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2 years ago
Google says…
… it was a journey of 738 miles today, October 6, 2009. It felt like more. From Shamrock in Texas on I40, I am now in Vandalia, Illinois. I left a dreadful motel called the Western Inn, opposite this wonderful old Conoco garage, gas station and convenience extravaganza, now restored.
This iconic building was a key feature of the Mother Road, Route 66.
I left at 4:30 AM this morning, pushing my car into the street opposite the Conoco gas pumps as I didn’t want to wake any guests. I started my car at the end where the owner slept, and was happy to wake him in his dirty, smelly hotel. There are many choices for over-nighting in Shamrock: don’t let the Western Inn be yours. Its only saving grace was that I could walk to a good steak house, full of locals. I mean, its not everyday you overhear your table-neighbours speak of mating temperatures for bulls, the potency of bull semen and the retirement ages of top bulls. The product of such industry, the steak, was excellent.
In more than 5,000 miles of traveling these past 10 days, I hadn’t seen another LBC, let alone a Triumph, away from SLO. That was until this chap today in a splendid TR3. The plate said 60 TR3, but I could not see the state it was registered in. We flew along at 65-80 for some 25 miles east from Tulsa (NOT OK), passing all and anyone.
At some point, I found myself in front of him. I wondered if he was local, or on his way home from California, like me.
Then I saw in my rear-view mirror his right indicator come on and he pulled onto the hard shoulder. I couldn’t stop immediately as the safety fence where I was met the fog line (it was a rail culvert) so there was no hard shoulder. I stopped at a safer point about a quarter mile on, down a slope beyond the culvert.
I picked up my phone and set off walking back up the Interstate to see if I could help.
When I got up the hill to the culvert, I was judging how big a gap in trucks I’d need to run it (no hard shoulder). I then could see past the culvert and saw that he’d gone! Realising he must have passed me, unnoticed, I turned around and saw he was now parked behind my car, one quarter mile back where I’d walked from. As I headed back to my car, I saw him look in my car, look in his, kick a couple of his tyres, then he jumped in his TR3 and just drove away. I was about 250 yards behind him, on foot, on the Interstate hard shoulder.
I can’t believe he couldn’t see me, or work out that I’d walked back to see if I could help him. I also find it odd he’d fire up his TR3 and leave my abandoned car without understanding where I’d gone. I was right behind him! I shouted to no avail among the passing semis.
I stopped at the next services to see if he was there needing help. No, he wasn’t. I repaid my toll and returned to my drive. I never saw him again.
I44 into St Louis at Rush Hour is insane. Crazy People! Crazier driving. I was relieved to get through it. Then I just didn’t have enough in my tank to make Indianapolis, IN. From Vandalia, IL, I am 805 miles from home. I should get there late, tomorrow.
From the worst hotel on my trip in Shamrock, I’m now in one of the best: Days Inn, Vandalia, Illinois. Vandalia was this State’s first capitol and was where Abraham Lincoln began his political career.
I’m in a real, old, well-kept motel, with a licenced restaurant. When you order fish, it really helps to be reassured that it is identifiably the species of your choice, and this is definitely catfish:
Anyway, one more day of this adventure to go.
Ciao,
Brian
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