Day 34 Louisville KY Sat 19 July Snake's House Mileage 6,240 miles

RAIN!!!!!  Come on . . . Can't you give a motorcycle guy a break . . . No, huh?  Well then . . .Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain . . .  I laugh at rain now.  Woke up this morning and it wasn't just raining, it was like floodiing rain.  This will prove to be the wettest day of them all.  But I had no choice, as Snake had tickets to go to a big festival and leaves Sunday on a trip, and I wanted to see him and the family before he went to work . . .  Jill was so nice to offer to let me hang out and stay, but I had committments to uphold . . .

I looked out the window, and the streets had 2 inches of water flowing downhill.  Here are a couple of shots:

You can see the drops . . .

That's water all the way across the street flowing . . .

The bike was soaked! And the "cover" is to keep the dust off, not the WATER!  Lesson learned on this. Well, with Jill holding an umbrella, I went to work taking the cover off and got soaked.  There was no easy way to get it drained and stuffed in the sack without getting wet.

Here is Jill's house, wet, check the gutter, as it let up a little

You can see the sheets of water under the mailbox on the left.  I had started the bike to let it warm up in the wet . . .

Again, sheets of water. . .  Well, I got all my gear on, and said goodbye to a nice family

Jill and Andrew and Corine, I give you my best and thank you for your hospitality and kindness to a long lost cousin.  I'll keep you in my prayers and wish you the best.  Please stay in touch a little bit better than we have the past 20 years.  Family is family ;-)

   So out into the water I went.  I traveled very slow as it was slippery.  I knew it should have gotten better the futher west I went but that wasn't the case . . .

I pulled under an overpass to readjust my gear, and wipe the rain off my helmet and windscreen, but I found out that only helps for a few seconds.  

I dared to take the camera out of it's case to snap a few to let you see and feel the wetness.  It got so bad I was driving in a cloud and had to slow down to 30-40 miles per hour to stay safe.  It was horrible

Still pretty good visibility here.  It got worse, but I couldn't get a picture safely, so you'll have to trust me that it was bad!  BUT WAIT!  What's this . . . A reason to stop and get out of the rain ???  YES!!! ;-)

I had a GREAT meal, my favorite! and waited the storm out, or so I thought!  But I only got wetter? If that's a word . . . and back on the road I went.  I was now talking to Snake as I drove, and he promissed me I would get better as I approached Lexington, but said I did have a couple of more cells to push through.  Here they are:

Driving in a cloud again

And finally it started to lighten up . . .finally . . .

That, my friends, is what a slick road looks like.  They had just resurfaced it and the water was standing on top.  There was a grove you can see, just to the right of the stripes and when you changed lanes, whoa Nellie, it was Mr. Toad's wild ride.  I started making better speed once it dropped to a drizzle.  As I got close, Snake told me to get off at a certain exit and that he would meet me there.  It was a great moment to see another Super Tenere after 6,000+ miles and a friend's face.  Thanks, Snake, for riding the last part with me.  That was special!

Snake in the lead, taking me home!

Taking my picture as I took his ;-)

Finally, in his driveway.  What you can't see here is just how wet I am.  When I pulled my boots off, I poured an inch of water out of each of them . . .  But the bike held up well and we took a few pictures of the twins:

Snake, You're helmet color doesn't match you suit color . . a fashon Pho-Paw :-)

Of course, mine does . . .I'm not sure if I can ride with you now, looking all color un-coordinated!

Me and my brother, at last . . .  Almost the end of a long journey, but not quite . . .:-)  BTW, It was only still in the morning for all this and we had a concert to go to!  Snake helped me get the bike in the garage and totally unpacked the pack mule!  We had tohang EVERYTHING to let it drip dry and it felt real good to get into dry clothes.  We got to sit a little while in the living room as plan the rest of the day.

And, of course, there is LUCY! The sweetst dog - EVER - except for Mr. Marbles ;-)

and then Bart, my brother sent in a random picture of my mom with a CAT on her shoulder

Didn't know the background of this one, but found out later, they were fixing a garage door and Puss and Boots decided to lay on our mom?

   There is an annual Festival called the Forecastle Festival, in the downtown Louisville park.  It is a three day festival that costs $189 for the 3 days (no one can survive 3 days except Wesley ;-)  A single day ticket was about $100, so we went with that.  We left in the early afternoon, leaving Sarah home and taking Wesley with us.  He had a crowd of friends there, so we will only see him and friends a couple of times during the day.  This big thing had 20 + bands on 4 different stages, all going at once and Wesley and friends were not into the kind of music Snake and I like.  We found parking and caught up with Paul and Rhonda and Dave and a few more friends and the party began.  The first artist we saw was a black soul singer called Sharon Jones.  She and the band were tight, like they had been playing together for years, which they probably had . . . ;-)  She did a great set, with a lot of MoTown stuff, good horns and bass.

It didn't rain on us and was fairly cool with a great overcast and lots of big things walking around.  I was never sure of the reason for the floaters, but they were there.

Here was Sharon Jones.  We joined the "Bourbon Tent", in which you pay $20 bucks, get 20 tickets and get to sample many different bourbons and had a good local band in an air conditioned tent!

We went to the country stage and caught the end of Jason Isbell.  He was good, although I didn't know too many of his songs, but I knew a few . . .  We walked around looking at the different shops set up and had to use the porta-johns.  This was not Laurie's favorite part of the day . . NOT!  Her and I got in the handicaped line one, thinking it would be cleaner, and Snake got in a reqular line.  There was a girl in our line that went in 5 in front of us and stayed a good 15 minutes!!!!  Snake was finished and had gone down to get a beer and back WAY before we even got to the door.  Laurie tried to back out a couple of times, but we talked her through it and she had a successful pee!  Yay!!!!  

We ended up in the Bourbon Tent listening to the Dead Goat Laying on the Street band (or something like that ;-)  Paul and Dave came in and said Dwight Yokum was playing on the country stage, so I left with them.  It turned out to be a good call, as he put on the best show of the day, in my opinion.  I didn't realize how many songs I knew of his.  Here he is:

He has the same tight legged jeans on that he normally wears and did his signature knee/leg move he is famous for.  He put on a great show!

I think I instagramed this shot

Sampling many different bourbons

Not sure what I was checking on Paul, because there was nothing there . . . ;-)  And I was only sippin' to taste the bourbon.  This is why I don't drink, I guess?  ;-)

  I guess the disappointment of the night was the big show on center stage, Jack Black (of the White Stripes) himself.  The crowd went wild for him, but it just wasn't my kind of music (and I like everything).

I'm sad to say, just a bunch of noise . . .  Snake called it Avante Guard or some kind of crap, guitars laid on the stage feeding back, out of tune/key leads, screetching in the mics . . .

Crazy blue lighting

Now I'm not saying the crowd didn't like him.  He had everyone on their feet (there were no chairs ;-) dancing around, but not for me . . .

Lucy had the best seat in the house :-)

Still the best show of the day, Dwight Yokum, go figure, and I didn't even know I liked him!

We stayed till  almost the very end of the Jack White show and I didn't know a single, screeching, song he did.  He played most of his leads facing the drums, you know how I hate that, and I just wasn't impressed at all (have I said that too many times?  Sorry . . .)

We got home and went to bed at 1am, after a VERY long day.  Thanks Snake and Laurie, for waiting for me to get there and then taking me to a festival.  It was a great day and night!  That's all I got!

LUKE Out!