update

What a trip this has been! I have to apologize for the slow posts, it has been a bit difficult to get a complete update as the time I have been taking to blog has been while we are riding on some of the straighter roads.
Some thoughts:
Alabama was great! we went through some great back roads! finally a chance to work on shaving down the floor boards! Best part is, at night, they leave a trail of sparks!

I cannot stress how hot it has been. Our ambient air temp gauges have been hovering right around 100 degrees this whole trip. Add to that the 80-100% humidity and it has been very difficult to deal with. I had to stop yesterday to dump Ice water on my head because I was starting to zone out and hear a weird buzzing noise. Once I got some fluids in me and cooled down all was fine and we kept pushing on.

Nobody does sweet tea like Georgia does sweet tea!

Memphis roads are terrible. there are small bumps in the roads where it looks like a root has lifted the asphalt. When you hit them they rattle your teeth and your spine.

The directions have been very difficult to follow. They are a bit convoluted in the way they were written. For example this morning when we pulled out, we got lost in Memphis for 3 hours and drove around in circles for 66 miles (literally) because instead of the directions saying "55 N" they said "take 55 towards I 240 to Arkansas". We took I 240 heading to Arkansas, realized we were wrong and got lost inside Memphis. Prior to this mishap, we had probably lost about 6-8 hours on being lost. The directions take us in a lot of circles. Good roads, but you have been on most of the names before.

We did the math on our sleep, for the past 96 hours we have slept 8. We remedied that today and took a long break. We slept about 8 hours. We are way behind, but that is ok, we are having fun.

I lost my phone today on a bridge on a small section of 4 lane highway. It fell out of my new, and much needed, map tank bag. I was going about 65 and there was no way I was going back to run across a very busy highway in traffic to get it. So until I get a replacement (hopefully tomorrow or the next day) posting will be few and far between.

we have a long trek ahead of us. 2700 miles to UT from Memphis. We never stay on a freeway for more than a mile or so. We are going as far south and west as Flagstaff and are taking back roads that roughly follow the 40.

When we pulled in last night we were roughly mid pack. Then we got lost in memphis (we weren't the only ones) so we decided that sleep was necessary. The front pack was about 6 hours ahead of us. Frustrating to know that if we had not gotten lost we would be up there. The actual first place group was a few hours ahead of them, but there is some controversy with them that I do not fully understand but has something to do with if they were following the prescribed route.

I have a feeling that people will start doing what we did in a day or so when the sleep deprivation catches up with them. We had a head start on sleep depravation in the Keys. A lot of people are not getting more than an hour or two of sleep a night. not sustainable.

There are two types of racers within this race. 1. Go all out and do your best not to get a ticket. These guys are at the front right now. I am not sure how many of them actually have gotten tickets, but I know that some have been pulled over. I am very impressed with how nice the police have been in all of this. I have to think most of them are Harley owners them selves as they have not been out in force to really stop us from racing across the country for money. The second group, which is where Mark and I are, are being a ittle more cautious. We are staying within the speed limits and consistently riding. This way we pay more attention to our route than keeping an eye out. (even though we have been way lost) Which one is better, I have no idea, but we will see in Homer.

Sorry for the lack of pics, I will remedy once I get a new phone.

Thanks for all of your support!