With only one page remaining in the 2007 calendar, this year’s riding season is rapidly drawing to a close. Fiona, Abi and I figured we could squeeze one more ride in, by combining fun with work. The WWE Pay Per View ‘Survivor Series’ being held in Miami presented the perfect opportunity for the final ride of the year, even if Florida’s flat and straight roads are somewhat less than stellar for motorcycling.

On Wednesday, Abi and I flew from… err… flew from…. well, we flew from a WWE show someplace to Abi’s home in Orlando, where my beautiful blue Yamaha FJR 1300 has been patiently waiting for the next ride.

Since our cross country excursion, Abi has decided to join the twenty first century and install a GPS system on his BMW Rockster, affectionately known as Fireball. Most people would do this project a few weeks before a ride, to make sure that:

a) the ordered unit arrived in time
b) all the necessary parts were included in the shipment, and
c) the unit worked as advertised.

But of course, we don’t do things that way. It’s too easy. Abi placed an order on Monday for a Garmin Zumo GPS, and rushed shipment so it would be at the house on Wednesday morning. When we got there – big shock – there was no GPS. DHL had tried to deliver the package, but needed a signature before leaving it. While he was on the phone to the DHL offices trying to figure out where his package was, I realized something. Something bad, yet so typical for me, especially before a motorcycle ride.

My damn cell phone was still in the taxi that dropped us off.

Great.

I called my missing phone and the taxi driver answered with a thick Jamaican accent.

“Hallo mon! Yah, I got de phone right ‘ere. You wanna me delivah it back ‘choo, mon?”

“Yes, that would be great!”

While waiting for my Jamaican deliverymon, another deliveryman arrived. The bright yellow DHL van appeared at the top of the street. We cheered as he turned into the driveway.

“You guys were waiting for me? Aww gee,” said the driver, “People don’t usually applaud me like that. I hope I can find your package now!”

He did, and Abi immediately set out to mount his new toy, right in the middle of the street.

My taxi driving deliverymon returned soon after, and handed me the phone with a quizzical look on his face. “De phone rang, and I answered it, mon. Some creeezy lady was talkin‘ an’ laughin‘ to me. I tink it be you, mon, dat why I answer da ting. But no, it be a lady, an’ she be sayin‘ creeezy tings! Anyway, here be your phone back, mon.”

Crazy lady? It could only be one person. Sure enough, Fiona had called me to let me know she’d be landing in Miami on time that night. She thought Abi had answered my phone and was fooling around. She said she told the driver stuff like, “Oooh, I LOOOVE your accent, baby! Keep it going!”

It probably made his day.

Though the GPS install slowed us down, we were still determined to try and find some good roads to ride to meet Fiona in Miami. Florida’s roadways were definitely designed with blue haired old biddies in mind, which means lots and lots of straight and flat roads. Deal’s Gap, the most famous motorcycling road in the US bills itself as having ‘318 turns in 11 miles.’ Florida’s slogan could easily be: ‘11 turns in 318 miles.” It’s that flat.

Route 98 looked fairly promising, however, wrapping around the shoreline of Lake Okeechobee. Firing up our bikes for this final ride, we took the first of Florida’s eleven turns – out of Abi’s driveway.

It wasn’t long before that famous Florida liquid sunshine started to fall, making the straight roads slick and wet. Grimy spray covered our face shields as speeding trucks roared by in the opposite lane.

As the sun set, the rain stopped. As the rain stopped, the bugs woke up. As the bugs woke up they flew across the road, doing whatever it is that bugs do when they aren’t sleeping. As they flew across the road, my helmet slaughtered millions of them.

Yum.

The road around Lake Okeechobee probably would have been scenic, if my face shield wasn’t almost completely opaque from massacred insects and grime, and if there wasn’t a ten foot levee around the lake, completely blocking it from view. But on the bright side, the road had about five curves, and one of them was almost exciting. As darkness fell, we bailed for the interstate, and made it to Miami in the straightest line possible, which is easy in this state.

The Continental South Beach – Oceanfront hotel sounded great when we booked it. I had visions of a grand old-style hotel with chandeliers and a tuxedo clad doorman. Yeah right! The baseball hat clad doorman brusquely told us that motorcycles weren’t allowed to park in front of the hotel, for insurance reasons. Never mind the $70,000 Porsche 911 or the equally expensive Corvette Z06 parked in the lot, lopsided insurance rules absolutely forbid our much smaller and less expensive bikes from parking, no questions about it.

I went inside the Continental and tried to use the old ‘get-me-the-manager’ trick that worked so well in New Orleans, only to be met with a scratchy laugh from the gruff, cigarette smoking old hag at the front desk. “You want the managah? Hah!” she wheezed, “She’ll be heah tomorrah. Try back then, hun.” With a deep wheeze that sounded like a death rattle, she turned away from me. The Continental might have been a nice hotel in it’s heyday, but that heyday was most likely during the Great Depression, back when the phlegmy front desk clerk was forty or so.

We picked up Fiona at the Miami airport, making sure to stop at every crosswalk at the terminal. A sign warned that failure to yield to pedestrians would result in a fine of – get this – $115.50. Fiona still thought it was cool to be picked up by motorcycle at the airport, but nothing extraordinary happened this time. No sexy stranger ran out to take our picture this time, nobody tried to include us in their dinner plans, we just returned to South Beach to try and find parking for our bikes.

The first garage attendant told us that the city of Miami Beach didn’t allow motorcycle to park in garages. This made Abi mad, so he asked where the sign for this rule was. The guy said, “There is no sign, pal,” then switched to rapid fire Spanish until we left.

The second garage we found welcomed us with open arms, provided we paid them $30 a night to park there. We did.

The next day we turned once to get out of the parking garage, then it was a straight shot down Route 41 to our planned destination of the day, an airboat ride in the Everglades.

Gus, our friendly airboat captain, gave us the usual ‘this is my first time out here’ spiel, but with an added twist. “Please remember, alligators are wild animals and should be treated with respect. I forgot that rule once, and got my elbow shattered by an alligator tail.” He held up his crooked left arm as proof.

With that warning in mind, we were off to shoot some alligators (with the camera of course.)

It took about thirty seconds for Gus to locate our first alligator, sunning itself next to the airboat dock.
Gus was easily as excited as we were about the sighting. “It’s going to be a good day today, I can feel it! We’ve seen one, but there are a bunch more out there, so hang on!” Gus then slammed the throttle wide open on the small block Chevy 350 equipped airboat, and the world suddenly became a blur as the 400 HP engine roared to life.

Gus stopped a few times so we could take pictures, and to give his prepared lecture about the Everglades. When he finished with the speech, Gus pointed out a white flower in the water, saying, “See that white flower? It’s called a white pond lilly, which is a funny name, because it’s not a lilly at all. And now you know as much as I do about Everglades plant life.” He sat back down in the captain’s chair, fired up the boat and turned us around. The fan noise startled all kinds of birds hiding in the tall grass.

Gus took us to an alligator nest he knew of. He claimed the nest had three eggs in it last time he checked. The eggs were nowhere to be found, and Gus was ecstatic. “They hatched! Excellent! Look at that! Right there! A hatchling! Look at him! Thats amazing for November, but ever since the hurricane, the cycle has definitely been off.”

And there in the swamp grass was a newborn (hatched?) baby alligator. It was exciting to see, especially because Gus was genuinely thrilled about it. He expertly angled the airboat closer for a better look.

Leaning out of the boat to get the shot, Gus warned me, “Be careful! When there are baby alligators, there’s usually a pretty angry and protective mommy alligator nearby.”

Sure enough, the angry mommy was nearby, and she was intently watching us. When we started drifting away from the nest, she swam in front of the boat just to let us know she was there. Leaving the angry alligator to tend to her new babies, we slowly motored away.

Gus, an expert, managed to find a few more alligators on our hour long trip.

We searched for the seven hundred pound thirteen foot long alligator called ‘The Monster” for the remainder of our trip. Unfortunately, The Monster was the only gator that eluded our relentless guide. However, we did find one more gator happily sunning itself as our airboat pulled back into the dock area. Gus was overjoyed at the amount of alligators we’d seen on our tour.

Rounding the final corner before we docked, Gus nearly jumped out of his skin. “Wooo! Look! Look! Right there!” Lying on the shore was the biggest alligator we’d seen all day. “The Monster! Look at it! Wow!”

Then a bit less enthusiastic, he continued, “Great. Now my boss is going to make me chase him off, and he’s mean.” I wasn’t completely sure, but I think Gus was talking about the Monster.

After our tour we stayed for the short informational alligator show, on the off chance that the ranger giving the lecture got eaten by an angry gator. Of course that didn’t happen. But as we walked back to the bikes, we almost witnessed a German tourist become the Monster’s next meal.

Gus must have conveniently forgotten to tell his boss about the Monster being on park property, because as we were leaving, we saw a woman posing for a picture not three feet away from the fourteen foot long wild alligator. I waited patiently, hoping to see the woman become gator food.

And it almost happened. The giant gator slowly stood and started lumbering toward the naive woman. That thing was HUGE! She saw it start moving ran screaming to her tour bus. This was the only picture I managed to snap of the beast before I also ran screaming to my bike.

The plan for the next two days included a visit to Key West, and the southernmost point in the Continental United States – and of course drinking as many of the southernmost beers as possible on Duval Street.

On to Part Two

Author: frenchy