ABC Trip June 2009 A-E

ABC Trip to TX

In June of 2009 Tina moved to Cedar Park, TX near Austin. She will be working on a masters degree in Library of Information Science at the University of TX this fall. We helped her move down with the pickup, a Uhaul trailer and our van and one of her girl friends. Her friend as a big help unloading as it was hot and she was in much better shape than the rest of us. Later in June Tina came back to IA and got her car to take back to TX. Dawne went with her to help drive and help her set up the apartment. Dale followed in a few days on the motorcycle to bring Dawne back. That was the start of ABC trip.

There was not real specific time frame for picking up Dawne and returning to IA since I was retired, at least unofficially at that point as I took vacation for a few weeks before officially retiring. Given our flexibility it would work well for a motorcycle trip. To make it a little more interesting I decided to go through a town starting with each letter of the alphabet in alphabetical order on the way down. I began with a town that started with A (Adel IA), then to a B town etc. until I ended with a Z (Zalma, MO). As we will see, this added several miles to the trip.

I was delayed a day getting started, as I wanted to wait until the rain had passed. It was foggy that morning, but I was able to move through the alphabet fairly well until I came to Holbrook IA. That town had a couple of churches and a few houses, but no city signs, city parks or buildings with the city name. The trusty map indicated Homestead was only about a 45 mile detour, so Homestead replaced Holbrook. By the end of the day I was at Rantoul, IL, and made through R in the alphabet. As I had already been to Rushville IL, Rantoul did not really count in the ABC’s but they had a convenient hotel on the way to Thomasboro and Urbana.

Now I will admit IL is not part of even a semi direct route to TX from IA, but do you know how hard it is to find a town that starts with X in the Midwest? At the time I could not find one in IA, NE, KS, MO, OK, AR, or TX. There is a Xenia, IL and that is where I was headed. While the index to my KS map did not have an X town, I did discover after I got to TX from the motorcycle forum I monitor that there is a Xenia in KS. On the way back I did drive by and it is a legit town, so maybe next time I can do the alphabet in one day instead of two.

Even though I got a late start on the second day due to rain again, I was able to complete the alphabet at Zalma, MO and in 1,032 miles. The complete list of towns is at the end and for those skeptics who want proof the pictures from each town will be in various blog listings starting the first 5 pictures at the end of this blog posting (we haven’t figured out how to put more than 5 pictures in one blog post). I was still quite a ways from Cedar Part, TX, so it took me another day to get there. When we drive the interstates it is 930 miles from Earlham, IA to Cedar Park, TX, but this motorcycle trip took 1,807 miles to get there.

The stay it TX was a little longer than expected. Sat. night I was checking the air in the motorcycle tires, as we were planning to start back on Sun. The rear tire had chucks of rubber missing. Fortunately, there was a BMW dealer only about 17 miles away, but they are closed Sun. and Mon. There was a Victory dealer on a mile away and they were open Mon. They were able to get me a new tire and I felt much better only going a mile instead of 17 miles on that old tire.

We started the return trip that afternoon. It was hot. It was over 100 degrees that day and the next. We took many breaks, but the sweat still ran off us even when we were going full speed down the road. It was not such a fun ride in all that heat. We’ll save motorcycle riding in the South for seasons other than summer.

	City	State	Mileage
A	Adel	IA	21,298
B	Booneville	IA	21,314
C	Clive	IA	21,323
D	Des Moines	IA	21,339
E	Elkhard	IA	21,356
F	Farrar	IA	21,365
G	Guernsey	IA	21,434
H	Homestead	IA	21,488
I	Iowa City	IA	21,522
J	Joetown	IA	21,551
K	Kalona	IA	21,559
L	Lone Tree	IA	21,577
M	Mount Union	IA	21,621
N	New London	IA	21,631
O	Oquawka	IL	21,666
P	Pontoosuc	IL	21,715
Q	Quincy	IL	21,776
R	Rushville	IL	21,829
S	San Jose	IL	21,889
T	Thomasboro	IL	21,987
U	Urban	IL	21,996
V	Villa Grove	IL	22,016
W	Watson	IL	22,093
X	Xenia	IL	22,124
Y	Yount	MO	22,278
Z	Zalma	MO	22,330
	Total Miles		1,032