Into the Everglades, Day 2

3/26/2005

 

Saturday morning dawns and there’s a knock at the door.  My last clear memories of the bar the night before were of talking to the owner and saying that I would try to make it to breakfast by 9AM.  So naturally I thought that it was awfully nice of the staff to give me a wakeup knock.

 

I opened the door and there was a gentleman there with a green uniform, a badge, and a gun on his hip.  Hmmmm …

 

Well, the officer asked me if I had anyone in my room and my first reaction was “I don’t think so.”

 

Then his partner asked me if I owned the silver motorcycle parked outside my room and I said, “Not if you are serving papers or planning to give the rider a ticket.”

 

Man … I really need to drink my coffee before I talk to the cops.

 

Well, we had a long, friendly chat about motorcycles, riding and stuff.  They were looking for someone but it clearly wasn’t me.  Helluva way to wake up, however.

 

And to add insult to injury, as I got dressed I discovered that my boots hadn’t dried out from the day before.  Those of you that ride know how *)#*!@% annoying it is, not to mention down-right bad for your feet, to wear soaking wet boots all day long.

 

I got a good omelet breakfast at the Desert Inn, packed my stuff, and headed down Rt. 441 towards Lake Okeechobee and the wilds of the Everglades.

 

Now remember that this is a working trip to gather some material for my next book, PirateJohn's Most Unique Guide To Motorcycling in Southern Florida.  There’s a lot of looking, listening, and generally just checking places out when you are writing a travel book.  Like I always say when hitting the bars, it’s a tough gig but someone has to do it

 

I’m cruising along, it’s morning, and I’ve made several quick stops to look at things that might be of interest to my readers.  About halfway between the town of Okeechobee and Yeehaw Junction I come upon an SUV.  Laying on its side

 

It’s obvious that the accident has just occurred.  There is a small crowd, a parked tractor-trailer, and the truck driver is putting out his warning triangles.  I do a U-turn and ask the driver if everyone is out of the SUV.  Yup.  Judging by the marks the SUV ran off the road, over corrected, and then went into a spin and rolled.  They must have been either passing the truck or else the truck was behind the SUV.

 

You’ve got to pay attention when you are driving or riding.  There is little margin for error on roads with no shoulders.

 

I take a few photos as a painful reminder of how NOT to travel, and leave as the first of the emergency vehicles arrive.  Thankfully no one was injured, but wrecking your SUV is a helluva nasty way to start your morning. 

 

The town of Ft. Drum has basically one place to stop for food.  And just down the road is some sort of compound with an impressive gate, and a sign forbidding motorcycles.  I take some notes and move on.

 

Coming into the town of Okeechobee their perpetual road construction is still there.  It’s a bright, sunny day today and none of the construction equipment is moving, but rather it’s all parked in neat rows in the construction area.  Today isn’t bad traffic-wise, but I have been through here at other times when the traffic was backed up.  It amazes me that a tiny town, with a 4-lane road, in the middle of nothing, could have the kind of traffic jam that causes you to sit there in traffic and curse.  And, of course, no progress is being made today towards getting the construction completed.

 

You know the old joke:  What’s the official Florida state flower?  The orange traffic cone, of course.

 

Somewhere in all of the excitement of the last two days my rear brake pads went south so when I stop for fuel I call my buddy Buddy, Jacksonville’s #1 ace motorcycle mechanic, and chat with him.  Afterwards some locals and I start talking about riding, maintenance, and so forth and one of them suggests that I try to local Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki/KTM motorcycle dealer that I have just passed by.  Fair enough.  But when I ask the young guy behind the parts counter if, by chance, they have a set of Brembo brake pads for a BMW motorcycle he looks at me like I’ve flown in from another planet.  Interesting.  This is more of an ATV dealer than a motorcycle dealer I guess, but you’d think that in most universes that KTM parts would be at least as rare as BMW parts.  Could luck if you break down in this area on your Ducati or Aprilia. 

 

I hit a couple of bars in the area, some that I was curious about from previous visits and some that folks told me about when I asked around.  Good Spirits and Iron Eagle are both fine places, the latter more of a rider-oriented pub but both clearly rider-friendly.  There is a couple here that have business cards that depict their BMW cruiser, but today they are driving around in the cage ‘cause she’s got her arm in a sling.  We crack a few jokes, they give me some leads on future places to check out, and I promise to look them up the next time that I’m riding around their neighborhood.

 

Checked out Jaycee Park right where Rt. 441 splits to Rt. 78 to go around Lake Okeechobee.  Riding over the Hoover Dike afforded a great view of Lake Okeechobee, and if you hadn’t been paying attention it wouldn’t be difficult to think that you were looking out at the ocean rather than a lake.  Seagulls, white beach sand, and sunbathers – this place ain’t bad.

 

Interesting history here.  In 1928 a hurricane caused Lake Okeechobee to break across a levee, and 1,800 souls drowned.  Today there is the massive Hoover Dike completely surrounding the lake.  There is a hiking trail on top of the dike, and this trail is 120 miles long.

 

Agriculture reigns here, with tourism running a close 2nd.  RV parks line the lake, and airboat tours and bass fishing are big business in the northern Everglades around Lake Okeechobee.

 

I cruised into Glades County, mindful of Mad Mary, a super-aggressive cop that another cop from another county warned me about.  Didn’t see her, and almost missed my turn to go onto the Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation because I was admiring the gators sunning themselves in the waters below as I rode across a bridge.

 

The Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation looks quite prosperous, frankly.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but except for the occasional sign announcing something Seminole-related and thatched roof buildings every so often this looked like a rather prosperous farming community.

 

<P class='MsoNormalstyle="MARGIN:' 0pt? 0in>I stopped in at the Brighton Bingo Casino.  Now personally, I don’t gamble at casinos (I ride motorcycles all the time, smoke, drink plenty of beer, eat high cholesterol foods galore, and have 3 ex-wives so I figure that’s about as much gambling as I need at this point in my life) but if I did enjoy the slots or bingo I’d consider coming here.  The Brighton Bingo Casino is a large, modern steel building, not neon or flashy at all on the outside, with plenty of paved parking.  Go inside, and you can either turn right to the high stakes bingo (there was a Chrysler 300 on display so I presume that is one of the prizes) or turn left and play the slots.  The slot machine section looked just like a Vegas casino.  There is a bar on the premises (don’t take that for granted, because not all Indian casinos have alcohol) and a fancy restaurant.  Not bad.

Back on the road, and back towards the southern end of Lake Okeechobee, it looks like my old friend Crappy Weather is returning.  The skies are getting cloudy.

 

I ride through the little town of Moore Haven, looking for a bar that I never find, and wind up riding through town and intersecting with Rt. 27.  I’ve been on Rt. 78 going around the lake for most of the afternoon.  Rt. 78 was fine two-lane road, except for that last 5 miles or so when it got fairly narrow (not bad on a motorcycle, but I’d hate to meet an oncoming mobile home).Now Rt. 27, the old tourist road through Florida before the Interstates were built, is a four lane divided highway and promises to be better road, even if more crowded.

 

I continue to cruise into the big city of Clewiston, FL.  Normally I wouldn’t get too excited by a 5-stoplight town (6 if you count the new one on the side street) with a population of 5,000 but it looks like the rains are coming.  And the sun’s going down anywho.  And the thoughts of sleeping on a park bench, in the rain, in the Everglades somewhere, with alligators eyeing me isn’t appealing.

 

The Best Western motel in Clewiston had several billboards up advertising its presence so I drop in.  The clerk hums and haws and gives me a “best” price that takes my breath away.  When I recover I ask her where the other motels are at in town, and tell her that if I were going to spend that much money I’d ride to Key West for the night. 

 

Thankfully, a few blocks away are several smaller no name motels.  I look at one, go across the street to get the competitor’s rates, look at the room, and am satisfied.  A nice sanitary room for about 1/3rd of the rate at the Best Western.  Admittedly more than the Desert Inn the night before, but not by much.

 

Clewiston looks like a pleasantly clean small town although one of the locals tells me that the place has been cleaned up dramatically in the last few years.  I chat with the hotel manager a bit and head out to get dinner and to see some of the sites.

 

<SPANSTYLE="COLOR: black?>Clewiston is an interesting mix of folks here in the Everglades: lots of good ol’ boys, both here to live and farm and others here temporarily to fish (there are several bass boats in the motel parking lot and a couple of guys and I are cracking jokes as they grilled steaks in front of their rooms), plenty of Mexican folks drawn to the area as farm workers, plenty of black folks, a few American Indians wandering through, and the last two motels that I stopped in were run by Asian Indian folks.  I feel like I’m at a UN convention.

 

There’s not a tremendous amount to see in Clewiston.  What little industry there is is related to farming, and the big local crop is sugar cane.  Clewiston’s town motto is that it’s “America’s Sweetest Town which is just, well … too damned cute.  There are restaurants, there are bars (yippee!), and there’s a Caterpillar tractor dealer here that sells Challenger farm tractors and had a really gnarly ol’ D9 bulldozer on a trailer that looked like it had suffered an engine fire.  I’ll bet that made someone pucker up a notch or two when it happened.

 

All roads in Clewiston lead towards Roland and Mary Ann Martin's Marina so I made my way there for dinner at the tiki bar.

 

Bass fishing has been very, very good to the Martins.  The Roland and Mary Ann Martin's Marina and Resort covers several city blocks and includes a marina, boat sales, fishing guide services, condos, an RV campground, a nice restaurant, that tiki bar on the lake, and a motel. 

 

The tiki bar is a fine place to kick back, watch the televisions, and to enjoy dinner and a few drinks.  I was frankly a bit disappointed that the menu selection was limited to mostly burgers (someone had taken a marker and crossed about 5 items off the menu and, predictably, those were the 5 that sounded the best to me) but their burgers and appetizers are, indeed, quite fine.  The prices are reasonable.  You can smoke at the tiki bar, or you can go indoors to the non-smoking restaurant where they also serve a hearty breakfast in the morning.

 

By the way, here's a little secret that you won't see on the billboards anywhere.  You aren't likely to run across Roland (winner of multiple fishing tournaments and host of popular television fishing shows) any time soon.  Mary Ann divorced him several years ago and he reportedly moved out of town and over to the coast.  Someone made a joke that poor Roland had to sell a lot of lures to earn anywhere near what he used to earn when he had this place, so I guess that I’ll just let that sleeping dog lie ...

 

Day 3 to follow ...

Into the Everglades, Part 1

This was my anxiously awaited 3-day weekend where I was looking forward to exploring the Everglades.  You know about the Everglades, don’t you?  Where the population of ‘gators handily outnumbers the population of people?

 

Back at home, you have to laugh when the weather forecast calls for partly cloudy, and it is raining so hard against your bedroom window that the noise wakes you up early.  And on top of that you can see lightning and hear thunder roar.  Sheesh.  Someone got that prediction wrong.

 

Not only that, but looking at today’s Yahoo weather forecast for Good Friday in Everglades City they were reporting the weather for today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday.  True story.

 

If you don’t see the joke in the paragraph above then just ask yourself if Everglades City is literally behind the times.  By at least a day, if nothing else.  You have to wonder.

 

To add insult to injury, try as hard as I can ol’ John simply can never get on the road as early as he wants to.  Today's Good Friday departure is no exception.  A few last minute errands run and I’ve ridden 60 miles without ever leaving Jacksonville and I’m right back at my house, looking for my missing sunglasses, only to find them stuffed inside something else that was already packed on my bike.  Arghh!

 

OK, so it’s going to be a lousy start to the trip.  I figured that I’d at least treat myself to adecent lunch, so I headed towards the local upscale sushi restaurant.  Just remember the motto:  “When the going gets tough, the tough eat raw fish.”

 

When I do finally get on the road it is raining.  And raining harder by the minute.  Traffic crawls along I-95 down to Daytona.  I am seldom out of 4th gear (of 6 gears) and am often stopped, sitting in traffic and in the rain.  Rolling into Daytona and getting ready to take the I-4 turnoff to go towards Orlando there is enough standing water on the Interstate to unnerve drivers of small, easy-to-hydroplane cars.  Traffic is cautiously crawling along, and smart drivers in cars are seeking shelter.  And here I am, riding a motorcycle ...

 

Going into Sanford the winds pick up to near gale force intensity, lightning is striking nearby, visibility sucks, and I’ve pretty well decided that I need to stop for fuel anyway.  I don’t mind being wet, but becoming either a lightning rod or winding under the wheels of some person who loses it in a driving rainstorm isn’t my idea of a productive day.

 

Standing around soaking wet at a convenience store, watching Orlando traffic crawl by, and hearing folks comment on how glad they are that they aren’t riding a motorcycle on a nasty day like today reminds me of two slogans that every aspiring writer should keep in mind:

 

#1:  “Don’t give up the day job.”

 

And #2, the motto that I have printed on my business checks.  “Pontius sero quam numquam.”  Latin for “Better late than never.”

(That’s true by the way.  I really do have that on my business checks.  Be scared – you aren’t dealing with a normal mind here.)

 

But being on the road has its benefits.  Clearly, things are never dull.  Coming through the rain in Daytona I saw a large 45 ft. bus with a “Girls Gone Wild” mural covering the entire bus.  I figure that had to be the film production crew.  Man, what a gig that would be, but I could never work with a crew that was filming topless gals all the time because I’m sure that my cardiologist would object …

 

Interestingly, in shooting the breeze with the locals in Sanford, they were not expecting rain either, never mind a monsoon.  They were also expecting a warm and sunny day.  This was not a good day for modern weather prediction.

 

My first night's stop on this trip was scheduled to be the Desert Inn at the tiny little crossroads of Yeehaw Junction, FL, which at this point was perhaps 80-100 miles to the south.  I called them at the Desert Inn and they reported that the weather was in the 80’s and sunny.  Go figure.

 

So I got back on the bike and fought the traffic and nasty weather into Orlando.

 

Coming out of one of the tollbooths on the Florida’s Turnpike I could feel the temperature dramatically surge upwards.  Instead of being cold and rainy the weather was now overcast but dry and much warmer.  Thunderstorm clouds were trying to form south of me and it was clearly time to hold the throttle open and to try to outrun the rain.

Normally the Desert Inn at Yeehaw Junction doesn’t reserve rooms but I guess that the owner could tell that she was either dealing with a nut or a desperate man, because she agreed to hold the room as long as I called back by 6PM to at least give them my status.  I did, and somewhere around 6:30 Yours Truly came riding into the Desert Inn just ahead of a storm front.  I was wearing rain gear, a fleece jacket, and wearing an electrically heated vest.  Everyone else in the place was wearing t-shirts and shorts.  You could tell that it had been yet another weird day in the life of a Pirate.

 

There was quite a crowd of locals, and they were telling me that there had been three ladies on bikes that had left 30 minutes earlier.  One of the old phartes that was there was bragging about how he tried to hit on one of the ladies.  When he went to the restroom one of the other patrons told me that what the first guy didn’t know was that the ladies proudly told everyone else, when he wasn’t listening, that they were of a different sexual persuasion and that they were stringing this guy on. 

 

Hmmmmm. 

 

Poor old drunken dude.  I doubt if he would have known what to do if the ladies had been more, uh, "cooperative."  Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to look forward to as us old motorcyclists slip less and less gracefully into old age.  'specially since this guy was beginning to look more and more like the poster boy for Clueless Old Men.

 

The Desert Inn  at Yeehaw Junction, FL:

 

If you want fancy dining thisain't the place.  If you will die if you don't get prompt service then you might want to mosey on to somewhere else. If you want fancy lodging then you might want to drive the 25 miles over to I-95. 

 

But if you want to experience just a taste of what the Everglades were like when cattle roamed free, the 'gators were dining on burgers instead of pets, and Indians and black folks worked the open range as cowboys, then drop by the Desert Inn.

 

This is the kind of place where the roosters still roam outside the buildings.  Where the locals all know to slow down ‘lest they run over a chick crossing the road.  And where the chicken on the menu may be unusually fresh.  It’s a throwback to another age.

 

You have an interesting mix of folks dropping by the Desert Inn these days.  This is a popular place for riders and many poker runs come through here.  The Desert Inn is at a crossroads (Rt. 441 and Rt. 60, and within sight of Exit 193 of the Florida's Turnpike) and plenty of truckers and tourists also drop by.  Quite a few of those tourists walk in, look around, decide that this isn't Disney and they keep heading on down the road. Which is too bad, because in addition to being a bar with quite a bit of history, the Desert Inn also has a restaurant with good sandwiches and hearty breakfasts.

 

The history: Yeehaw Junction was established as a water depot for steam trains in the late 1800's.  By 1920 a trading post was in place to take care of cowboys that were moving cattle between the Seminole reservations further south and settled areas like Orlando.

 

Dad Wilson bought the property where the Desert Inn stands in the 1930's and began to fix it up some.  Legend has it that Dad was a hobo who got kicked off the railroad here.  He 'borrowed' lumber from a nearby sawmill and the rest is history.

 

The Desert Inn then went through several owners.  In 1946 there was still no electricity or running water, but a well was dug and a generator installed that produced electricity which was shared with other locals.  During this period rooms were built upstairs and were rented.  Sometimes by the hour, and with the option of female company, if'n you get my drift.  More mainstream business ventures included dining rooms (with separate rooms for white folks with Indians and black folks eating in another room) and pumping gasoline.

 

Another thriving business venture that was started up was jackass farming.  The story goes that when the Turnpike was built in the 50's and Greyhound bus service needed a name for a stop, the name Yeehaw Junction stuck.  No doubt that sounded better than the other suggestions: Jackass Crossing and Working Girl Trail.

 

In 1994 the Desert Inn was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The Desert Inn claims to be the only (former) brothel on the Register.

 

The bar and restaurant: There is a decent selection of cold beer, and some good sandwiches.  I ordered a steak and thought that it was OK even if Waffle House does a similar one for less money.  They sandwiches are much better and I overheard some tourists talking about how the gatorburger tasted well ... almost like chicken.  But good chicken at that!

 

The orginal inn was upstairs of the bar, where the brothel museum (temporarily closed because of the 2004 hurricanes and open to visitors only by special invitation) is at now.  Today's lodging is a ramshackle series of 11 rooms out back behind the bar.

 

This is your basic working class low-budget (usually $35/night) motel that caters to a lot of blue collar folks passing through, some locals that are frankly down on their luck, and the occasional sportsman or drinker stopping by the bar.  Once again, we aren't talking anything fancy here.  My room was clean even if the bed linens showed some signs of previous hard usage, there was tape on the door to keep the water and wind of heavy storms out, and one blind over the window consisted of an old green blanket that had been taped to the wall.  However, there was television (this is rural Florida and the religious stations come in REAL good), air conditioning that worked, and a lock on the door that was secure.  The Desert Inn doesn't take reservations and there are no other motels for miles around, so factor that into your equation --the rooms lookpretty darned good late at night after you've had a few drinks, especially since your only other alternative might be to curl up underneath a trailer at the truckstops a quarter of a mile away.  All-in-all I’d say that the rooms here aren’t the place to bring a new date if you want to impress her with your good taste, but as an alternative to riding 30 miles to fnd another motel or camping out they are fine.

 

For a little more info on the Desert Inn check out their website at http://www.desertinnrestaurant.com/index.html

 

More to come later …

Random thoughts

Man, does time fly.  Someone on one of the Buffett mailing lists asked what a blog was and I mentioned mine.  Then I noticed that it had been over 10 days since I last updated mine.  Ouch!

 

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The photo that I'm showing at the top of the blog is a gentleman that I met at the Iron Butt Association dinner in Daytona during Bike Week.  He's riding around the world, which is impressive enough to begin with.  Even better, it's not his first trip around the world, and he's not riding an on/off road bike like a lot of us would us, he's riding a Yamaha R1 go fast bike.  He's from the Netherlands, and if you look at his website you will notice that he was visiting Indianapolis in late February, at which time I can assure you it was cold.  Wow.  Check out his web site at http://www.sjaaklucassen.nl/

 

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John DeLorean passed away a few days ago.  Everyone remembers him from the downfall of the DeLorean automobile and John’s subsequent arrest for trying to raise money with a suitcase of cocaine.  Which is too bad.  The attempted cocaine bust was thrown out by the courts, and the DeLorean auto was actually pretty good even if both DeLorean and the Northern Irish government (which financed the venture) all got the numbers wrong.  It takes courage to start up an auto manufacturing enterprise these days.  And DeLorean was, indeed, one of the fathers of Pontiac’s original GTO which increased Pontiac sales dramatically at a time when General Motors decreed that sports cars were bad and that only bland autos should be produced.  DeLorean was a maverick in the gray corporate world, and this universe needs more men like him.  Let’s just hope that the next ones to come along don’t lose money quite as badly as John Z. did.

 

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Poor Terry Schiavo, her parents, and her husband.  No matter where you stand politically on this mess, what happened to her was a tragedy, which has now been compounded even more so by the controversy.  And I have to assume that her husband and her parents are all sincere in their beliefs.  Now the rest of the nation has gotten involved, spinning what was a personal tragedy to suit everyone else’s political purposes.  After the protestors are long gone their mean-spirited comments will have been forgotten but this drama will linger with Terry’s loved ones for the rest of their lives.  This was one episode where the busy bodies really should have left well enough alone.

 

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My first book is selling well, especially considering that it hasn’t been printed yet (grrrrrrr …)  Hopefully the first printed copies will be available in about 10 days.  I have sent out preliminary Adobe .PDF files of the book to several motorcycle groups and the reception from the folks that downloaded it has been very, very positive.  The printer sent me a pre-production copy that was missing about 15 pages, the index, and page numbers but you know what?   It looks great!  The cover designer did a really good job.  So I’m quite optimistic.  On the other hand I’m putting together the notes for 3 other books right now and will be traveling this weekend in order to gain material for the Southern Florida book.  At some point riding a motorcycle, hanging out at bars, and shooting the breeze genuinely starts to look like work!  So let’s hope for the best.

 

And if you want your very own copy of PirateJohn's Most Unique Guide To Motorcycling in Northeastern Florida you can find it at www.BuccaneerPress.com

 

Most Unique is intended to be a series of travel guides.  I can’t die anytime soon because I need to put together about 10 of these things over the next several years

 

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Spring has just arrived, and that means that the riding season in Florida should be getting into full swing at any time, with the rest of the country only a few weeks behind.  It’s time for us all to get out, get some exercise, and commune with nature.  Sniff those flowers, or, if you are from Florida, get out and pet those alligators.  As I told a friend recently, as long as Florida has ‘gators and tourists (and the occasional UFO sighting) things will never be dull down here.

 

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As I mentioned in a previous blog, BMW has some really interesting bikes coming out.  I’ll get ‘round to detailing some of them in another blog in due time.  In the meantime the bike announcements are coming out faster than they can be digested.  Which is interesting, but to be honest, for the time being I’m pretty happy with my previous-generation bikes with new-fangled electronics.  I’ve just ordered a satellite tracking system so that my heirs and creditors can find me when I’m riding in Appalachia, the Everglades, or the Sierra Madres.  Or down to that nasty local pub where the bartendresses are barely dressed, for that matter.  Now where is that on/off switch ;)

 

Seriously, with motorcycles with GPS navigation and satellite radio, it’s becoming easy to roll off 500-mile days and still have the time to sightsee and hang out with your pals at the local pub.  I especially enjoy riding some distance to catch musicians perform in out of the way places, and if I can do those kinds of trips everyone should be able to do ‘em.  You just have to practice and plan a bit.

 

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If you get a chance to see The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio my advice is to go.  The Aviator is quite a film experience.  Just like John DeLorean deserves to be remembered for much more than his failures, The Aviator is the story of Howard Hughes the legendary businessman, aircraft pioneer, movie producer and just all around visionary as he begins his descent into madness and before madness totally consumes him.  Some critics contend that the movie is a tragedy; I contend that The Aviator is a celebration of a man who overcame tremendous odds for as long as he could and a warning for all of us.  Not only should we maintain a vigil over our own mental well being, but it pays to remember that Hughes would eventually become a major player in the Nixon government as well as the Cold War, and at that time Hughes was paranoid and as loony as they come.  Sometimes the Emperor wears no clothing, and for Hughes in his last decade that was more than merely a metaphor.

 

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Best quote that I’ve seen recently:

 

“Whoever said that money cannot buy happiness doesn’t know where to shop.”

 

Of course, that legend is on the site for a BMW motorcycle dealer (http://www.bmw-ok.com/) so there’s clearly some element of temptation for ol’ John ;)

 

 

Tools for travel - BMW's replacement for the F-650 motorcycle

Tools.  Guys gotta have their tools, right?

OK, we're talkin' travel tools here, folks.  What were you gals smirking at?

Those of you who follow ol' John's motorcycling exploits know that John is a big believer in traveling whenever possible, and the undoubted #1 preferred method of travel is by motorcycle.

But you can't just hop on any old motorcycle and expect to ride 500 miles in a day and have enough energy left to tell tales at rider friendly bars that night.  It takes a special bike, and even then that special bike has to be "just right."

And that's not to diss folks that ride but who don't see things the same way that ol' John sees things.  Riders need to stick together.  We are all out here trying to have some fun.  If someone's idea of a good time is to ride to the beach, then that's fine with me.  But for what I do, the requirements are simply different.  Not better or not worse.  Just different.

John is partial to, but not wed to, BMW motorcycles.  At the moment I've got five of the buggers sitting around the homestead in one stage of repair or the other.  BMW has been good to me but I confess to having a roving eye, and I get tempted by other manufacturers' bikes every so often.  Still, the siren song of BMW motorcycles always reminds me that I need to go home and keep things in the family, as it were.

Right now BMW is completely revamping their entire lineup.  A lot of us old timers who remember when the K-bikes and airheads were produced for 20 years with only minor changes and we are currently asking ourselves "what the fawk?"

First of all, a quick bit of history on modern BMW bikes.  There are three distinct lines being made during the last few years:  The F-series, which are pretty much marketed as the entry level bikes (and that is unfortunate because, in many ways, the F-series are more functional than the larger and heavier bikes), and the R-series which are the traditional boxer, or horizontally opposed engined models (and the R-series includes John's beloved R1100GS and R1150GS on/off-road bikes). Finally we have the K-series, which are water cooled inline motors and while more than competent these bikes have never gelled with many traditionalists.

Today, if you notice the photo at the top of this blog, we've got an intertaining spy photo of what sure looks like new F-series bikes on test somewhere in Europe.  These suckers have old-style F-650 fenders on them, bags for luggage from the new and not even released yet K-series, and a completely different motor from the old F-650 that sure looks like an inline twin cylinder powerplant (the F-650's have had a complex, fuel injected, multi-valve engine that was, nevertheless, a single-cyclinder motor just like your lawn mower).  Also of interest is that one bike clearly has a belt drive rather than a chain or a driveshaft.  It's worth noting as well that one bike has two front disk brakes while the other one only has one disk - perhaps there are two models on test here?

F-650's have been fine bikes.  Yours Truly owned one briefly when, in those glorious days WIHM (When I Had Money), I bought one for a spousal unit (actually girlfriend at the time).  She promptly dropped it, breaking her leg, but thankfully without damaging the bike a bit (yes, one has to have the proper priorities). It was a great, nimble bike with adequate power for highway touring but Yours Truly simply prefers the larger R-series "GS" bikes.  After all, an R1100GS or R1150GS has more power and can carry more weight.  Some people believe in traveling light; ol' John just prefers to get a larger bike and carry more stuff when he travels.

But seriously, the F-series has proven to be an excellent touring bike with good highway manners yet better off-road abilities than the big GS's, mostly by virtue of being lighter and more maneuverable.  A twin-cylinder F-series, presumably with a bit more power and displacement (the speculation is that this twin engine is half of the four-cylinder engine that will be in the new K-series bikes) would seem to clearly be a step in the right direction towards creating an even better tool for motorcycle touring.

Watch the blog if you are interested in the new BMW bikes.  Photos of the new R-series and the new K-series will be posted here in a few days.

 

It pays to have a backup plan.

Whether folks are trailering ‘em down, putting ‘em the backs of pick-‘em-up up trucks, or <gasp!> actually riding them down, Bike Week is in full swing at Daytona Beach.

 

Bike “Week” is a bit of a misnomer.  The event is actually 10 days long and this year’s Daytona Beach Bike Week officially started on Friday the 4th of March.

 

Ms. Deborah, my long-suffering personal assistant, and I were planning to ride down to Daytona Beach on Saturday.  Saturday dawned, the weather was beautiful, and she couldn’t make the trip because a client of hers was flying in from out of town.  Unexpectedly.  With little notice.  Sigh.

 

So ol’ John spent a glorious Saturday tinkering with his motorcycles, rather than riding one of them.  The legendary Robomantis, my venerable R1100GS BMW is getting its mid-life makeover, and that project is falling behind schedule.  By months.  So the day wasn’t totally lost, and I love working on the bikes, but still …

 

It pays to have a backup plan.

 

Monday rolled around.  The skies are bright and beautiful, and the weather is the warmest that it has been since last Fall.  And it’s time for us to ride to the annual picnic with our vintage motorcycle club in the infield of the amazing Daytona International Speedway.

 

There’s only one problem.  Ms. Deborah still can’t go because that pesky client of hers is still in town.

 

So ol’ John tinkers a little bit more with the Robomantis.  Just remember folks, when playing around with mechanical devices that shake and rattle that Loctite (an adhesive that causes bolts to bind together firmly, but we hope not permanently) is your friend.

 

Finally, there is no getting around the obvious.  Deborah’s not going to be able to make the trip and if I want any food I’d better boogie.  So it’s on the spare GS and off down I-95.

 

There are a ton of folks riding southbound, and even more trailers and trucks hauling bikes.  There is a little bit of something for everyone here.  Kids on go fast bikes, old phartes like Yours Truly on touring bikes, and zillions of unique individuals with more or less identical cruisers. There is some really flashy stuff and some really old and nasty stuff that is still running strong despite the age and appearance.  And you see an amazing number of grizzled riders who look like they have been living on the road for years and Daytona Beach is just another stop along the way.  Bike Week draws ‘em all.

 

You know what my #1 pet peeve is while riding?  Trucks and cars that block traffic by being completely oblivious to the other vehicles backing up behind them.  Thankfully I-95 is now a 3-lane Interstate from Jacksonville until well past St. Augustine, but at some point it reverts back to being a 2-land highway.  And that’s where the underpowered diesel trucks get into that all too common slow-speed drag race with housewives in minivans.  You know the type.  The ones who are distracted by the 5 screaming children they are hauling around and their only salvation is to chat on the cell phone.  Let me give both parties a hint: Someone needs to slow down in order to let the other one pass.  A lot of trucks only go so fast. And then everyone, truck and minivan alike, needs to get into the right lane and not impede the rest of traffic.  It really isn’t that tiring to take your car out of cruise control for just a few seconds.

 

Anywho, ol’ John buzzed on down to Speedway Blvd. in Daytona Beach where he ran across a few friends who were also heading for the picnic.  Keep this in mind just to demonstrate that your author wasn’t the only one who misjudged this gig.

 

The Speedway is beyond being just an impressive facility.  It’s huge.  Old man France had quite a vision and his vision put Daytona Beach on the map.  And during Bike Week scores of vendors and motorcycle manufacturers set up displays and tents outside the entrance to the Speedway.  In addition, this year is the first time that the Buffalo Chip Campground (a fixture at the Sturgis Bike Events) was set up in the infield at the Speedway and the Buffalo Chip (a/k/a Kickstand City) has been promising some great music (Travis Tritt, Steppenwolf, Twisted Sister, and Dave Mason are all scheduled to play this year).  Let’s hope that the Buffalo Chip does well and returns, but no matter how you slice things this is one busy place during Bike Week.

 

During the winter the Speedway made millions of dollars worth of improvements, and one improvement that they made was to build a new tunnel underneath the track.  The old tunnel dropped dramatically as you went underneath the racetrack and then forcedyou to ride or drive back uphill in a equally dramatic fashion as you exited the tunnel.  RV’s and trucks could not use the old tunnel and used to be required to wait until the track closed when they were then allowed to drive across the track.  Not this year.  Some day you youngsters will forget the hardships that us olde phartes used to have just to be spectators at the International Speedway ;)

 

Being contrary, I took the old tunnel rather than the modern news tunnel and quickly found my group in the infield.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that I was starved to death, and the food was all gone.

 

Now, last year we had plenty of great burgers and hotdogs left over.  And we requested that everyone RSVP this year so that we could get a head count.  I know, because I was the contact person for the head count!  So what happened?  Well … it seems that a lot of folks showed up without giving any notice, and they ate all of the food.  Sacré bleu!

 

It pays to have a backup plan.

 

OK.  So there were a few handfuls of leftover peanuts, and I figured that I could last for an hour or so before I absolutely have to find chow.  No problemo.

 

Needless to say, I ran into a lot of old friends. There were a lot of jokes and a lot of wisecracks, and smiles all around.  And this year the vintage races were pretty entertaining.  Last year most of the excitement seemed to occur when race bikes broke down.  This year there were a few spills (no injuries, thankfully), and one unlucky rider managed to have his bike catch on fire pretty much in front of us.  Maybe it wasn’t as entertaining for the rider as it was for us spectators - after all, how often do you get to witness a Ducati flambé? – but admittedly that’s not a sight that you see every day.

 

Your author was walking around taking some great crowd shots when his fancy Sony 8- megapixel camera died.  Died dead.  As in “the battery was flat.”  Which was a bummer because I had had that sucker sitting on the charger at home before I left.  Oh well … time to whip out my old but faithful Olympus.  I’ve done this for too long not to pack an extra camera <crossing my fingers>.

 

It pays to have a backup plan.

 

Your Humble Servant left the Speedway and thought that I’d see if my pal Bill was at the Tir na nog.  Tir na nog is Gaelic for “Land of the Young” or, literally, the afterlife.  And while this place is merely an Irish pub in Daytona Beach it was once the home of the raunchiest wet t-shirt contest that I’ve ever seen, and that is pretty close to Heaven in my book.  Alas, that was years ago and well before Bill bought the place ;)

 

(For the tale of that particular illustrious event check out http://members.aol.com/Warp12Sys/Jsolton.html )

 

Bill doesn’t usually open the Tir na nog until 5PM or so but he’s often working about the place and always lets me in.  There’s no food at the bar, thanks to Florida’s no smoking in a dining establishment laws, but the pizza place next door delivers and they do some killer strombolis.  So this has potential.

 

The good news was that Bill was there and happy to see me.

 

The bad news is that Bill had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t leave the place open.  Drat.

 

Time to get back on the road, and to find some lunch.  And it dawned on me that it was almost 3PM and that means happy hour at the Matanzas Innlet.

 

Once again, it pays to have that backup plan.

 

So I went riding through the V-twin crazed congestion of Daytona Beach and northbound on A1A.  Admittedly there were plenty of places that I could have stopped at to have food, but the list narrows tremendously when you want to find a nice place that is just off the beaten path enough to have a relaxed meal, shoot the breeze with strangers, and just in general have a good time.

 

And that ride along A1A is enjoyable in and of itself.  A1A runs along the coast as it winds northward through Flagler Beach, Palm Coast, Hammock (which is one of the very few “old Florida” areas left along the coast), by the old and hopefully soon-to-be-renovated Marineland park and finally to the Matanzas Innlet at the base of the Matanzas Inlet bridge.

 

The Innlet restaurant (http://www.oldcity.com/sites/innlet/ ) is always a comfortable place for me. Good food and a great view (the cover of my book on Northeastern Florida was shot there) make this one of my favorite stops. The mussels in garlic are to die for.  I also got a plate of fried oysters.  I know, I can hear you oyster connoisseurs bitchin’ now about how a fried oyster should be illegal unless it is an ingredient in a po’ boy sandwich, but I was hungry and didn’t have the energy to order a bucket of steamed oysters and sit there and shuck those suckers.  At this point I needed food, and I needed it now!

 

The only riders in the Innlet were locals; a Harley rider and a Gold Wing rider.  Even some of the non-riding ladies in the place were kidding the Gold Winger about “how big that thing is” (normally something that every guy likes to hear but in this case a reference to the size of the bike) and I was stringing him on by pointing out that Gold Wings are so big that Honda has to install a reverse gear.  Of course, at the same time that I’m giving him some good-natured grief I’m mumbling in my beer about how Ms. Deborah and I also have a monster bike, the BMW competitor to a Gold Wing, that also has a reverse gear.  Ahhhhh, yes … it’s sad, but when you get older and have to carry a passenger around those Winnebago-sized motorcycles with all the electronics start to look better.

 

The Harley guy leaves and in walk 4 guys from Vermont who <cough, cough> trailered their BMW’s down. OK … it was snowing in Vermont when they left and one of the guys has ridden in Alaska several times, so I guess that I can let him slide.  Even if he has chrome crash bars and chrome protective bars over his driving lights.  Bleech.  There’s no accounting for taste even though he assures me that the chrome crash bars were actually supplied by the factory in a final run as the R100GS Paris-Dakar bikes went outof production.  Could have happened, I guess, and if I had ordered chrome crash bars for my bike when God intended for them to be black I doubt if I’d admit it either.

 

‘sides … these guys are buying my beer so I figure that they cannot be all bad ;)

 

We have a typical guy’s BS session, shooting the breeze about riding in Alaska vs. Mexico, Vermont vs. Florida, the perils of moose vs. ‘gator, that sort of thing.  We agree that St. Augustine and the Matanzas Inlet area have tremendous history and are fascinating to visit.  And wimmen.  Lord, does everyone in this group have an opinion on wimmen, or what?

 

We conclude our business, swap business cards and promise to look out for each other on down the road, and they ride south while I ride north.  For a few miles.

 

I run down to a place on the beach in the heart of the one-stoplight town of Crescent Beach and look up my pal Jimmy.  Jimmy used to be the lead bartender at the Matanzas Innlet and is now the evening manager at an upscale place called the South Beach Grill.  No, this isn’t South Beach as in Miami, this is South Beach as in ‘south of St. Augustine.’

http://www.southbeachgrill.net/index.html

 

Ordered an excellent steak with béarnaise sauce.  Yum.  No doubt my cholesterol-counting MD would have a heart attack if she could read this, but the steak was great. The view was great.  The beer was great.  And seeing Jimmy again was great.

 

So all in all a nice, warm and sunny day of Bike Week went completely different from the way it had been planned, which was originally to take Ms. Deborah down to some of the restaurants to the south of Daytona Beach.  But y’know what?  Monday was still a great day, and despite seemingly nothin’ going according to plan it’s hard to argue with success when you get in some great riding, hang with old friends and meet new friends, and just marvel at times that the World can be as much fun as it is.

 

Adventures seldom come to you when you are at home, watching the television, or sitting at the computer.  The weather’s getting warmer, and it’s time to get outside!