Day 1 (On our way) Part 1

Sorry we didn’t post to the blog sooner, sure a lot of folks had disappointing weekends because of us… sigh!

We all, exception of Scott, gathered at Mark's house the night before and got up ~1:00am. All had great aspirations of getting ready in just a few minutes having dutifully prepared the night before, but an our later, we were on the road to St. Augustine.

The first two hours could be characterized as we filled up, rode in the dark, and froze. It was cold! Running at ~80, the frigid wind in your hair… Scott and I were fairly OK, we had some fairings to ward off the morning chill, even Mark had a warm hibernation layer, but Teri and Eric, they were out there, needless to say, all were glad when the sun came up.

Traveling Intrastate 10 through Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida is much like traveling through East Texas, long road, lot of trees. Not much to see, although we were given a good opportunity to see a lot with the traffic jams we encountered, one going into the tunnel in Mobile, the other inside Florida. The jam in Florida was the longest, I estimate we were stuck enjoying the scenic beauty of the car in front of us for over an hour.

Interesting thing when you are stuck in traffic that long, the cars AND trucks behind you find creative ways to progress. In one case a tractor trailer (all of ~8 feet wide) find they can ride the shoulder (all of ~7 feet wide) and decided to make it their lane. Unbeknownst to me he is hitting fairly good speed upon passing, needless to say, I almost didn’t need to take a bathroom break after that.

As time passed a few cars took to the shoulder and here comes another truck, at least this time I was watching, as we are moving forward, he and I are at a bridge, where he needs part of MY lane! Being the friendly Texas driver I was, I held my spot, it was me (in my ½ ton bike) and him (in his multi ton tractor trailer semi) side by side, I believe I have some paint from his truck on my elbow, then comes the car in the shoulder, he then requires my entire lane, not going to happen, it was a showdown as he inched in, but I held firm, he stopped as he ran out of pavement and we moved on at a pace a turtle could have over-taken. Wow, that was exciting.

The trip overall was quite a bit longer than expected, we stopped ~10-12 times, each one taking more time than planned. Think a fuel stop, requiring 5 gallons at the most, by the time you get off the interstate to back on should only take 4-10 min tops, right? Not us rough and tumble set of bikers, I believe our average cycle time for a stop ranged from 20 to 30 minutes. That and the traffic jams contributed to a long journey.

There are more to add, but time to leave….