Daytona Bike Week

Who knows what motivates people do things?   Logically, it was foolish, given the fact that early morning temperatures had been hitting in the 30° range.  Too, a decision was rendered from a conversation happening four days earlier that caused Gary (brother-in-law) and I to plan a last minute motorcycle trip  to Bike Week in Daytona, Florida.  Neither of us are big crowd people but the idea of a long ride was certainly intriguing.

Figuring hotels would be non-existent at that late date, we reserved some "Kabins" at a couple of KOA Kampgrounds.

So, with bikes packed up, we fired up on at sunrise Thursday morning, cut through the swamps and by the time we arrived at the Hammond, Louisiana exit, our hands were burning with cold.   After warming up with a cup of coffee, we continued on east into Mississippi where we stopped often for thawing and a nicotine break for Gary.  Each time we stopped, we would meet other riders headed to the same event.  At one stop, we met a guy whose enthusiasm for a week in Daytona was really overflowing.  We chatted with him a while and as we left, he handed us a business card with his name on it (bikers seem to be getting into business cards these days) and told if we wanted to party and hook up, to look for him.  He'd be wearing a furry white helmet with horns on it......oh yeah, I'll be looking (out) for him for sure.

The first day was somewhat uneventful and we arrived at our reserved KOA Kampground near Chattahoochee, Florida.  Certainly, not the Hilton but it beats having to throw up a tent then take it down and pack it back up if it's wet the next morning.

The next morning, we hit the road early again with temperatures still hardly any better in the early hours.  At a rest stop east of Tallahassee, we stopped for a break where Gary leaned up against his bike and it fell over.  Picking it up, we discovered he had broken a bolt on the right rear shock. It was absolutely nothing to do with maintenance error but just one of those times when road stress took it's toll.  His bike is much younger than mine with less road miles on it.

  We thought about riding on to a repair shop but the tire was rubbing the fender, so now he was immobile.  We had packed open end wrenches, socket sets, screwdrivers, Allen wrenches and even 8 point star sockets.  We had enough tools to overhaul a bike but we needed one thing......we needed a drill to remove the broken stub of the bolt.

Not knowing where any parts or hardware store was located, I began roaming the countryside until I located one in Monticello.  There, I bought a rechargeable drill and bargained with the store to charge it up for me while I went back to find Gary and determine what size bolt we would need.  I took the broken part out and headed back to the Ace Hardware where I retrieved the charged up drill and a couple of grade 8 bolts and some reverse drill bits.

Anyway, after getting back to Gary at the rest stop, where he drilled out the broken stud, we were on the road within 45 minutes and arrived in St. Augustine before dark.

Saturday morning we made the short ride down to Daytona.  As we expected, the road was full of bikes headed that way.  Arriving in Daytona, Main Street was already lined with bikes with no place to park unless we wanted to shell out $7 for the privilege.  We rode around a  couple of times before heading out to the interstate to Bruce Rossmeyer's Harley dealership, arguably the largest in the world.  It along with satellite stores selling anything from leather to Triumph Motorcycles covered acres. 

Back behind that, J & P Cycles has one of their only two brick and mortar stores.  To some, J & P is the holy of holies when it comes to motorcycle parts stores.  You could literally build your own bike from parts out of that store.  All this represented a bigger attraction than the downtown event. 

While Daytona Bike Week is not as wild and crazy as Sturgis, it does have it's sights and curiosities.  One major difference between the two is the type of biker they attract.  While Harley riders are the dominant group, Daytona pulls in the metric rider crowd, with Hondas, Yamahas and Kawasakis. 

It only took a day of these maddening crowds to make us consider

getting back home.  Originally, we had planned on taking two days but checking the weather conditions, we saw a line of thunderstorms and a cold front with it that made us think that a 13 hour ride was a doable thing.

With that in mind, we rode and rode and rode, arriving back home about 9:00 p.m. that night, tired and saddle sore from the experience.  I'm thinking around 680 miles that day.

We even forgot to buy a T-shirt.

Florida

Gary, my brother-in-law just bought a new (to him) Harley Street Bob and according to research, got more than a fair deal on it.  "JimBob" is not very experienced, mileage wise, so we thought an initiation run to Florida would be appropriate.

Early Wednesday, we headed east with intentions of meeting up with my wife, sister-in-law, grand kids and nieces and nephews in Destin for a brief visit.  We thought it would an amazing trip to cruise down the beach roads, wind in our beards, sun on our faces and feel the spirit of the open road.  All that seems nice until you run into summer beach traffic and feel the heat as you stop at every other traffic signal from Waveland, Mississippi to Destin, Florida riding along US Highway 98 even through Gulf Shores, Alabama.

After a few hours of stopping and starting we agreed we should have only ridden a portion of the beach road and taken I-10 a part of the way.  Oh well, we will just have to chalk that one up to experience.

Destin was really nice but there were lots of people and traffic.  Heck, we even saw a beach wedding.  We had no clue as to who they were.

The next morning, we arose early and hit the road toward St Joseph Peninsula State Park, near St Joe, Florida.  We probably chose that location because it looked interesting on the map but I can honestly say, were it not for the ocean, it would not come close to competing with the State Parks of Louisiana.  Nevertheless, we pitched our tents for the afternoon and a night under the stars.

As you can imagine, the peninsula was the home of a lot of wildlife, including noisy Crackles (a type of blackbird), coons, pigmy rattlers, salamanders and mice.  Mice were everywhere.  I was told that the Oldfield Beach Mouse is on the endangered list and is protected by the government so we dare not lay a malicious hand on one.  I say one man's beach mouse is another man's baby rat.  Rats!...but they nor the snakes didn't bother us.  Perhaps they afford Harley riders, professional courtesy.

One redeeming thing was amazing sunsets for which many campers came out to witness.

Young and old, they brought their boards and chairs.  That was great and worth the mosquitoes!

Hearing news of nasty weather brewing in the gulf, Gary and I struck our tents early Friday morning and came home in one day.

The trip was a thousand miles.

I have no reason to whine

There's a nasty rumor going around (I think I started it when a couple of other reps went to Hawaii while I was in Michigan) in the company that for every week you spend in a place like, say......Hawaii or Florida....or any place under a palm tree, you're jinxed and will have a miserable time at some less than a garden spot. It might even involve snow, blizzards or some dull and boring place involving prairie dogs and tumbleweeds. Well, I must have something gosh awful headed my way because for the past 7 months, I've been hiding out under palm trees and could likely be under one for another month. Then, vacation will come and I'll spend the first three weeks of September back on Maui.

Back in Christmas of 07, I found myself looking for Santa Claus in Honolulu and maintained there until May. Since May, I've been in St Augustine, FL (except for a hiatus in the Land of Lincoln for a week in Springfield, IL).

Eventually, though, you begin to take the greatest of spots for granted and fight boredom like any other place. Usually, it's wandering around in old town St Augustine under the live oak trees draped with Spanish moss doing some serious people watching. Occasionally, I might ride south to Daytona Beach to flea markets and motorcycle shops. More often than not, I walk the beaches. In the two summers I spent here before, tourists kept the streets and beaches crowded but with the price of gas, the crowds are just not here as before.

Two or three things I observed, gave me pause. One thing was the red sand was actually little broken pieces of shells mixed with sand. Millions of broken shells turn the beach into streaks of rust colored sand.

Another thing that made me stop and think was the sign at the beach warning that this was protected habitat of the Anastasia Island Beach Mice. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat???????? Give me a break. There's a $20,000 fine for disturbing these things. Right up the beach is a huge state park where those mice can proliferate but the sign was right in hotel and restaurant row. I'm wondering if the Orkin man is allowed in the city limits. ( You know you can click on these pictures to enlarge)

Okay, here's the third thing. This isn't hate or criticism so don't get those knickers in a bunch and just cool your jets. After finding the beach mouse sign, I was wandering down the beach and something else that just didn't fit. What had caught my eye was the two black women suntanning. One had carefully untied the top of her bikini so she would get even exposure on her back while laying there on a beach cot. What I don't get was...........how was she going to have tan lines in the first place. She was about as tan as one could get just by birth. It just didn't make sense. There's just some things we'll never understand.

Mermaid

When Christopher Columbus came to the new world 600 years ago, he spotted what he thought was a mermaid and wrote that they were not quite as beautiful as the paintings he had seen. You have to wonder what was going through the poor man's mind.

Well.............................duh Chris, I think you spent too many days on that ship.

This was my first time in Florida waters in SCUBA gear...but first, let me plug Rachel and Don Domingo and my friends at Maui Dreams Dive Company in Kihei, Maui, HI. Maui Dreams is where I consider my birthplace in diving therefore everyone else will always be compared to them.

Looking for a manatee dive, I was plugging around on the internet and found American Pro Dive Shop in Crystal Springs and was more than pleased with my experience. It seems you don't SCUBA with manatees but snorkel. Since this was summer and the waters are warm (73 degrees) there weren't very many manatees to spot but we managed to locate a couple. We slipped into the water pretty early before the other shops had arrived. Captain Keith dropped anchor in pretty shallow water and we approached the manatees. Most of my experience has been in salt water and the green algae and less than pristine visibility took some getting used to. The manatees were easily approachable and we spent quite a time photographing and just hanging out. After about 30 minutes we left the area and went out further to the caverns. The caverns were much clearer and we dropped into the hole where some of the fresh spring water was coming from. Our depth was eventually around 50 feet and saw several blue crabs, blue catfish, shrimp and a gobe or two. I would advise you to book your dives early because they fill up fairly rapidly.

There's this marker in the entrance of the cavern that seems to be a prophecy of sorts. In the mid 80's, manatees were down to 1,500-2,000 in the USA. According to the dive masters at the dive shop, populations now could be somewhere between 6 and 8 thousand. They've now become "protected" as opposed to "endangered".


Here's a montage of my dive with the manatee.

Click here.