Bright sunshine greeted me when I opened the door of my mo'tel room, that's how you say it in 'merica! I had my eye on the secondary hwy 412 that was about 150km south of my position. I was able to drive agricultural roads almost all the way there. 412 changes between ag road, 2 lane, 4 lane divided and Interstate along its path.

At one point the interstate split between 55 southbound & 155 eastbound, natch I took the wrong fork and when I stopped to consult my map a Statie (MO State Trooper) in a slicktop (Ghost Car, Ford Expedition actually) stopped to see if I was OK. Nice!

It was I155 as it crossed the border into Tennessee and again as it ring roaded Jackson, TN. Mostly 412 skirted towns of any size, but it did go straight through Lexington which had the lights timed so you had to..........stop..................at... ...............every................gaw d dang.............one. Frustrating, took about an hour to pass through. Should taken the truck bypass, but naturally I was in the wrong lane.

My plan was to have a higher mileage day than normal so the next day, riding into Atlanta, would be lighter. I usually stop riding wherever I am around 1800h, the reasons for that is many fold;

• I want to ensure I can get a motel room
• I want to ensure I can eat, have had popcorn too many times!
• When the sun starts to set the critters come out on the roads because they are warm
• 8 hours of riding in usually enuff

Today I would not stop at dinner time though, my mileage goal was going to be 750 km, leaving only 400 km for Tuesday. At one point passing through Hohenwald I crested a hill above a long valley and saw the road painted with a swath of light rain about 1000' long, I slowed down to maximize the amount of water that would hit me in order to use it as a coolant. We'll call this experience, ironical foreshadowing #1!

At Hampshire, TN I happened along this amazing storm cloud and stopped to shoot a quick video of it, the low hanging clouds really looked like cotton candy. I thought it might be pretty neat to 'catch' up to this system, maybe see some lightning. This will now be known as ironical foreshadowing #2!



I will take this opportunity to revisit yesterday's entry now, highlighting the text; Usually when I am soaked right down to my gaunchies I am regretting not putting on my rain suit though! We'll label that ironical foreshadowing #3. You can prolly guess where this is going!

About 20 miles outside of Columbia I caught the storm, at first if was light 'girlie rain', the sound inside my helmet was ping, ping, ping. I don't stop to put on my rain suit, I'm 20 minutes from my destination, what could possibly happen?

Then I am going through a road construction site, there are no shoulders, nowhere to stop, and in many places gushers of muddy water 12" deep pouring off the hillsides and across the road, the water is over the tops of my shoes as my feet are on the shifter pegs. The rain intensifies to 'manly rain', the sound in my helmet increases to doink, doink, doink.

The road continues to climb in elevation, the pavement ends and becomes a slippery red clay, at times my rear wheel is spinning due to lack of traction. I am doing maybe 10 kph with my feet down, the back end of the bike fishtailing madly. The rain goes up another notch to beastly, twack, twack, twack, the drops actually hurt where they hit my shoulders, arms and torso.

Suddenly I am back on pavement, I think, and the road work ends. I assume this because I have zero visibility. The view through my rain soaked visor is dark gun metal grey. If I tilt my head just so, squint my eyes, purse my lips and stick out my tongue I can just make out the centre line. I position myself 2' to the right of the line and drive by looking down at it to my left.

There is intense lightning every few seconds, often the thunder is immediate, with no rumbling, just a loud pistol crack with an echo like in a cowboy movie. You know it was close. I can smell the ozone. The lightning offers my only glimpse of my surroundings but it is so brief it blinds me and then plunges me back into darkness, the landscape looking momentarily surreal like a photo negative.

I am driving slowly, maybe 25 kph, when I am passed by a semi! Every axle of his wheels splashes me, but I am OK with that, I am thankful to have his mass in front of me like a big cow catcher in case there is something on the road, and also appreciate his tail lights to follow.

Now that the front is taken care of I worry about being rear ended. I can't see **** in my fancy aftermarket Arlen Ness mirrors on a sunny day, so forget about it now. I cycle my turn signals 3 flashes left, 3 flashes right as a sort of made up hazard lights to enhance my tiny brake light, and license plate bulb announcing my presence to those behind me.

There is water running down my back inside my jacket, down my pant legs, in my shoes, in my helmet, down the inside of my visor. Go figure, I am cursing myself for not putting on my rain suit, but where could I have done it? That's my rationale at least, I know, pretty weak! Honestly at this level of rainfall the suit is a moot point.

I can't see the roadside to know when it is safe to pull over, I am not going to stop in the middle of the road, so paradoxically the safest bet is to continue to move forward, even if it is blindly. The rain is relentless and remains at the twack, twack, twack level. I follow the tail light/centre line combo with a myoptic fanatical focus for what seems to be a long time, eventually reaching the actual town site of Columbia.

Thankfully 412 runs through the middle of it, but first it comes to a traffic circle with 5 exits. Not knowing which exit to take, I take the first, go about a 3 blocks then turn around when I run out of streetlights. Returning to the circle I take the second and so on, reconnoitering each of the 5 possible choices, but never going so far that I can't find my way back to the circle. The rain seems to be ebbing, it is down to doink, doink, doink.

I expand my search grid and eventually find a Conoco station and pull in. When I lower my arms from the handle bars water that has pooled inside my sleeves at the elbows runs down my arms and fills my gloves.

As I try to get off the bike I realize I have been clenching my whole body for the past hour. I have to physically go through each body part and force it to relax so parts will bend. Still I walk stiffly, like a robot, into the gas station store. I'm sure the 60 degree in-store AC would have been welcome a few hours before, but in my saturated state it makes me shiver.

I inquire as to the location of 'Motel Row' but the 17 year old girl behind the counter can only giggle. A guy buying a Slurpee gives me directions, but there are a few twists and turns, I offer him 20 bucks to lead me there, he does it for free (even though it was the opposite direction he was going in), refusing my sodden sawbuck. (Kindness of strangers!) The rain has lightened again to ping, ping, ping.

After a 5 minute ride of twists and turns on a backroad following my Good Samaritan, I pull into the first motel I see. My new best friend taps his horn and pulls a U-turn to go back about his business. I am in a Day's Inn and I score the last available room! Standing at the reception desk a puddle is forming under me. The clerk yells for her young son who brings a mop and cleans up the puddle forming under and around me.



Getting my key I walk out to find the rain has completely stopped although there is intense lightning all around us. I unload my bike into the room, but before I take off my soaked leathers I make the obligatory run for 'medicinal' beverages, and a well deserved cheeseburger!

Back in the room, hunger sated and suitably medicinalized, I begin wringing out my clothing in the tub and hanging it to dry. I wring about a cup of water out of my gaunchies, the true litmus test for degree of saturation. My jacket, that usually weighs about 15 lbs dry, is swollen and puffy and seems to weigh 50 pounds! I could not have been wetter had I jumped in a swimming pool fully clothed!



I call the Lovely Lady Eryn for a pick me up, but don't regale her with the full details of my evening as she worries enough, sticking just to the fact that I got very wet. Hopefully reading it here, the passage of time will have lightened the blow somewhat.

I watch the lightning outside, for about 15 minutes. I love it, I don't know why it appeals to me so much that it sometimes makes me do stupid things, like tonight. I am like a moth drawn to a flame, with similar consequences.

I have no desire to wear wet clothing the next day so I turn in early and set my alarm for 0700 so I can have 4 hours prior to departure to dry everything.



Going back and reading over this account I thought I might have embellished the details at bit for the sake of artistic license, but I haven't. If anything it is very accurate if not somewhat downplayed. I was pretty scared for quite awhile there, but you don't have a lot of options, you just gotta keep going, hoping it will get better, which it usually does. I think there is a metaphor for life in there somewhere!

I wish I could also share some video with you but my 2 Hero cams have started to malfunction, they only record about 4 seconds of video any time I trigger the shutter. I had a camera on for my whole rain soaked ride, but only got 4 seconds of black for my efforts. Frustrating!

I followed up on the US Weather site and found that 1.64 inches of rain fell between 2000h & 2200h in the Columbia Valley with locally higher amounts. At least it was a warm rain! If that was Alberta rain, I'd have hypothermia.

The bright side is I am only 400 km short of Atlanta, and I have this experience under my belt.

Stay dry my friends!