Joel Perlish; USA/MEXICO/CANADA DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY & THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY -- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008 by Joel Perlish

Joel Perlish; USA/MEXICO/CANADA DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY & THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY -- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008 by Joel Perlish

July 7, 2008 - Monday - Day 7
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - 228 - Total Miles - 1613
Vero Beach,FL - to Wesley Chapel, FL
(-staying at a Best Western -)
(FL)
- ON THE ROAD A WEEK - HEADING WESTWARD - LINKS TO CHILDHOOD -


After a run to the beach in the humid morning where I captured some pretty reasonable sunrise shots, and bidding good-byes to Connie and her cat, I backed carefully down the steep slope of the driveway at 8am. I was excited about this segment of the trip - because I had done it before - but on a bicycle!

Headed down Route 60 west across Florida just like back in the 90's when I bicycled it as part of a 500-mile ride from Jacksonville to Tampa!

This morning I slid past Yeehaw Junction around 9:15am. The memories are ripe from 14 years ago… heading out of Vero Beach on a bicycle and getting the 33 tough windy miles to Yeehaw Junction. The place turned out to be only a deadbeat closed hotel and dust. Had to keep bicycling as the sun slowly descended and finally disappeared leaving me panting and sweating and with no place to stay. Finally, after about 60 miles the lights of a little fishing village appeared on the right.

Darn, I missed the picture of the Grape Hammock Fishing Camp sign. It's still there, that fishing camp. The place was such a savior back in March of 1994! The folks there were sure nice as we rolled in and it was dark, and there was just nothing else anywhere in the area to pitch a tent!! It was in the middle of nowhere and the folks there were of the commonest sorts and the friendliest. What a great memory!

The roadway out of town all changed. Now it's not just a single lane in each direction, but a big highway much of the way. Past Vero and the outlying area of CVS's and traffic lights, there is still much green pasture land all the way out to the wide horizons. And this day they were all under even blue skies radiating warm sunshine.

It was a rush to get all the way across the state of Florida to Palm Harbor where Bob and Lorna were. I concentrated hard on the safe miles and the time. I arrived only five minutes late after noon.

These folks are more than just friends, more than just folks known. They are links to childhood, and anchors to youth.

I often think of Bob as 'the tall skinny man in the black cowboy suit'… As that is how he often dressed for the school's Halloween parades - and in my dad's family films that's the way he is frozen in time.

Bob said that daughter Robin, who works for the UN, had his sense of good humor and Lorna's good looks!! Robin has a couple of villas in Tuscany. The Landis folks volunteered, and then Robin on a phone call also offered me a place to stay should I ever decide to cycle around Europe.

I used to deliver the Landis newspaper on Clemson Road. And we chatted how there were not many homes in the Coopertown area where I hadn't either mowed the lawn, shoveled the snow, babysat the kids, taught the kids, and/or delivered the newspaper, The Evening Bulletin.

I rolled video getting some of Bob's impressions on what is now the 50th anniversary of Coopertown School, where he was the first principal.

For my part, I had told my third grade teacher there that when she retired, I would replace her - and that's exactly the way it worked out.

We chatted about old times and about lots of things that brought smiles to our faces. “In order to succeed, you have to have a sense of humor,” said Bob.

I brought the folks up to date on what was going on in the old neighborhood and with the school district. We reminisced about how when they last visited, we went to the house where Bob grew up and we got a picture of him in the attic room, where as a tot more than a half-century before he had scribbled his initials in a wood beam.

He and Lorna are in their early 80's, and happily doing fairly well and enjoying Florida. Bob was suffering from a neuralgia type problem but was done, or so it seemed, with the shingles he had suffered with in the last few years.

I enjoyed seeing the wall of photo and other memories in the Landis apartment. And the sign on the front door of their plate seemed fitting: The Best Antiques Are Old Friends!

Lorna and Bob treated me to a lunch at the little commissary, and then, as Bob had to get to the docs for some tests, we took a few pictures by the motorcycle and bid our good-byes.
Route 19 was right around the corner - which was good. I headed on it the wrong way which was bad. But I discovered the mistake after only a few miles and turned myself around only losing a little time.

The postman in Taco Bell gave me significantly better directions than I had planned to use. I was hoping that those directions not only would make less miles for me in getting over to the big highway I-75 North, but would also take me away from the brewing storm clouds. Well, as the drops plunked on me, I figured one out of two wasn't too bad…

The rain began to fall. I didn't even bother covering up. It wasn't too heavy, but when I noted that I could see no blue sky at the other end of the road, I decided to keep with my early day plans, and pulled off at the first exit with a motel.

After checking in, I spent about 20 minutes wiping down and cleaning the Kawasaki to it's shiny state, and then went to the room to carefully go through all the bags, emptying each pocket while cleaning and re-organizing.

I did my laundry, caught up on these notes, and learned the lesson that I need to find a motel that has a restaurant nearby. Or at least a food store.

Although it had been a good day, and I had been a good boy, still, I went to bed hungry. I'm sure I'll make up for it at breakfast….