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 6, 2008 - Sunday - Day 6
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - 389 - Total Miles - 1385
Ashburn, GA - to - Palm Harbor,FL
(-staying at Connie's home -)
(GA-FL)
- TOUCHING THE OCEAN - BIG MILES -

I was determined to get an early start today, and put in big miles
Had a self-made waffle in the motel lobby.

I was packing up the bike on this just beautiful July morning when an older couple walked by. The crotchety woman looked over at me with a scowl, took a sneering look at the bike, and barked, “I HATE those things! I hate those things. My son was in an accident, he's okay, but I HATE those things!” I should have asked her how many folks she knows who were in CAR accidents!!!

A hugely obese guy came walking by me right after that with a half dozen donuts on his plate, while munching one. He had an envious look in his eye at the bright red Nomad and me. He didn't say anything, but he was very reminiscent of the fellow I encountered on one of my bicycle trips out west a few years ago: an identically overweight-by-100-pounds-man with donuts. Only this guy also had a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, too. He looked at me on my bicycle and with a wistful look in his eye clearly reflecting his wish to be on the road with me, remarked, somewhat poignantly and ironically at the same time, “I wish I could do that….”

The 100mph on the speedometer wasn't tough today: tabletop flat highway, straight line to the end, three lanes, no cars - just south of Valdosta, GA..

For the first part of today it was lonesome roads, and empty highways. (Hey, it seems like there should be a country song by that name…. “Lonesome Roads, and Empty Highways”… it has a ring about it!)

At 11:30am I gassed up, and then it wasn't but a few miles down the way that the Florida Welcome Center popped into view. Mmmmm - free orange and grapefruit juice. I asked the lady behind the counter how far it was to Vero Beach, and she immediately replied with an authoritative, “300 miles!”

With my patented mock seriousness, I asked her, “And just how do you know that so quickly?” She replied with a smile, “I've been here 33 years, and I know!”

A guy in a gold pickup truck and I were leapfrogging down the highway just before entering Florida. I kept thinking I had shaken him, but he'd pop up again right there. Finally, I just let him go.

I was glad I wasn't behind that one car going northbound at about 11:35am. The car virtually exploded into plumes of smoke.

I rode through three short intense storms today… Gallons of rain pouring buckets of water as windshield and sunglasses puddled up with drops of rain. I sank low in the seat to see at times, and I raised myself above the windshield to try and see at other times. Sometimes only the white line on the side of the road was visible. Speed was, of course, brought to a very slow cadence, and the whole tempo of travel was different. Slanted a LOT toward just survival!

The skyscapes today were amazing… from gigantic clouds of puffy huge dinosaur cotton balls to clouds of extreme flatness with layers of many many dimensions that stretched from horizon to horizon ahead of me with occasional streaks of blue: almost indefinable shades of aquas, and blacks, and whites.

A truck kept trying to pass me on Route 60. I wouldn't let him. And we enjoyed the cat and mouse tag game. I kept thinking I had shaken him off, when I noticed he was there again. At one point, I had been taping into the tape recorder and naturally was going a bit slower. But with this new 'challenge' I put the recorder down, tugged a bit more forcefully on the throttle, and that truck just receded into the dark blue line that was the horizon in my rear view mirror.

Most of this day I was like a red and yellow bullet piercing through the Florida wind.

Streaked down part of mostly deserted and super flat Route 60 keeping pace at 85-90mph with two purple red helmets riding two up (two on a motorcycle)… She had on a tank top of sorts over slender shoulders, and was clutching onto him tightly. Lucky guy, I thought.

Connie lives in Vero Beach. We first met when she was the parent of one of the boys in my very first elementary school classrooms back in 1969. He and his brother had found me on the internet a few years ago, and Connie and I became internet pals. I also had visited her on an mc trip a couple years ago.

After unpacking my stuff and pulling into her garage, we had a splendid walk to the beach. It's only a block or two from her home. After a row of homes, and the left turn to the shoreline, we came upon a sandy area with plants and at least one hawk, and some gopher tortoises. I had never heard of them, but they burrow like gophers. I managed a bunch of nice images of one of the handsome devils. I threw him a banana peel and he (or she) enjoyed munching on it…

We walked across the sand to the water's edge, and Connie got a couple pictures of me touching the water. It was an emotional moment for me as it's yet another time where I'll be touching the water of two oceans on a journey.
I took a ton of pictures - cloud designs, horizon shots, and even one of a pelican in flight. I was patient for that one, and feel pretty proud of it.

It was getting on in the evening, and a friend of Connie came by to join us for dinner. Keith is a fellow she had met a number of years ago when they were both working on some kind of environmental cleaning project in the area. Keith is quite a bicycle rider. In fact this day he rode with someone who was visiting and who had brought his bicycle ON a motorcycle. I would have liked to have seen that!!

As we drove to the restaurant we went down Sand Fly Lane where there is just a spectacular live oak tree. It's branches spew out in many directions like a Medusa Head. The whole lane seems covered with a canopy of branches, and it's resplendent with green.

The restaurant was right on the oceanfront and had many interesting, unique, and fascinating art works - mainly from driftwood. It was a delicious meal, which I capped with a piece of superb key lime pie, and by the time we got done talking and eating, it was past nine, and I was exhausted. I had a little trouble contacting the folks with whom I was to have lunch tomorrow - my elementary school principal and his wife. Finally I reached them. But I learned that Bob had a doctor appointment at 2:30pm, so I'd have to get there by noon. Which meant I'd have to leave Connie's by 8am!

It was disappointing because I wanted to spend more time with her, AND it meant I couldn't finish these notes in the morning. By now, with all that happened today, and the especially with the big mileage day, I was too exhausted to do anything much, no less get my thoughts together about the journal writing.

Note:
(To view many of the photos associated the entry above, and i strongly recommend you do so, as well as with the whole trip, check out
http://www.photostockplus.com/home.php?tmpl=45&user_id=42473&event=196141. Some folks have reported trouble with this link, but most find that it works. Sometimes it takes two tries… Also, you can check out the past day's journal entries by going to joelperlish.com, and clicking on the appropriate trip on the left hand corner.)