Who doesn’t want to take a day off of work. Add to that the fact that its their birthday, and you can see why I took the day off work. I also noticed that my driver’s license expired today. With the COVID-19 pandemic going on, I waited a bit too long to get to the DMV and renew my license. I decided I needed to go early and get a spot to take care of it. I made it to the office 1/2 hour before they opened, but it was too late. There were at least 75 people in line socially distanced outside waiting to get in and take care of government business 🙁
I looked on my phone and it turned out you could be somewhere around 30 days late and still not have a penalty for renewal. With that fantastic, news, I was out of there and headed back home. Unfortunately for me, the kids were both in summer school and Danelle was working. But luck for my, my sister, Hannah, was in town visiting. I can talk Hannah into just about anything. I decided we would drive to Hughes Mountain and hike to the top.
We had a laugh driving out there and hanging out catching up. I had been there before, but didn’t make it to the top. So this was my chance to hike all the way up.
It turns out that my last visit, we turned around very close to the top! Just the same, the view was fantastic!
It may seem crazy to some, but I drove over 4 hours to hike about 2 miles of trail. I wish I could say I did more, but the day was worth it. And we were back at the house before the work day was over, giving me plenty of time to spend with Danelle and the kids on my birthday!
I think we need to have Hannah in town more often. I’m paddling more than ever. Better than that, I’m bring lots of people with me. Today, Hannah and I paddled the turd while Danelle and Melissa paddled our small aluminum boat up the Meramec river. we didn’t go too far,but had lots of fun!
Hannah is looking at the damn that keeps Simpson lake from dumping straight into the Meramec river.
Danelle and Melissa checking out the damn as well.
And darn Hannah for grabbing a photo with me. I do my best to be the one behind the camera… You can tell I sure don’t like it!
Paddling is something that I mostly do and the rest of the family puts up with. We don’t do it enough together even though we have enough boats. Since we got a trailer earlier this year, there is no excuse not to get the family out together and paddle! So here we go!
You can see that we have 3 boats on the trailer, 2 up top and one below. When I say family paddle, I mean substitute Danelle for Maggie and Corvin for Hannah 🙂 You can see 3 of the 4 of us in this shot going up Grand Glaze Creek.
It was great seeing the girls enjoy the freedom of paddling. Maggie and Hannah don’t get much time in a kayak and it took a long time after we finished for their smiles to fade! I”m glad I was able to bring more of our boats our tonight and bring joy to our extended family!
Adventure Palooza is an annual motorcycle ride put on by Adventure Riders LLC. This is their 4th year putting on the ride and it is growing in attendance each year. The format of the ride is to have 4 tracks, North, South, East, and West that start in their corresponding direction and converge on a family farm in Mexico, Missouri. A significant amount of time is put into each track to make it the most enjoyable off road motorcycle riding possible.
Part of the adventure of the ride is using the GooseChase app. Each team is added to the app and work together to complete missions to get points. The organizers did a great job selecting different easy to difficult things for us to record and gain points for along the ride.
Screenshots below show our team’s ranking and some of the missions we completed.
My story begins when I signed up for the ride in May of 2020. During the sign up process, you tell them the route you want to start from. Then indicate if you’re solo, on a team, or interested in joining a team. I selected interested in joining a team. A month before the ride I received an email indicating that there were 3 other gentlemen that also selected joining a team. We met online a few times and joined up.
Meet Joe Depczynski, Dennis McGrath, Kevin, Taylor and Hogan. The following is what I can remember that transpired from our ride together.
We received the GPX track of the ride about a week before it started. When signing up, you agree not to share the track itself, but you can see the general map of where we were going to go.
Thursday, I spent the day procrastinating about packing. I was nervous what to bring or not bring. Eventually I got the motorcycle packed and forgot about it, going to bed early.
Friday morning, I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t sleep anymore. I got up and loafed around the house for a bit getting a shower before being dirty for a few days. I left the house as quietly as I could to make sure the family was able to continue sleeping. There, I went to the Quick Trip that we agreed to meet at and fueled up with gas and food. Our meeting time was scheduled for 5 am. This should give us enough time to ride to Little Indian Creek Conservation area, the official start of our 2 day ride!
When 5am hit, Joe and Dennis has not yet arrived. I began to worry they would never show and started deciding when I would just leave and meet Kevin on my own. At 5:05 am, Joe showed up and I was relieved. Still concerned, Dennis showed up at 5:10am. We were a full group. I was confident in my directions and technology and headed out to the starting point to meet Kevin.
The highway riding was bitter cold in the morning and my heated grips were turned up to keep my warn. Just as we were
getting off the highway at my exit, my navigation phone (I have 1 just for navigating and my regular one) died. I was flummoxed as it was plugged in the whole ride. Turns out that I substituted the plug during packing. The one I was using didn’t fit as well and came out enough to not charge.
We pulled over to get our directions manually as my phone was now at zero battery. With directions memorized, Dennis lead the way to Little Indian Creek Conservation area. There, Kevin was waiting for us at the entrance to go ride! But before we could take off, we needed to take a selfie of the group for the Goosechase app. One of our many tasks for this trip to document what we’ve done.
It wasn’t long before we were going down the road. Then the sign to turn around, we had missed our turn. This is where things started getting interesting. I had the first fall of the team on a state highway U-Turn. I felt stupid, but it was nice to get it out of the way!
I’m happy to report that there was only a very minor amount of damage to the bike. One strap broke and a highway bar (place to put your feet forward) bent. Nothing significant, just my pride!
Shortly after the U-Turn, we were climbing up on fire trucks to get a photo for the app!
And now just photos with some descriptions from the adventure!
This is inside Romp MX park, Joe and Kevin did some off road riding to get to a GPS point deep in the single track and get us some team points.
Joe had our group’s first repair. He bought the bike he is riding 2 days before the ride and had a small oil leak. He was confident that something wasn’t on tight from when he did the oil change.
We need a creative photo at these “water cannons”. Kevin and I decided to be human water cannons.
This photo was our second major challenge. Earlier in the day, Joe tried to ride up a very steep hill and fell over several times. Dennis and I were thinking it was a bad idea for us to even try. We turned Joe around and took a detour while Kevin rode the real tough stuff. We were a bit on edge when this feature came up. It doesn’t look like much, but its a very steep downhill followed by an uphill of the same size. Kevin went up and down while Joe, Dennis, and I decided on a detour.
It turns out that our detour took about an hour to complete. I believe it was harder than the photo above that we avoided. It was a very steep hill with large loose rocks. Somehow, Joe went up by himself. Then Dennis went up. He fell over around 8 times. Joe and I coached and pulled him as much as we could. Half way up, Dennis needed a break and we decided I should go to give him a breather. I didn’t fall over, but I spun my rear tire a ton and barely made it up with their help! I noticed afterwards that a rock got embedded into my new tire. It didn’t cause me any issues. It did however make me grateful that I got new tires before the trip.
Not all of the ride was difficult, we did have fun at other roadside attractions like this bulldozer.
Time wise, we should not have stopped for lunch, but we were exhausted and it felt great. Of course, it was a crowd of motorcycles!
Somewhere along the afternoon, we had to find a cabin in the woods. Our track took us off the gravel road and on to a non-mowed power line road. I followed Kevin and had trouble staying upright as there were narrow tracks and elevation changes. Once we got there, I walked back a ways and saw Joe had fallen. When I got to him, he said that he took a pretty good fall. It took a while to get him going again.
By the time we found camp, it was full dark around 8pm. I learned that my two flashlights barely worked. I had to shake one and the other one was borderline possessed. A headlamp for next time. We put up camp by motorcycle headlight. And then were up and packed, rolling out of camp at 6:10am on Saturday.
We went first to a gas station where we learned that Joe had enough. Between all of his falls on Friday he was thinking he broke a rib. He wanted to get home and rest as it was getting much harder to ride. Our team now carried on as three riders.
While I thought Friday was hard, Saturday had some surprises up its sleeve for us. First up was a slimy bridge. Kevin tried to warn us, but Dennis went down.He was fortunate as his bike did a 180 spin and was inches from falling into deep water. I clenched my cheeks and went across slow and straight without incident. The photo was after we pulled him and the bike to safety.
Another semi-offroad geocache had us in this field with hay bails.Rather than go back out the way we came in, we went up and popped out on the highway making our own path. Of course, Kevin scouted it out first 🙂
I’ve seen this bridge in several Missouri riding videos. Its at “Devil’s Elbow”. It was fantastic coming up to it and riding under it after seeing it online many times. The guys said its still in daily use servicing Fort Lenoard Wood.
Shortly after the train bridge is this one going over a river.
A random selfie I took at lunch.
No day of riding would be complete without its events that seem impossible, all coming after lunch.
First, just north of Jefferson City, I learned what deep sand can do to a motorcycle. It felt like 10 minutes before Kevin and Dennis came back to see what happened to me! I was going about 25mph when I lost control and crashed. The bike and I survived without incident, but I have a new respect for riding in sand!
After the sand pit came the closed bridge. Because why wouldn’t you cross a bridge missing some of its most important parts. Dennis decided to pass and let Kevin navigate his bike across the bridge. I”m happy to report that I made it without incident.
Finally we had a deep water crossing. It was around knee deep and deeper in sections. Like always, Kevin went across without issue. Dennis hit a rock and knocked his bike over (its in the video). It started right back up and finished the crossing. Then I went very slow to not have the same falling fate and it worked other than being extremely wet when I finished.
I learned that the universe has an unlimited supply of gravel dust for me to eat in the back of our convoy! But I’m looking forward to doing this event again next year!!!
Finally a few from the Adventure Palooza headquarters.
All told, when I pulled into my driveway on Sunday, I had traveled 664 miles for this journey.
George Floyd was killed on 5/25/2020. Since his death, there have been multiple protests about the way police have treated people. Today, there is a planned protest near my house. I was out and about earlier in the day and noticed that a few local retail establishments had their windows boarded up. Also during my drive, I saw 2 military Humvee with some strange looking equipment on top. With the previous violent protests, I didn’t want to be around in case somebody decided to do something stupid.
However, Corvin and I decided to go back out and unicycle around to see how many locations were boarded up. The protest started at 6, and we would be home by 5pm to stay out of the mess.
Here is the general map of where we went. Brentwood, Missouri at the intersection of I-170 and I-64. The red circled areas are the main locations in the photos below.
Walgreens, at the corner of safe and boarded up!
At least they told us why they are closing early.
Used to be a cleaners, currently vacant. Not sure if it was worth boarding it up.
Gas station up the street from the action.
REI had recently been looted with a broken window, so I’m not surprised that they boarded up their building.
Local furniture store.
Whole Foods
Interesting how they even got the upper windows.
This is the Macy’s at the St. Louis Galleria. From the outside, it doesn’t look boarded up, but get closer and you can see the inside doors are boarded.
Guess they were not worried about their upper windows.
An expensive “dollar store”
This target is in the shopping center where the protest is meeting.
The workers are putting up boards day of. Hope they finished in time.
Back at the gas station for a quick beverage before heading home.
