Day 25 - August 7

The day started off with some very thick fog as we left Hermitage, but it wasn't too long before it burnt off enough to allow us to play on some of Missouri's back roads in the Lake of the Ozarks area.

Whether is was Highways D/54/7/TT or Y, they were all fun roads to ride with lots of hills and lots of sweepers and turns. After a coffee/maintenance break in Eldon, we continued on along Hwy 87 and C into Jefferson City, where we once again picked up "America's Loneliest Road", aka US50.

Although parts of Hwy 50 were still fun to ride, it wasn't quite as much fun as the roads we had done earlier in the day. So, we mad up for it by taking in some Harley dealerships. Lake of the Ozarks HD is closed on Mondays, so we were not able to pay it a visit. But we did make it to Bourbeuse Valley (at Villa Ridge), Doc's (at Kirkwood) and Frieze (at O'Fallon). We grabbed a bit to eat at the local Sonic Drive In in Kirkwood (nobody in the group had ever been to one, so it was a first for all of us).

Along the way, we skirted around St Louis, managing to get a picture of the infamous Gateway arch. Back onto US50 we went, and managed to go to the town of Xenia, IL, where Dave and I were both able to get our "X" city for the HOG ABCs contest.

From there it was a straight line north to Effingham, where the Econo

Lodge was our resting place for the night. Dinner was next door at Neimerg's Steak House. After checking into the hotel, we were going to run over to Legacy HD, but it too is closed on Mondays, so we had to miss it as well.

Tomorrow morning we will say goodbye to the Delawarian part of our group as they head east while we Canadians will continue our trek north and east.