I missed everyone in Dublin! Ran into a couple small issues in the morning and ended up not being able to leave Lexington until about 3:45.
Finally got to Bogey's and all that was there was the Dynamic Motorsports rig.....hmmmm....
So, I hopped on 750 figuring maybe everyone went to QS&L, but nope! Nobody was there! Bike night, though, some REALLY cool choppers.
Well, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so my buddy, Jason and I decided to head south into Columbus. We tooled around downtown, got a lot of thumbs up, and hit the road...being sure to wind it out under the big overpasses!!
Stopped at the Sunoco station at Exit 151 (SR 95) off 71 North for some Ultra 94. You have to love the Smith's fuel gauge...it was reading JUST under 3/4 full and the tank took 13 gallons. 17 gallon tank.
Anyhow, guy's next to me putting gas in his Passat and he looks at the car, loooks at me, looks at the car... This guy's hair was perfect and his shirt was perfectly creased. Didn't strike me as the type to say "cool car". With the look on his face, I wanted to say, "It's OK. You can say 'nice car' without losing your manhood. Your Passat is very nice and I would like to have one, myself!"
Anyhow, another gallon or two pump in and he finally says, "Golf Ball sized hail up north, better be careful!"
I started laughing...then he says, "If you don't care, then you don't care, but I figured it'd be nice to at least warn you."
SO, I call my dad back in Lexington to have him turn on the Weather Channel and give me the story. Sure enough...SEVERE thunderstorms everywhere to the North.
Long story short, we don't have the soft top in the trunk and we're running up 42 trying to beat the storm. In hindsight, I should've hung out down south for an hour and waited. Oh well...
At about 42 and 314, the road started to look wet, and about 5 seconds later, BOOM! The skies unleashed their fury. Pouring rain, lighting, thunder, and at LEAST pea-sized hail. It didn't take long for the inside of the windshield to cover with water beads, so I couldn't even tell how bad of a job the wipers were doing!!
When there was no oncoming traffic, I felt OK as I could make out the center-line reflectors, so I just stayed to the right of those. But when there was an oncomer, it was darn near ZERO VIS. So after the first car went by (all the while, I want to stop but moving is the only thing stopping the inside of the car from turning into a giant sno-cone), we got a plan. Jason poked his head out to look past the windscreen at the edge-line on the road while I hunkered down behind the wheel and focused on not hitting oncoming cars. Jason had a hand on the wheel and so did I. Poor Jason, poking his head out to see the edge of the road, ended up with most of the hail-induced brain damage. I only got nailed a couple of times...and it HURT!!
After a solid 10 minutes of pouring rain and hail...and nowhere to stop undercover...everything just stopped as we crossed into Lexington.
Once in the garage, we spent a few minutes scooping hail out of the seats and floorboards and toweling off the interior.
The baby is officially broken in. Thank God it's glass...
I want to hear some other "caught in bad weather" stories!!
JP