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Missouri Dreams



4 AM sound of thunder. Lightening flashed through the spaces in the thick motel drapes. There was the hissing of a hard rain. I fell back asleep and dreamed: three girls from my high school, wearing tight capri pants, so tight, I was singing, and I had my old motorcycle, the leaky Triumph. Those pants! When I woke, I put on the weather channel. It was a deluge, flashes of lightening, rumbling thunderclaps. We sat there, drank coffee, and watched the radar, looking for a break in the storm. We saw a break and made a run for it. Rode through the last remnants of the storm on route 36. Raining hard, I couldn't see a damned thing, just put the flashers on and hoped for the best. Trucks. Lotta trucks. Came up out of the storm, and rode 36 into Hannibal, and crossed the Mississippi River. Stayed on 36 in Illinois, and poured on the coal, 70-80 mph, right into Springfield, where we picked up I-55 north. We got onto route 24 in Chenoa, and continued east at an easy 60 mph. Smooth, except for the occasional adrenalin rush, passing farm vehicles, or slow-moving trucks in the face of oncoming traffic, and pulling back in at 80. We were looking for a place to stay, but route 24 seemed to have either bars and liquor stores, with no hotels, or hotels with no bars, no liquor stores. Lost an hour when we crossed into Indiana. Finally found a room in Logansport, with a bar and a restaurant on site, and a liquor store next door. This might have been the place where Rose got the bug bites on her legs.




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