Tuesday’s miles: 0.4 Total Miles: 1,868.1
If you are
looking at the total miles for Tuesday you might think that it is a typo. It is not.
Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that there are typos all over the place in
my blogs. For one thing, I NEVER reread
them and correct anything. Whatever my
fingers do in the first place is what you will see. I did actually only ride .4 of a mile on
Tuesday. I will go into detail later (I
am guessing that “detail” will be about 2 sentences).
I woke up
between 6:30 and 7:00 and I looked out the window. There had apparently been a pretty good
soaking rain sometime during the night.
I confess that I slept through whatever it was. I will admit to you that at this point I was
feeling mighty pooped. There was an old
Faygo commercial for their Uptown drink where the little guy in the bottle
blowing factory was “too pooped to participate”. That was a good description of me on
Tuesday. I was too pooped to participate.
I gave Lisa a
call and keeping with the weather theme she brought up Tropical Storm Fred that
was forming in the Atlantic or Caribbean.
After talking with her I gave it the once over and it “appears” like as
long as I stick to my schedule of returning home on Saturday afternoon I should
be ok……..”should be” are the key words here.
In 2004 I was
doing a motorcycle weekend with my son.
He was stationed at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, NC so I got us a room
and we met roughly half way at St. George, SC.
We spent two or three days riding the area and having a great time. He had to get back to base and I had a day
left on the room. There was a hurricane,
Francis, that was hitting the east coast of Florida so I checked the radar and
saw that it was way south of my house so I set out for home. Long story-short…….Francis did NOT stay south
of my house and I was in the middle of it before I could do anything about
it. The experience would be a blog post
on its own. Suffice to say that I
recommend NOT riding a bike in a hurricane…..just sayin’. For now, it looks like I am fine for coming
into home on Saturday………BUT…..I am VERY willing to shift gears if that
situation changes.
Since I was
going to be back on the road the next day I elected to make Tuesday an OFF
day. I caught up on my blog writing, I
watched some You Tube……I now know MANY ways to prank my neighbors with an Air
Horn……, I packed my bags, and I pretended to be napping…….oh ok, I was REALLY
napping but don’t tell anyone.
I walked
across the parking lot to a Burger King and feasted on a Double Whopper, fries,
and a lemonade (I wanted a Coke but I was THAT old guy that couldn’t get the
electronic pop machine to do what I wanted).
Later, I carried my bag out to the bike and loaded it up. Then I jumped on the old scooter and whipped
across the parking lot to the gas station and filled up……and I whipped
back. Hence, .4 of a mile.
After such a
rough afternoon of napping and watching old people having the crap scared out
of them, I needed to find some suitable nutrition. I got just what I needed in the form of
Reese’s Cups and a Butterfinger from the vending machine in the lobby.
That, my
friends, was my Tuesday. I tucked myself
in to get a good sleep before hitting the road in the morning. Talk about that later.
Wednesday’s miles:
456.6 Total Miles: 2,324.7
Time for the southern
ride to get serious. I got out of bed at
4:00 AM with the intention to be on the road at 5:00. That worked out perfectly. There have been many a time when I got up
early in Michigan to head for Florida and it would be colder than certain anatomy
sections of a witch. One year it was so
cold that when I did my second gas stop in southern Ohio I was still shaking
and shivering. I would be riding along
thinking “ok, I have gone ANOTHER mile south and the sun is ANOTHER minute
higher……I SHOULD BE GETTING WARMER”. For
whatever reason, that didn’t help me feel any better. That was not the case Wednesday morning. It was warm.
I am from Florida and warm is good.
I also checked
the radar and saw that there was a big glob of rain (that is an official meteorological
term) in Ohio. Although it was primarily
to the east of where I would be riding
you just can’t trust Mother Nature. So,
I donned my rain jacket just in case.
I jumped on
Michigan’s M-59 and headed west until I got to U.S. 23. Traffic was light which is what I expected at
5:00 in the morning. I shot south on
U.S. 23 heading for Ohio. Because of the
heavy cloud cover it took a little longer for daylight to help guide my way. I was well south of Toledo on I-75 before I would
actually say it was light out. Thankfully,
I saw NO rain while it is dark. I am not
ever thrilled about riding in the rain but riding in the rain when it is dark
really sucks.
The sky did
spit at me a little just before I pulled in for gas at Beaver Dam, OH. It spit a wee bit more while I was at that
station and then once again about 10 minutes into my ride. That was it for the day.
While stopped
at Beaver Dam, which is just a little bit north of Lima, I gave radar a check. The rain was “kind of” breaking up and the
route in front of me was a little bit of a mixed bag so I elected to leave the
rain jacket on. After the spritzing I
got after Beaver Dam the skies started to clear some and it quickly went from
warm to hot. When one is wearing a rain
jacket and it gets hot then one will sweat.
And if one is an old guy like I am one will sweat a LOT. So I pulled off kind of early for my next
fill up. I usually go 120 to 150 miles
but this stop was at 100 miles at Franklin, OH.
I took off and stowed the rain jacket and gave Lisa the first call of
the morning. That gas stop was pretty
much a Gas & Go stop and as soon as Lisa and I were done talking I was back
on the road.
A guy on a
bike had passed me a while back. I
couldn’t see his license plate good enough to tell where he was from. He apparently also stopped for gas in that
same period of time because just as I was getting into Cincinnati he passed me
again. I had hear about all the road
work that was being done in Ohio and what a pain in the butt it was but the only
road work on I-75 I encountered was in
Cincinnati. The only traffic
back-up was at the bridge over the Ohio River.
They had it all encased like they were painting it or something but it
did put traffic at a stop & go pace for a little while. But that was the only issue in the entire
state of Ohio.
While in that
traffic tie-up I was apparently in the correct lane because I moved forward
faster than the other lane. I passed the
other biker and left him way back. Once
traveling at speed again I passed two biker groups (or, for you non-biker
readers “gangs”). Just north of
Georgetown, KY that other lone biker again passed me. I had already decided that the next big
travel plaza I came to (Pilot, Love’s, Flying J, etc.) I would pull off. A Pilot was at the stop at Georgetown so I
pulled onto the ramp and there before me was the other biker. Due to traffic he was able to pull into the
station before me and I lost where he was going. I pulled to a pump and filled up. This was another Gas & Go because I had
less than a mile to my destination and as I was pulling out I saw him off to
the side, parked in the shade, and talking on the phone. I wondered that if in the next 90 miles he would
pass me again. He did not and I am pretty
sure that is the last I would see of him and the last you will read of him.
I pulled off
in London, KY for my stop for the night.
I first stopped at the Walgreens to pick up a couple supplies I was running
low on. Then it was to a Frisch’s Big Boy. Wow, I have now been to two Big Boys on this
trip. They are definitely getting hard
to find. After a sandwich, some chili,
and a pink lemonade it was to the Comfort Suites right across the street.
After the
disappointing rooms I had in Waterford it was nice to have a great room with
everything working. I called Lisa and
did some typing. It is here that I will
leave you again. I still have a couple
days of adventure left plus the possible outrunning of Tropical Storm Fred. I’ll talk atcha later.
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