Another good ride (and low-fuel adventure)

Last week when it was raining, we looked ahead at the five-day forecast and resolved to go for another motorcycle ride on Monday.  Yesterday Cliff told me, before he even got out of bed, where our destination would be.  "We'll ride to Clinton; The monthly sale at Cook Tractor is today."  
Well, that's fine.  It's a nice ride to Clinton on a lovely, spring-green day.  I mentioned that it wasn't a very long ride, and Cliff looked at me like I was crazy.  We went for our usual walk, I made a couple of ham-and-cheese sandwiches to take for our lunch, and we were ready.  It was around 10 A.M. when we left.  
Cliff said he didn't intend to watch any tractors sell; he just wanted to walk through the place and see what kind of tractors they had up for auction.  I'm in the process of reading "Little Big Man", a book on which one of my favorite movies is based.  So I took my Nook to read in case he ended up looking at tractors for a long time.  
At some point not long after we left home, I asked Cliff, "How are we doing on gas?"  
"Oh, we have half a tank," he answered, and kept driving toward our destination. 

I love this time of year.

Here's where we ate.  Unfortunately, the rest rooms were locked.  We ate our lunch; Cliff had his usual Diet Coke and I had a throwback Pepsi (a current obsession of mine, but I only allow myself one per day).  Then we had a piece of Jello cake left over from Easter dinner and some coffee from the thermos.  My bladder was already full even before I drank anything, so by the time lunch was over, I was in pretty dire straits.  Thank goodness the Katy Trail State Park was on our way to the tractor auction place; those rest rooms are always open!  Next time that's where we'll picnic.  
And then, on to Cook Tractor!

Of course, any time there is lots of blue sky in a picture, there's that smudge my camera insists on adding.
The sale had already gotten started, but Cliff didn't spend a lot of time looking at tractors.  I sat on the grass, leaned against the wheel of a combine, and read until he returned; he was talking on the cell phone to his brother, who knew about some old man who has some Oliver tractors who lives only seven miles beyond Clinton.  
"Which road is he on?" I asked.  "If he's on 13 highway, we'll be getting pretty close to Osceola cheese, and I've been craving some of their cheese for a long time!"  
Well, Cliff had neglected to ask which actual highway the old guy lived on, but he figured the chances were pretty good that 13 was the right road.  
He was wrong, but by this time we were only about fifteen miles from Osceola Cheese, so he decided to humor me.  At this point I looked over his shoulder to check the fuel gauge and saw the needle was below the "E".  We bought some overpriced gasoline at the first opportunity.  Wouldn't you think we'd learn to fill up before it gets to this point?  

Usually we just go in and eat samples until we're full, but this time I actually bought some cheese.  
Our ride home took longer than expected because we had planned to take highway 7 all the way through Harrisonville; it was closed, and we ended up on some county roads, trying to keep going in the general direction of home. 

This doesn't show the county roads we were on, but you get the picture.  We were surprised to ride past a huge Holstein dairy on the back roads; you just don't see a lot of dairy farms these days.  
Needless to say, by the time we got home at 5 P.M., we were very tired.  
It was a good ride.