#day-11

ah sampai lupa, aku hanya ingin menyapa saja.

After a great night sleep at the cleanest hotel with best amenities, around 6am I heard the rain and wind splashing on the window of our 3rd floor room. Clouds rumbling vigorously. I grabbed my phone and checked the weather. There was a severe thunderstorm warning and arial flood advisory. My first reaction was - there goes the day. Let's just sleep in. I tried to ignore the weather and slept for a couple of hours. When we woke up, at least the rains stopped. I looked at the sky, it wasn't so daunting anymore. Checked the weather again and it seems that atleast the severity of the storms was dialed down and that there was 40% chance of rain in Chicago. Not so bad after all. Checked out from the hotel. First thing I looked was for a motorcycle rider's apparel shop. I need to buy a rain over-pant. My mesh pants were just fine in the rains so far, but occasionally water made its way to my bottoms. Not comfortable at all! Found a shop 30 mins from the hotel, pretty much on our way to Chicago. Rode down the freeway. Frikkin tolls again. Didn't have exact change again. Will have to pay it online. Got the pants from Cycle Gear and headed towards Chicago. It was about 30-40 mins ride from the shop to Chicago downtown. No rains in sight, but it was quickly getting more and more humid, and so the heat was substantial. More so given that the traffic started picking up as we were getting closer and closer to the city. The city skyline was looking murky with all the clouds. Slow and steady we reached downtown along with the morning commute. Once we reached downtown, it was bumper to bumper from one traffic light to the next. At the end of everything was the Millennium Park. The humidity and the heat was just too much in the slow traffic. Took some time to find the way to the underground parking garage. Once we got in, the parking entrance won't dispense us the ticket. It didn't detect the motorcycle, so had to call the attendant. Every second of the wait was excruciating in this weather. Finally got the parking. Now the dilemma was what stuff should we leave behind on the bike. Fearful of our stuff getting stolen, we grudgingly left one jacket and a water bag on the bike. Millennium park was nice. Clicked some pictures at the Bean. Downtown buildings were looking good from that place. After a while we thought we should better leave soon. Started looking for a place where we can eat a Chicago style pizza. Went to Giordano's. Frikkin 45 mins wait. Half way through we were regretting it already. Saw two tables who came after us and were done before we got our pizza. Finally got our Pizza which was ok I guess. It rained a little while we were waiting for huge pizza. Just a few minutes later the sky was absolutely clear! After the $30 something for pizza and $30 something for the parking, we were kinda regretting the whole pizza idea altogether. With all our stuff intact on the bike, we finally started heading further east towards Detroit. We took I-94 east. Crazy traffic!! At times there were 5 lanes. The right 4 lanes were completely packed with trucks. It was insane. I've never seen so many trucks at any road driving at high speeds. On top of that there were pockets where the traffic came to a halt for construction. Although there were no rains anymore, but the humidity was close to unbearable. We crossed Indiana and right at the entrance of Michigan, we took a break at the rest area. Kuntal had a phone interview scheduled so we had to be someplace quite. About 45 mins later she finally got the call. Meanwhile the bike was running a little low on oil. The oil indicator went off due to the heat may be. Although it never came back again, it was about time for the 30k service. So I used that time to find a service center. Called up BMW of SE Michigan. They had a wait of about 10 days. But knowing that I am on a trip, they were able to accommodate me for the next day. Better to get it done before it's too late. Knowing that it's not too far for the service, we thought of riding only far enough so we can be about an hour away from the dealer. We drove up to a small place called Alboin. On our way, we took a break at a gas station. A tow truck guy came up for a little chit chat. He mentioned that it rained pretty hard in the morning and there was a couple of inches of water on the freeway! We were so glad to have missed all of that. We somehow managed to skip all the thunderstorms in Chicago and nearby area. Finally reached the motel. Subway for dinner tonight. Met an old guy at the hotel asking about the BMW. It's July 13th. To Canada or not to?...

Katamu

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Shop at Sheinside now!

Shop at Sheinside now!