Day 2, 30July2025 - A bit over 1800 miles to Sturgis

Yesterday, Tuesday, we finally departed around 10AM, only 1 hour behind our planned departure. We drove to just the other side of Cleveland, OH, about 550 miles in about 11.5 hours...but we had a lot of stops. 

Progressive Field, Cleveland

June took a nice picture of Progressive Field as we drove by in Cleveland. 

We had an issue with the oil level in the Sprinter, which took about 1.5 hours to resolve and we had a jack on the trailer auto deploy....it won't anymore..it is pretty bent. The handle bars on the HD are loosened...and yes I had it strapped to them. But all and all, the bugs are worked out and we got to our intended destination, a Cabela's in Avon, OH.  

Cabela's Avon, OH

It was still really hot, so we ran the AC for about 2 hours before bedtime to cool things down. 

We had a peaceful night at Cabela's.

In the morning, I had to move the front tie downs on the HD. I had put the straps on the hand grips and the handlebars rotated down. I moved the straps to the front fork brackets, I am pretty certain it will not loosen now. 

We departed Cabela's a bit before 09:00.  It quickly got into the 90's but then we got heavy rain and lots of construction on I90, it kind of sucked but we were in a vehicle with AC, a bathroom and food....it sucked more for others. The rain cooled things down nicely.  As we approached Chicago, I did a diversion to a business called Sub-Trailer Hitch, Inc because the Tekonsha website said they were a dealer. I want to replace my Tekonsha Prodigy RF Wireless Bluetooth Trailer Brake Controller that mounts to my trailer because it is broken.  

Tekonsha Prodigy RF Wireless Brake Controller

The diversion was a 20 mile nightmare of narrow roads, traffic and pot holes that will swallow your vehicle....even big ones. They did not have what I needed and we proceeded to make our way to Rich's, as we left Sub-Trailer, I80 was a few blocks away.  Why the hell Google maps took us the way it did makes no sense....we were "Googled"!

We arrived at Rich and Kris's around 16:00, we had not seen them since.....Sunday, when they left our place. Rich's friend Mike and another friend Brian where there and staying for dinner. 

Kris made us a nice dinner. It was meatloaf. I had an IBM friend, Matt Kosinski, who used to come to dinner now and then, but not when June made meatloaf.  His saying was "meatloaf is one of those meals you only like your mother's".  Well he was wrong, Kris's was delicious and I ate more than I should have. 

I really like Kris, she knows I like bourbon and had something special waiting for me.  

A gift from Kris

 Brian, Rich and Mike

After dinner the guys played cards in the basement which now has a nice bar, TV and poker table. As usual, I got my clocked cleaned.  Rich went home the big winner. 

The basement stays pretty cold, the way Rich likes it, so Kris and June stayed upstairs for tv time.

Today we will continue west only about 1000 miles to go.