Along the El Camino Corridor

We left Andulsia, AL at dawn and headed down a wonderful stretch of road. US Route 84, named the El Camino Corridor. In Alabama, it's a wonderful two lane road with few cars, or at least when we rode on it. The weather was cloudy, but warm. The road had some water on it, but overall pretty easy going. In Mississippi, the road turns into four lanes and unlike our jaunt on I-10 heading the opposite direction, we encountered very little traffic, road construction or crazy cagers taking themselves out (i.e. car accidents). Now, I won't lie to you, this stretch wasn't without some intrepidness on our part. The forecast had some very nasty looking showers in it, and while we darted through Alabama and Mississippi without any real rain (we did have a few showers, but nothing major), Louisiana was suppose to be a very different story. Teri wasn't looking forward to riding in the rain. Not because she didn't want to get wet, but because she wasn't sure how her bike would handle in the rain and honestly didn't want to find out.

As we crossed the muddy Mississippi into Louisiana, the sky was getting a bit darker, but seemed fine for the time being. However, as we got closer to Alexandria, the sky was black off to the west. I made the decision to skip the secondary roads I planned and jump on I-49 and head north to Natchitoches, LA. Now typically I don't like riding on interstates, but the brooding storm on the horizon won out. As we cruised along I-49, we got some light rain, but nothing major, and we were able to crank the speeds up to 70+ MPH.

We made it to our hotel in Natchitoches, grabbed our bags and headed to our room. We had maybe 10 minutes to spare before the day turned into night and the skies opened up. It was one of those rain storms where you hold out your hand in front of your face and you can't see it because of all the rain. Boy, was I ever glad I changed my mind and cut out 10 miles from trip and rerouted us up the interstate. Of course this did present one problem, what were we going to do for dinner? There was a Huddle House outside our hotel, and while not a great place to eat, there were very limited choices, so we walked across the parking lot and had dinner. The storm had passed, and ushered in a nice cold front. The temperature dropped a good 15 degrees from when we got into town. In the back of my mind, I knew that tomorrow's journey would be a cool one.

I wasn't wrong about the temperature. The next morning all three of us donned our flannel lined jeans and winter gloves. But there wasn't a cloud a sky, so it looked like the perfect ride back into Austin. We hopped back onto US 84 and headed towards the Texas border. About 60 miles outside Natchitoches, my intercom started acting weird and I during our gas up I decided to take a look at it. Ah, seems the solder joint to the power had come loose. No problem I thought. I had just the tool, a battery operated soldering iron I brought along for just that purpose. After a couple of minutes, I determined that a fresh set of batteries were in order, so Teri went into the gas station and after a fleecing, walked out of the store with a fresh set of batteries. Yep, that was the problem, well sort of... I had never used this soldering iron before. Seems it gets hot enough to melt solder, but not hot enough to really flow solder, and not nearly hot enough to solder wires together. I gave up and decided I could go without the intercom. Back to old school for me. No music, no passengers chattering. Just me with wind and nature surrounding me. One small issue, seems my GPS is also on that power circuit, and that means I had to run it on just the batteries. Fine, I'm in Texas, I should be home in a few hours. Except that GPS won't run on batteries that long. Bummer... As we made our way into Crockett, TX (named after the Tennessee hero Davy Crockett who died at the Alamo), the sun disappeared behind a wall of clouds and we encountered some of the coldest temperatures on the trip. I stopped in Crockett to warm up with a cup of coffee, it was nearly noon and we were still over 200 miles away from home. After drinking our coffee and hot chocolate, Taylor decided she wanted a granola bar. While she was eating, I decided to take another stab at getting at least the GPS power. After several tries, I was finally able to get a temporary fix in place for the GPS. Now initially our plan was to spend some time in Crockett and look around the town. I had gone through it previously in the spring and it seemed a nice place to look around. But with the cold overcast skies, we opted to skip Crockett and just head home.

Back on road, we ran into light showers again, but they were light, and by the time US 6 turned into 21 going into Bryan, TX the rain had stopped and the road were dry as a bone. We made our final fuel stop we were less than a hundred miles from home now and I was very familiar with the remaining roads. Taylor was in a great mood, and despite not having any music or anybody to chat with, was in very good spirits. As we approached Austin, I was impressed with both Taylor and Teri. I wasn't sure what to expect out of this trip, it's different taking your family with you on a trip of this length, than doing it solo or with a bunch of guys. If guys start whining, you simply make fun of them and tell them to suck it up. With your family, you can't quite do that, well do it and live to tell about it. ;-)

As we made our final approach into the driveway, I was impressed by everybody on this trip. We had no issues with the bikes, weather, or attitudes. There were certainly some issues out the gate, but the return trip home was perfect.

The final numbers for those keeping track were:

Miles: 2501
Gas: 107.5 Gallons
Cost of Fuel: $189.19
Average cost: $1.75 Gal
MPG Averages:
Teri's 2004 BMW R : 43.5 MPG
My 2004 BMW RT : 40.9 MPG (two people on the bike)

I guess when I consider the extra weight I had, 2 MPG difference isn't too bad.
I put all the photos up on flickr they are in the following group.

Now, I'm already in the planning stages of a very short ride next weekend with the Buell group.

Going, Going, Gone...

So we started our Disney gorge feast at Magic Kingdom, then we moved onto Epcot Center, and then onto Animal Kingdom. If you go online and read the reviews, people tend to dislike Epcot and Animal Kingdom, most claim you can see them in half a day. We didn't feel this way, we all really liked Animal Kingdom. But then we really like zoo's and animals, so maybe that has something to do with it. On Christmas Day, we decided to go back to Magic Kingdom. Now, we've made some mistakes on this trip, starting with my route around Houston that caused us to bed down in Beaumont instead of Baton Rouge. But I think deciding to go back to Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day was as big of a mistake, maybe bigger.

The park was crazy! Maybe it's me, but I really can't understand what makes people want to stand in a line for over 70 minutes for a ride that takes two to three minutes tops. I couldn't believe how many people were at the park. I hate to think what the park looks like during a busy day during the summer. Nearly everything had at least an hour wait until you get on the ride. Thankfully we finally figured out the fastpass thing and we were able ride a couple of the rides that we missed on Monday. We purchased the five day tickets, but after four days of Disney, we were spent. Teri and I made the decision to pass on day five of Disney. The fact is, we were only going to go to a park for a few hours since we had planned to ride 400 miles to Andalusia, Alabama.

We got an early start today, a first for us on this trip. After eating at what had become our regular breakfast spot, we left the local Waffle House aboard our BMW motorcycles. This is what people don't understand about motorcycles, you don't have to wait in a line for 90 minutes and the ride can be as long as you want. Today that ride was eight hours long, not two to three minutes and it was, at least for me, every bit as thrilling as a Disney ride.

When I think Florida, I think beach, surf, waves. Everything related to beaches, and part of that is how Florida itself promotes itself in advertisements about Florida. However, today as we passed through Central Florida, I saw a part of Florida that reminded me of Virginia, complete with horse farms and hay bales. As I passed through the area, I couldn't help but think that the tourism bureau of Florida needs to promote that part of Florida. One thing has impressed me about Florida and that's the amount of parks. Seems you can't throw a rock without hitting a park, makes me kind of wish we had done a tour of those types of parks instead of Disney's parks. Oh well, we have bikes and know how to travel. Maybe next time. :-)

Let the fun begin!

I'm a bit behind on updating this blog, sorry. I'll fill in the gaps. 

After a rough start, things got better on day 3. Our hotel in Panama City Beach, FL was right on the beach. We got in late (as usual, but we did make up 200+ miles too), so we didn't see much of anything when we rode in the night before. However, we awoke to the sounds of the beach. Seagulls, waves crashing along the sandy beaches, and occasional voices. The sky was clear and things looked good, but somewhere between looking out the window, getting dressed, and grabbing some breakfast downstairs in the hotel, the sky changed and the ground had a layer of wetness on it. Strange. 

After breakfast, we hopped on US 98 out of Panama City Beach and what a wonderful road that was. It travels along the shoreline and I mean, right along the shoreline. There are times the water from the bay, comes right up to the roadside. It was cooler than I expected, and about 20 miles into the trip, we stopped, add a layer of clothing and continue on our way. All day we tended to dance around with the rain. We missed 99 % of the rain, hitting on the occasional sprinkle and wet pavement. Today's ride was how I had planned the ride, or so I thought.  Having gotten a late start (are you noticing a pattern?), we arrived in Orlando.

Photos from day 3: Here

The next morning we hit Disney World. The reason Teri and Taylor made the trip. I made it for the ride. The Disney company has done a wonderful job of staying on message and making sure everything pleases you. It was wonderful, I even enjoyed it. Tom Sawyer island was a big hit with Taylor, we got to explore the island and have fun. 

Photo from Disney day 1: Here

We went to Epcot center the next day. It's interesting because I've seen and heard mixed reviews about Epcot. I'm not sure what people expect, but a lot of people say it's at most a 1/2 day event. I have not idea what they do there, but we were about an hour late in getting to the park, and left at closing and still didn't see everything.

Photos from Epcot (day 2): Here

Today we're off to the Animal Kingdom... See ya soon

Delays, Delays, Delays

Off we roared onto 290 East headed to Florida. GPS devices are wonderful tools, but they can be a bit dangerous too as we were to find out. I decided to try and skip Houston and skirt it by getting off 290 and taking 2920 through Tomball. Great plan on paper, but the reality is, the traffic and traffic lights are horrible going that way. We were in stop and go traffic and really starting to frustrate us as we both realized my error in just looking at the maps.

We finally got on a roll after dinner (and nearly an hour behind schedule) as we rode on US 90. Then we came to a screeching halt. We were near Liberty Texas and according to a couple of folks who got out of their cars to come talk to us, there was a pedestrian/car accident and the pedestrian had died. As we sat there for over an hour in traffic, Teri and I decided that our plan on making it to Baton Rouge was nowhere in the plans now. It would be nearly 1130 PM if we tried. Our best option was to stop in Beaumont, and try and make up the time tomorrow. The sad part is we had made reservations online, which to get the discount required a non-refundable prepayment. Oh well, we're on vacation right? 

We got started late the next day, well late for me. Typically, I'm on the road by No later than 6 AM. That wasn't happening on this trip more like 9-10 AM. I rerouted our trip to hit I-10/I-12 to cut down our miles. What I didn't realize was that I-10 was just as frustrating at times. Construction, traffic accidents, and who knows what forced us to a crawl on I-1o multiple times the next day. The pay off was once we hit the Florida state line (much later than anticipated), the traffic was nearly non-existent and we flew down I-10 till we finally go off the major road and onto state highways. We rolled off the road and into our motel room about 9:30 PM. Only about 7 hours later than originally planned. 

Photos (not too many so far 1-10 doesn't really inspire me to take photos): http://flickr.com/photos/82683679@N00/collections/72157611407160309/

The day has arrived

What a week. Starting last Sunday, we’ve had a ton of activities centered around music activities Taylor has been involved in. Cello recitals, Christmas practices and concert for the school band. But, now we finally get to relax. Today is more of a play day for Taylor, while Teri and I try to get things in order at work, for the week off. We’ll work 1/2 day, and Taylor is released at 11:30, the plan is to have the motorcycles packed and on the road no later than 13:00, so that we can make it to Baton Rouge, LA by 19:00 or so... we’ll have to see how that plan goes.

“we’re off to see the wizard...”

The Planning Goes on

It’s final, my wife, daughter and I are getting ready to journey on the bikes in a couple of weeks, weather permitting. We gave our daughter a choice of going to Disney World for Christmas or spring break. She chose Christmas. My wife thought why should I have all the fun, and decided she wanted to go on a long motorcycle ride. Of course this means we had to get approval from my daughter to take the bikes, since she would be stuck with me for the trip. She reluctantly agreed to take the bikes. However, now that I have two new long distance people, I’m going to have to shorten our daily rides. I simply don’t see either one agreeing to do 800 miles in a day, like I did on my trip out to California recently.

The entire trip is about 1200 miles each way. The plan is to do 2 1/2 days for the trip, I haven’t planned the route yet, but I suspect Day 1 will be a day where we just put the miles on the bike, that will be our 1/2 day. The remaining two days, we’ll take our time, stop along the way, and as is my usual way, find some smaller out of the way roads. The advantage of only doing 400 miles, is we’ll have plenty of time to stop and see the sights and then continue moving on at our pace. If it takes us 12 hours to do 400, so be it.

I have to be honest though, I’m not quite sure how all of this is going to work out. My wife has never ridden her motorcycle that far in one stretch, but we have been taking a few trips recently that are shorter, and should help. Likewise, my daughter has never been a pillion for that long. For her, life is going to be very different than riding in a car where she can watch DVDs, play video games, and sleep. On the motorcycle she can’t do any of those. With my Starcom intercom she will be able to talk with me, and we can listen to music, but I find that I really enjoy the peace and quiet when I’m riding. Having a passenger for this long will be a challenge for me.

My checklist
        ❑        Put new tire on Teri’s motorcycle
        ❑        Plan route - both ways. Find interesting things to do along the way.
        ❑        Watch the long range forecasts
        ❑        Buy additional tire plugs for trip
        
I’m sure I’m missing something, but right now this is pretty much the list of things I have to complete in the next week.