day 10

Pensacola to Orlando, FL – 488 Miles

Once again, Abi had his gear loaded and ready before Fiona and I came down at the agreed on time. “Dude, what the hell? Every single day I’ve come down on time, and every single day you’ve already been loaded up and ready to go. WHY?!?”

Abi pragmatically replied, “Because if I’m not early, I’m late.” Good point. It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

We stopped at the Gulf Islands National Seashore visitor center where I managed to score not one, but four more Passport Stamps. Great success! Though this day would be the highest mileage day ever for Fiona, she didn’t seem to mind at all. We disposed of the dwindling miles easily, with not much to see except vines, vines and more vines covering every tree, fence, and slow moving retiree in sight.

Cracker Barrel™, that wonderful chain restaurant with the homey feel not only has good food, but also has tables equipped with those annoying brain teaser games. The most annoying one of all is the triangle shaped game where you have to jump pegs over each other, leaving one remaining peg at the end. If you can manage that feat, you are rated as a ‘genius,’ leave two and ‘you’re purddy smart,’ leave three and ‘you’re just plain dumb,’ leave four or more and ‘you’re an eg-no-ray-moose.’

After playing, we found that the three of us are all ‘just plain dumb’, so we asked the manager for the solution. He answered, “Just plain dumb? Me too, and I’m happy to be that way. Let me send Ryan over, he’s a genius.” Ryan came over and showed us the secret, but even then the best we could do is ‘purddy smart.’ It’s good to know that even though we may not be geniuses, at least we’re all qualified to manage a Cracker Barrel™.

Stepping outside, Abi looked at the blue sky and said, “You know this is Florida. It’s going to rain.”

“No way. The sky is perfectly clear. It’s 3:00 now. What’s the over/under on the time this rain will start?”

Abi said, “4:30.”

Fiona said, “5:15.”

“OK, I’ll say 6:00. But it’s not going to rain.”

By 4:20 the perfectly clear blue sky had darkened into a thick blanket of dark clouds, and the first smattering of raindrops soon fell. Abi pumped his fist in the air, and Fiona and I shot him a hearty ADVrider salute. Pulling into a rest area to weatherproof, we spotted a guy in a helmet, T-shirt and jeans trying the nearly impossible maneuver of push-starting his Movistar repli-racer motorcycle. He was running alongside the bike, holding the clutch in. When he got moving fast enough, he then would attempt to jump aboard the bike and dump the clutch. Damn near impossible, but it was fun to watch a few runs.

“My battery is dead, and I really want to get going before this storm hits!”

Feeling his pain, we helped push him, and on the second try his bike roared to life. We committed our first actual good deed of the trip. Racing out of the rest area, our new friend wheelied us a big thank you.

The rain drizzled on us for a while, but once again the biker trick of gearing up for rain before it hits worked. Soon the road was again dry. But not for long. At 5:15 on the dot, the rain returned. We pulled into a gas station to fill up, and admired the biggest double rainbow I’ve ever seen.

This shower passed before we left, and all was well until 6:10, when the first fat raindrops smacked us. This wasn’t going to be a passing shower, this time it promised to be a deluge, and that deluge followed us the final hundred miles to Orlando. Gigantic streaks of lightning lit the entire sky as the miles wound down.

Making the final turn of the trip into Abi’s driveway, we were soaked but ecstatic. What would have been a six hour flight in an uncomfortable airplane had instead been, for us, the greatest motorcycle journey yet. Ten days and 3564 miles after leaving California, our great trip ended in a champagne toast. Abi’s girlfriend Anna met us at his house and joined the celebration.

Abi: “Good trip, where do we ride to next?
Me: “Let’s do Europe this spring!”
Fiona: “Next time, I want my own bike!”

Author: frenchy