John & Emily' Great Westward journey! Part 2

Something I left off of Part 1 was going through St. Louis, we merged off of I-70w onto I-44w.  This was going to take us in a more south-west direction.  Towards Arkansas.

Annnyways....so Emily 'n I mount up & get back on I-44w thinking we'll be relaxing in less then 2 hours.
We get to exit 208 and there is a Super-8 (where we are staying) right off the interstate but our directions, courtesy of maps.google, tell us to turn left, go down to Old Highway 66.  Yes, I said, old Highway 66 for those that know what that is.  Turn right & go down about 4.9 miles and turn left.  "Okay...guess the Super-8 we're staying at is down there." I think to myself.
We follow the directions, passing a tourist trap on the right for the "World's largest rocking chair" which I didn't really see.  We continued on for about another mile till we get back to another on-ramp for I-44.
I stop the bike & look over the map & directions again.  Emily said we must have passed the road back there.  So I turn the bike around & head back to get my bearings.  If anything we'll go back to that first Super-8 I saw & perhaps find out from them where the other one is at.

We head back in the other direction on old Highway 66 again and the road veers just a little to the left right in front of the "World's largest rocking chair" tourist trap.  I'm only going about 30mph at the moment because I see a van slowing down that looked like it was going to turn right on a road about 500 feet or so in front of me.  It pulls off to the side so it's half on & half off the road.
I muttered aloud, "What the hell, sweetheart?" which is a standard saying when I see a van, or any vehicle for that matter, confused as to what they are going to do.
I start passing them, rather close to the center line, still doing about 30mph giving them room in case they want to quickly merge onto the road.  This has ALWAYS been a standard move for me because people are inconsiderate drivers. 
Suddenly,  with no signal, which I was watching for, she makes a 90 degree left turn from the right berm in front of me into the "World's Largest Rocking Chair'" parking lot on our left!!

I laid on my horn, clutched in and hit my front brake as quickly as I could!!  My reactions didn't move my right foot to hit the rear brake fast enough!  It just happened so fast!!  30mph was still too fast and she was entirely too close! 

I didn't steer to the left or we would have hit her broadside, nor did I steer to the right for the same reason.  I was really hoping against all hope we would stop short or she would move in time.  Neither happened.  We slammed into the van, front tire first which forced the bike to the left and ripped the grips from my hands.  From here I'm a bit groggy for the next few seconds.
I vaguely remember hitting the road on my right side & sliding a bit.  I vaguely remember hearing & seeing the bike go down and instantly in my head I'm thinking, "Oh my god...this is going to really mess up Emily' knee even further!"  All this in about a 2 second instant.
I don't know how long I was down.  Emily said I hopped right back up but I do remember doing a "Can I feel my hands/feet and can I move them?" body "system" check before getting up.
I remember hearing Emily behind me as I turned to check on her.  "John, are you ok?", I replied back, "I think so.  Are you okay?"  so she was conscious and coherent.  "I think so but my knee is really bad now."
At this time I think I spun around to see if the van pulled over because I was going to try to get a license plate if it took off.  She did pull over.  By the time I was able to see the driver she was getting out of her van, cell phone in hand CLAIMING she was dialing 911.  Personally I'd like to see her cell phone records to see if she was on the phone between 4:25pm & 4:40pm on that day. 
Me, being me, I let lose on her!!  I know I should have been tending to Emily but I knew she was conscious & she wasn't bleeding.  But still, my adrenalin was running the show at this time.  I did not get close to this woman but screamed at her for cutting us off & being on her cell phone!!  Not once...NOT ONCE did she deny being on the cell phone!!  Then she said she was in the middle of the road turning left, "Because her kids wanted to see the world' largest rocking chair.".  I stopped her & said, "WHAT??  Are you kidding me?!?!"  Emily, still lying in the road, calm as can be considering what just happened, said, "Ummm....you were on the side of the road and you DID NOT use a turn signal."  The lady, claiming she's still dialing 911, said, "Well maybe I was on the side of the road." 

Now, a piece of history about Emily 'n I riding together.  She is my co-pilot and navigator.  This way I can focus on the road.  I know a motorcycle can be a deadly vehicle if used improperly, but it is also a HUGE stress reliever for me at times.  Therefore I ride a bike cautiously.  And I'm not stupid on a bike.  Never have been, never will be.  I have nothing to prove.  And nothing I did was wrong if you ask Emily.  Nothing.  I was not going fast, and I was not being careless.  This woman was negligent, plain and simple.  Add in a distraction with a cell phone and satisfying kids in her van to go see the "World's largest rocking chair" just adds up to a careless driver!

As a side note...we were both wearing our helmets and we both had chaps on.


Up next....the aftermath.

John & Emily' Great Westward journey! Part 1

This turned out to be quite lengthy.  But I promise you interesting reading if you stick with me.  Thanks!     -John-

Above is the map of our Great Westward Journey of 2012.  The flags represent various stops as I will explain in my chronicles.

.As most of you know by my Facebook posts, Emily 'n I embarked on a great westward motorcycle journey that took us from Akron, Ohio down to Springdale, Arkansas (D flag) to visit 2 of my cousins I have not seen since the mid-90's.
Next we were going to travel further west through Oklahoma then north to Wichita (E flag) to visit my nephew, David, stationed at the air base there.  Then we were going to roll home from there.
This whole trek covered roughly ~1200+ miles, one way, give or take and  included some interesting and not so interesting side adventures.  A couple of which we would like to forget.  The over all trip would have been roughly 2200 miles.  All by motorcycle!!  4x the longest trip Emily and I have ever taken by motorcycle, one way, before which was to my sister' place in southern Pennsylvania.
We were up for the challenge despite Emily injuring herself on Memorial Day weekend climbing down a ladder at a zip-line course down in Hocking.  She was limping, sore but the doctor gave her the thumbs up with our promises that we'd take it easy, take extra breaks and ice and elevate her knee as often as possible.
We left Wednesday, June 6th and rolled onto I-77 north at precisely 3:55pm with our first stop for the night being Indianapolis, Indiana (B flag) about 300 miles, and about 5 hours away.
We did pretty good on the road down I-77S to Columbus, then skirted our way around it via I-270s, then to I-70 west towards Dayton.  Fortunately on I-270 the crappy traffic was going in the opposite direction!  "Suckers!!" I thought as I saw the line of cars 3-4 miles long heading north.
We stopped once for food & gas and made it into our hotel close to 10:30pm that night.  Not a bad journey considering poor Emily had a bad knee.  I'll take a 5 hour trip in 6.5 hours any day.  Traffic was pretty good considering we hit Columbus rush hour.
I quickly unpacked our gear while Emily limped into the hotel to check in.  We were both pretty tired and knew we had big day tomorrow so we pretty much just cleaned the road off of us, watched some tv & quickly fell asleep.

We had a 6+ hour ride today.  I figured if we got rolling by 10:00am, breaks, food, gas, we'd get to our next stop, Cuba, Missouri (C flag) by dinner time.  I figured about 8+ hours for a 6 hour journey.
We had a very nice continental breakfast courtesy of the hotel.  Now personally I see nothing wrong with them.  Some people snub them.  I like them.  Emily and I both made waffles, cut some bananas up on them and covered them in syrup.   Apple juice, milk and we were ready to roll.
I repacked  the gear, rechecked my map for our next stop of Cuba, Missouri and we were rolling down the road about 9:30am.  Great!  Ahead of schedule!
When we rolled through St. Louis....let's just say the inner-city highway traffic may as well have been rush hour.  Fortunately we kept up to speed but good grief...it was busy, busy traffic!
I wanted to get outside of St. Louis' crazy traffic & get off somewhere so we could hydrate and give Emily' knee a rest.  Which we did.  About 15 minutes outside the city limits.  Emily went into get us some drinks and asked the clerk how far to Cuba & she said it's about 90 minutes.  I was checking GPS along the route and it confirmed the clerks estimation.  By this time it was roughly 3:00pm or so.  "Wow!!  We are making GREAT time!!"  We were way ahead of schedule & I figured we'd get to the hotel no later then 4:45pm or so.  This would give us a early evening to just relax, watch some tv and enjoy the atmosphere.  I was really more concerned with Emily' knee.  It was really starting to bother her and she had no complaints all day up to that point.  She said 90 minutes is no big deal and was looking forward to icing it elevating it for the evening.
So we saddled up again for our ~90 minute ride to complete an early day.

Little did I realize how far I was from that "early day".

(to be continued...)