Things are coming together

I managed to be in the hotel yesterday before the downpour arrived.  It looked nasty up ahead, so I quit a little early and missed a major thunderstorm by about 45 minutes.  I was hoping that all the weather would move out overnight, but I wasn't quite that lucky.  It was cool and overcast as I started but I felt lucky that it wasn't raining.  Unfortunately, it didn't stay that way.  I ran in and out of rain most of the day.  So with the rain and cooler temps, it was a day of just moving along.  I took a short side trip to visit a seat maker that I knew of.  This trip has shown me that my butt and this motorcycle seat are not made for long distance touring, so something will have to change. So I will be home tomorrow, and my first tour with my new bike will be over.

Today's Mileage:  429
Total Mileage:  1573
Present Location:  Jesup, Georgia

Good, Bad, and a little Ugly

Today's Mileage:  356
Total Mileage:  1144
Present Location:  West Palm Beach, Florida

I left this morning and headed out for the keys on Hwy 1 South.  The drive is interesting with great views of the water on both sides of you, and some of the bridges over the water are quite long.  That was the good.  The actual town of Key West appeared to have an interesting main street (there was about a four block area where I swear two out of three storefronts were bars), but the small streets and lack of parking made it feel very cluttered and packed.  There were cars, bicycles ,motor scooters, golf carts, electric cars, trolleys and small trains all competing for space on the streets.  That was the bad.  I was also surprised at the amount of commercialization on the lesser keys on the way down to key west.  That was the little bit ugly.  I'd been warned about the traffic.  There is definitely a steady stream of traffic going both ways, but I think a lot of the traffic heading north were just people still looking for a parking spot.  So an interesting day, but don't think k I would go again unless I had a place to stay within walking distance of the main street.  I jumped on the tollway north once I got back on solid land.  I know this goes against my avoiding interstate type roads, but after suffering trough stop and go traffic and traffic lights for two days, it felt really good to move along at a steady pace.

Had to be done

Today's mileage:  343
Total mileage:  788
Present location:  Florida City, Florida

Today was not a great day.  Just as I thought, getting thru central Florida is a pain.  I did stay away from the interstate, but that means numerous speed limit changes and lots of stop lights.  I looked at the map to see if I could improve anything, but there just aren't that many routes to get to the southern tip of Florida.  Not sure what I will do on the way back, but pretty sure I will try something different.  The good news is that I am only about three hours away from Key West, so if the weather holds I should be able to get down and back tomorrow.  As I was passing thru, I came across a flight museum,(i think florida has a museum for everything).  Stopped to look at the aircraft, but didn't go thru the museum.  I also thought this was an interesting road sign along the highway.  Skirted the Everglades and stopped at a few areas.  Came to the conclusion that tourist souvenirs is the same everywhere, junk.

Day One

Today's Mileage:445
Total:445
Location:  Ocala, Fl.

Today was a pretty typical first day.  When I first start, I'm just happy to on the bike and moving.  As a result I tend to cover a little more ground than on later days.  There is no set timetable to this trip, but it was good to get a big chunk out of the way.  I totally followed the GPS today.  I don't normally do that,but it worked quite well today.  Except for about a two mile detour on a dirt road, the roads thru Georgia were good, and very lightly traveled.  Things changed a bit in Florida, and I don't expect it to get any better tomorrow.  I just don't see any good way of getting thru central Florida and the Orlando area.  Looking for increased traffic and delays.  I'm hoping that south of Orlando that things will slacken off a bit.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I've been wanting to take a little trip now for a couple of reasons. One is just the reason that I enjoy doing long distance touring on a motorcycle.  Another is that I have a new used bike that I am itching to see how it handles on a longer trip (basically a shake down cruise).  And finally, I've always wanted to drive the highway system of bridges down to Key West.  I've delayed this trip a bit due to the unseasonably cold weather we've been having,  but I think that now is the time to go, so I'll be leaving in the morning.  I feel like a kid on the day before Christmas.  That's all for now.