike, Connie,
and Harley from Hill City, SD. This is the end of our trip and of our BLOG. So for a final time, we wish you goodnight!

Yours truly, -Warren

Main <Day 19 (You can’t go f0rward as this is the end!)

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