Ridin'Ard (The h is silent)

On our way out of Jackson, MO we saw a field of grazing camels!! ?? Also, a pet crematory and a deer processing place.  We finally found a place w/o cell service along our route and talked with some locals at a gas station which fortunately had premium. Unfortunately the downside of KTMs is that they take premium, and in the boonies where the good roads are, sometimes gas stations only have 87. There is a brand of nice gas stations around here that only has 87.  I might finally be hitting my stride on this bike. I have not been losing Jaron ahead of me today and we have been in all the twisties.  We passed a Dairy Shack in Eminence, MO at the base of a scenic highway thru Mark Twain National Forest and decided that would be a good lunch stop.  We found an empty picnic table and piled our jackets and heated liners on half of it.  What a great find! They have pickle chips! And house-made cherry limeade.  We went north on 19 on the Ozark River scenic highway (...

(Yes)Today was a pretty chill riding day. Probably another almost 300 miles. Given that it was cold last night, we started out in extra layers and utilized our heated jackets and handgrips.  This morning, Jaron raised my bike's preload to the highest setting. We've been working our way up. It handled noticeably awful at 6 clicks out of 10 on the way to Winchester and much better at 8. Yesterday I rode on 9 and noticed that it handled still better. Suspension is important!  So this is a lowered KTM 790. My thought when I did my test ride was that it felt like I was riding on a cloud.  Hard to beat that! I've been thinking of names. I tried out Falkor (the luck dragon) but that didn't stick. Trying to think of something...playful? As my suspension felt normal again, Jaron asked if it was feeling fluffy like a cloud yet. So Fluffy seems to be sticking, reservedly, like a nickname in lieu of a name until a proper name reveals itself. I mean, I had Sheila for almost 2 years ...

Powered by the Holy trinity of Motel 6, Waffle House, & Sheetz in Winchestor, we set our early and covered about 300 miles. We saw a lot of pretty leaves changing color on our trip thru West Virginia along the trusty route 50. Always a great ride thru there.  We had a picnic outside of Subway for lunch in Grafton, WV. Jaron was offered a footlong for 81 cents more, and I said actually that'd be great because I'm getting the same thing (black forest ham icyc). $5 for two sandwiches? Sounds great. Then Jaron asked if they could break his hundred dollar bill. 🤣 (He has had it since his last trip to the casino in Jan, and we need change for self-pay campsites.) Then we camped at Burr Oaks Cove campground, which was perfect. We almost had the place to ourselves. There was a teeny tiny but of drizzle but it passed pretty quickly. So we still met one of our criteria and put the tent up in the rain, despite it being daylight.  Jaron scrounged locally for firewood.  So we had...