Family Trip To Kansas City Made Even Better By Riding My Harley There And Back

It had been a while since the family had gone anywhere together, so my wife decided that it would be a great idea to have the family drive down to Kansas City, rent three family rooms at Great Wolf Lodge and enjoy four days both there and at Worlds of Fun.

Of course, the first thing that popped into my head when she brought this idea up to me was:

Oh, hey. I could ride my new Harley down there.

Now, I wanted to ride the Harley because it would be fun, because I hadn't been on a real "long ride" before and because I wanted to see how a Harley-Davidson touring class bike really "toured."

I didn't want to ride the bike because a nearly 3-hour trip with a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 8-month-old in a confined vehicle would be crazy. That wasn't on my mind at all.

I swear.

So I brought the idea up with the woman in charge, and somehow, my awesome wife agreed to let me ride the Harley down to Kansas City, following them the entire way.

On the morning of our trip, our entire party loaded up 4 vehicles with 9 people and luggage - a Durango, a mid-sized sedan, a Honda CRV and my 2009 Road King Classic. Everything went smoothly, which was a surprise in a way and wasn't a surprise in another way - my wife's a master of organization.

To say that I was looking forward to this ride was an understatement. I've never taken a long trip on a motorcycle, the longest being about an hour ride from Tecumseh to Omaha on my father-in-law's Honda Shadow Aero.

Since we started out at 9:20 on a Sunday morning, the traffic was light. That, combined with the great weather, put me in a damn good mood and I settled into the saddle of my 2009 Road King Classic for a good long ride.

I will admit that after about an hour of riding, I started to get a little sore.

After a few minutes more, I wanted to pull over for a bit.

I just couldn't get comfortable! I'd move around on the seat a bit, trying to adjust the pressure points for comfort's sake - but nothing worked for long. I tried standing on the footrests, lifting my legs, resting them on the engine guards. At most, I'd have 5 minutes of comfortable riding before I had to move again.

I think that if I had gone and picked up some decent highway footrests, I would have been a lot more comfortable on the ride down.

So I think I'll be looking at either eBay or checking with the parts guys over at Dillon Brothers Harley-Davidson in the next few weeks for some good-looking highway pegs to put on the bike.

Luckily for me, someone else decided that they needed to stop at one of the ubiquitous rest stops dotting the Missouri freeways.

I enjoyed the respite from the little more than an hour of riding that I'd done. I took off my helmet, stretched my legs a little, got a drink and took the above picture.

That done, our little convoy hit the road again.

Now, my wife asked me before we left if I had enough gas to make the trip. Since a 2009 Road King Classic has a 6 gallon fuel tank, and since I probably get between 40-50 miles per gallon, I figured that even if I did a little driving on the full tank of gas that I got on the Saturday before we left, I'd still have plenty of gas to get me to Kansas City.

I was wrong, sort of.

I watched my fuel indicator lights vanish, one by one, as we rode further. Finally, as I had one dot left and my fuel gauge warning light went on, I let the wife know that I needed to get some gas and pulled over at the next exit.

So, with the wife looking on and fuming that the convoy was being separated, I sheepishly filled up my gas tank, hopped back on, turned my iPhone back on and got back onto I-29.

Looking back, I probably had enough gas to make it into the hotel parking lot. I'm still glad that I stopped - it made the rest of the ride more comfortable.

Finally, after arriving in Kansas City, and after a brief stop at the Legends mall to eat at the T-Rex Cafe and to shop for and buy two leather jackets from Wilson's outlet store, we found our hotel.

It was nice to get off the bike and stretch out for a while.

When I set out on the trip, the thing I was most worried about - and the thing my wife enjoyed pointing out the most as a reason I shouldn't take the motorcycle - was the potential for rain.

According to forecasts, rain on the way down to Kansas City wasn't going to be a problem. Once we were there, however, there was a 30 percent chance that there'd be significant thunderstorms - especially during the last two days.

It did rain heavily on Monday, starting with a light drizzle while the family and I were wandering around Worlds of Fun, and graduating to a full-blown lightning and thunder show later on that evening while we swam around in the Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park.

The bike got rained on, but oh well. Free bike wash.

While in Kansas City, I never really had a chance to take the motorcycle out for much of a cruise, although I did take it out to the local Walgreen's pharmacy to get some various and sundry items that the family needed.

The family drove to a few places to eat, and I did want to mention a place called Granny's Chicken Ranch - because it sticks in my mind as the worst meal I've had in a while. I ordered a three breast meal, and I'm not sure how, but they managed to make one piece taste overcooked and dry, the second merely decent and the third perfect.

The chicken strips for the kids were horrible, and I'm not a picky eater. If you have to down a few swallows of water to choke down a chicken strip meant for kids, there's something wrong.

Nobody else in the family had a problem with their meal at Granny's Chicken Ranch however, so these may have been isolated happenings.

Since we had a two-day pass to Worlds of Fun, and since the kids had such a good time visiting there the first time, we decided to stop by for a few hours before we hit the road and headed home.

We rode a few rides, and we had some funnel cake. I think the adults were all tired, but the kids had a lot of fun and that's really what matters.

The morning that we left, I checked the weather forecast and saw that there were nothing but clear skies in store for the ride back home.

Awesome.

My father in law left in the mid-size sedan earlier that morning. My sister-in-law and her friend and her friend's kid left in the CRV at about 4:30 in the afternoon, and I left a few minutes later, after changing into jeans and getting everything all situated.

I was worried about being tired for the ride home, but it turns out that fatigue wasn't even an issue. As soon as I got on the bike and headed for the interstate, I got that smile on my face once again and the tiredness just dropped away.

I was also a little worried that I'd be feeling that same fatigue on the ride back home that I had on the ride down.

Let me tell you...riding a motorcycle on a long ride while making sure you stay with a group of people in cars, and riding a motorcycle when you can go as fast as you want, stop when you want and start again when you want...these are totally different rides.

I stopped twice on the way back home. Once about 30 minutes outside KC for gas, once for a drink. Other than those quick stops, it was sheer riding pleasure.

I briefly hit 110 miles an hour while passing a few semi trucks.

There was no seat fatigue at all.

My bike ran flawlessly smooth.

It rocked.

I loved every second.

While the ride home was absolutely fantastic, I was still happy to pull into my own driveway and chill out for a while. The wife's sister showed up in the CRV about 30 minutes after I got home, and the wife herself showed up a few hours later, so I had a good amount of downtime to myself.

If you're interested in long-distance riding, there's no better way to do it than on the back of a Harley-Davidson touring motorcycle. If you're in the market for a Harley and want to get a good price, you should definitely check out what people are selling theirs for on eBay.

Every year, thousands and thousands of people buy and sell Harley-Davidson motorcycles on eBay. Try it and find yourself a great deal.