Out on the road again ...
April 19 and 20, 2003
Photos of last weekend's gig are up at http://www.fototime.com/inv/F1ED2E58D81C188.
You've been warned.
Ever get so mean and ornery that your friends take up a collection in order to get you to leave town? Well, that happened to me last weekend.
Ol' John has been burning his candle at both ends lately trying to promote a charity. Check out www.ridingintohistory.com and under the "Ride" section you'll see a familiar email address. And if you are in the Jacksonville area on May 3rd I expect you to attend, y'hear? ;)
You laugh, but going around to biker bars and biker functions, night after night, and drinking beer until the bars close, and, uh, oh yeah ... don't forget about handing out flyers to promote the event ... this can be hard work.
Anywho, some friends of mine organized a Ride to Eat event in Alabama, about 150 miles north of Mobile. I had already sent my "would love to, but can't make it" messages. That was 'cause I expected to be in Jacksonville promoting our event at another group's event on Saturday. At the last minute several people on my committee came forward and promised that they would cover this gig for me, freeing me up for bigger and better bits of mischief to get into. And would I please relax, because I was becoming mean, nasty, and surly?
OK, fast forward to Saturday morning. Another little obligation that I had was that I was supposed to meet three riders from the Ft. Lauderdale HOG (Harley Owners Group) over in Jacksonville Beach who were going to take a stab at riding a 50cc. That's coast to coast in 50 hours or less. Something that brings back fond memories (and flashes of pain to my shoulders, neck, and backside) every time I think about my own 50cc run last Spring.
But(t) I digress.
All that I was supposed to do was to witness their start. To sign off on their paperwork. Nothing more.
I met these gentlemen and lo and behold I had hastily packed my bags and told them that I'd accompany them to their first fuel stop. So we were off.
Ol' John lead these three intrepid gentlemen out of Jacksonville Beach, up I-95, through our perpetual construction zone and the merger with I-10 (is it a left hand exit today or a right hander?). At which point I let them take the lead so as to set their own pace.
And quite a pace it was. Modesty (and the Statute of Limitations) prohibits me from being specific, but let's just say that these gents "flew" in a tight formation on their Harley Electra Glides at a speed that wasn't exactly supersonic nor injurious, but was definitely a click or two above the point where the constabulary would be likely to take notice.
We were cruising along for an hour or so and I noticed that one of the Florida DOT coppers had made a traffic stop on a couple riding a similar Electra Glide. I thought that was odd, because the DOT dudes, a/k/a the Diesel Cops, are usually primarily interested in trucks and running the roadside scales. But this weekend they had decided to hassle regular motorists as well.
The other thing that caught my attention was that the couple's luggage was off the bike and spread around on the ground. Oh boy -- gonna be a long weekend for someone.
Maybe the coppers thought that couple was smuggling 1,000 lbs. of marijuana in the topcase of that Harley ;)
We pressed on.
And a few miles later, DARN! if there wasn't another DOT copper in the median. And he's waving furiously at us.
So we did the only thing that polite citizens do. We waved back. And kept cruising westbound on I-10.
We noticed the DOT chase car driving in the opposite direction a few minutes later. I presume that the word didn't get out to the 2nd car in time to turn around and chase us down. Most likely they just wanted to look at the bikes, anyway, right? ;)
Now, I was thinking about a little plausible deniability here (as the Nixon administration liked to put it). I mean, there were three Harleys riding in tight formation with one red BMW behind them. It's possible that we weren't traveling together and it's possible that these other guys were passing me. And hey, it's possible that someday pigs may fly, but that's beside the point.
No blue lights came up from behind us so we kept bogeying.
These three wise men told me that they were scheduling their fuel stops every 140 miles. So when the 140 mile mark came up and the leader put on his turn signal I figured that was that. When he turned off his signal and kept going for another 20 miles his companions were left to look at each other.
Dunno what that was all about, but as I write this I hope that they didn't try that trick in the desert west of San Antonio. Harley's don't carry a lot of fuel, and suddenly joining the pedestrian class in the middle of the West Texas desert would certainly ruin someone's day.
They stopped, they fueled, I took photos. And I wished them well on their ride. The nearby Huddle House (second cousin to a Waffle House) was calling my name and it was time for a leisurely lunch.
So I took my time, had lunch (love those grits and that nice, cheesy omelet!), had a smoke, made a few phone calls, kicked my tires, checked my oil and just generally relaxed. And got back on the road at a much more subdued pace.
And I rode. And rode. And rode some more.
Now normally for high mileage rides and Long Distance Rider gigs I'll get my 1996 muchly modified K1100RS BMW out of the garage. K-bikes love to eat up those miles and they thrive on speed. But not this trip. I've got my day in, day out bike the ol' faithful Robomantis with me, and the gnarly ol' R1100GS is just right for a relaxed venture.
I rode, and I meditated. Got my CD playin,' MP3 disk eatin' waterproof Walkman out and listened to some tasteful tunes. Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra singin' "Tie My Pecker To My Leg." That sort of thing. Gotta get away from the seriousness of the World, even if only for a few days.
And I rode on. Down I-10 toward Mobile, Alabama.
Now, the gig that I had to be at the next day was in the boondocks about 150 miles north of Mobile. I figured that my chances of finding a room up there after dark were slim, so my plan was to start lookin' somewhere around Mobile. My goal was to find a motel that had a bar nearby. Have a few drinks and get between 10 and 12 hours of sleep. Ye-haw.
Mobile is a great town with a ton of nautical history and I confess that I've always wanted to stop in there and never had a chance. Jimmy Buffett grew up there and his grandfather was a ship's captain that sailed in and out of the port. As Buffett sings, the Captain's ship now rests out there on the bottom of Old Mobile Bay somewhere and the ghost of his grandfather now watches over the rest of the family.
Going into Mobile on I-10 you have a long, long causeway that is basically a low bridge that extends for miles across the bay. Coming up on the last exit before the causeway I looked down at my fuel gauge and realized that I was pretty low on fuel. Running out of fuel on that bridge simply wouldn't have been a good thing, so I took the exit and refueled. And got me one of those motel discount books and started to plot where I might look for a room.
Headin' back to I-10 the signs routed me down what seemed like a long ramp. That ramp got longer, and turned into a divided road. Finally, after a few miles, I realized that I could look over on my left and see the I-10 bridge out there in the water. Somethin' ain't right here, I thought.
I had gotten routed down the old road going into Mobile. Very scenic. And a slice of life of the way things were in the 50's and early 60's before the Interstate was completed.
And I rode past this glorious bar. I mean, this place was tall and magnificent and built up on stilts. Right on the water, and surrounded by abandoned boats. It looked like it had weathered many a hurricane and flood, and looked just like the kind of place where I knew that I HAD to have a beer. And if they served sandwiches as well, that would be perfect.
The bar is called Drifters, appropriately enough.
And then I saw The Motel. Woody's Motel. As in Woody the Woodpecker, complete with appropriate insignia. Any other jokes using "motel" and "woody" in the same sentence and you'll have to do them yourself ;)
This place was, well ... "rambling" is a good way to describe it. The whole place was also built on stilts, but it looked like Woody's hadn't quite weathered the storms as well as the bar had. There was a new Honda Goldwing in the parking lot, under a cover (a good sign) and several cars and pickups that obviously looked abandoned (a bad sign). The power was on and it looked like it was open, but to say this place was a couple of notches below my usual standards (such as they are) was being kind.
The owners were a pleasant Indian or Pakistani family and, to be nice, let's just say that in New Delhi Woody's was only about 1 and a half stars, if you get my drift.
The good news was that this place shared a parking lot with that bar. Admittedly, there was an abandoned truck stop in the middle, but since I wouldn't have to go back onto the highway I figured that if I had to crawl back to my room I could somehow manage to do so.
The proprietor quoted a price. I asked to see the room. She gave me a key, and I checked it out, and rejected the first room. Partially on hygienic reasons, but also because the television wasn't workin' and that's a deal killer in my book.
So she gave me the key to another room.
I went walkin' down to the very end of the building, took a deep breathe, checked out the room, and decided that, well .. it had possibilities. At least the bed linen looked clean. And I was so tired at this point in the game that I could sleep anywhere.
So I made 'em an offer ("no tax"), the family accepted, and I had a gnarly room next to a gnarly bar. I got on my gnarly bike and dragged my grizzled carcass over to the bar. This is the way motorcycling should be.
I don't think that any bar has ever intimidated me, but this one gave me a bit of a pause for thought. Not that the place was too rough and tumble or anything, nor were there drunks and injured bodies laying around. Nope. The damned thing was taller than it looked from the road. It was at least 2 and a half stories up in the air and the main entrance was a really rickety stairway into the joint.
My first question to the bartendress was "How many drunks do you lose every night when they fall down that stairway?"
And her reply was "Not too many."
Whew.
The place wasn't too crowded, which may have been a good thing. Every time someone walked across the floor it felt like the whole building was shakin'. The bartendress explained to me that the building was designed to move in a hurricane and, indeed, she may have had a point there. The underpinnings of the building were constructed of good old fashioned solid steel. The wooden portions, however, had seen some better days. One of these days I suspect that someone is going to refinance that place with a match and rebuild on the steel pilings.
Friday night turned out to be the night before they went out to get groceries, so my first two choices of sandwiches weren't available. We did agree, however, that the bartendress could whip up a big burger with two kinds of cheese and onions. That would keep me going, fer shure. And the bar had Sol beer and plenty of limes. Sol's a weak Mexican beer, about like Corona, and it takes lots of lime and salt to make the stuff tasty but after a few of them you get pretty much in the right frame of mind.
I like this place. Upon discovering that Drifters was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I was kinda asking myself why in the World I had bothered to get a room. My idea of a friendly bar is one that will let you sleep on the bar, and this place looked like it would qualify. And if I couldn't sleep on the bar, surely one of those booths in the back of the place would suffice.
A lady had been in the bar playing with the video poker machines, left, and came back in when she saw my motorcycle parked outside with all of the travel stickers on it. She wanted to shoot the breeze about her desires to go motorcycle riding, her trip to Biketoberfest, Jimmy Buffett, and her relatives. Finally, she asked me where I was staying. And I told her.
She asked "You're not in that room at the end, are you? 'Cause I used to visit a friend pretty regularly who would always stay there. And well, we used ta get along just fine. I'd invite myself to come back and visit with you tonight, but I don't want to be too forward and I'd hate to have you think the worst of me."
At which point I replied something like "Hon, that's OK. I've already assumed the worst about you. Would you like another beer?"
Nice enough lady, but I must be getting old because I declined her offer of company. Sleep was looking better all the time.
And sleep I did. For over 10 hours. Like a rock. In my 1.5 star room at Woody's Luxury No-tell Motel.
Damn, I felt good the next morning! I needed that sleep!
So it's Saturday morning and I'm off to the Iron Butt Association All You Can Eat gig outside Lavaca, Alabama. This is about 150 miles north of Mobile. The restaurant, Ezell's (check out http://www.arts.state.al.us/actc/articles/ezell's%20column.htm) is described as being "under the bridge" going across the Tombigbee River. This is the second Alabama restaurant that I've been to lately that was under a bridge, so that must be a statewide tradition. Presumably the original Alabama restaurateurs were all trolls.
I got back on the I-10 causeway, wound my way downtown, through the tunnel underneath the ship channel in downtown Mobile, and on the city streets. Through downtown Mobile and then it's a quick connection to I-165. Run up I-165 briefly and connect with I-65. Then a few miles and get off the Interstate at Creola, Alabama.
Now here's a town that I had to stop in and take some photos.
By coincidence or inspiration, Buffett did a song years ago called Creola. About a peaceful way of life, and visiting relatives, and eating good food. And just north of Mobile there's the peaceful little town of Creola. Just the kind of place where you could see a young Jimmy going to to visit the relatives and enjoy Sunday dinner. Laid back and relaxed.
Back on the bike, and it's about 3 more hours of riding up Rt. 43, through small towns and up and down hillsides. I stop in at literally eight different service stations looking for a map of the area and no one sells maps. I guess the people up there never leave.
Just before I get to my turn on Rt. 10 I meet a friend on another big GS BMW bike who is heading in the opposite direction. I know that I'm going in the right direction (he later tells me that he had some errands to run in the area) but at least I know that I'm getting closer.
Get onto Rt. 10 and a coupla other gents riding my way get in behind me. We do a safe but quick ride to the Tombigbee River and there it is. Catfish!
Without boring you with all the details, let's just say that somewhere around 95 riders showed up. And the awards for most miles ridden to get to the luncheon had to be divided up between those who rode in from the continental USA and those from outside the continental USA. 'cause it seems that one gent rode to Alabama from Alaska.
The last time that Yours Truly was at an all you can eat restaurant the owner offered me the deed to the building if I'd just quit eating. This time around a hearty plate of catfish along with a nice little unofficial side order of fried oysters was agreed upon between myself and the waitress and all were happy.
Good food, the opportunity to chat with some old friends, and it's time to roll on homeward.
The only fly in the ointment, so to speak, is that the GS was running a bit ragged. I'm pretty sure, as I write this, that the problem is some bad fuel that I picked up on I-10, but with 650 miles to go to get home there's some pucker factor about what would happen if you had mechanical problems out in the boondocks somewhere. I mean, BMW motorcycle parts are pretty scarce in Lavaca, Alabama, right?
The game plan was to ride eastbound on Alabama Rt. 10 to that major metropolitan crossroads of Troy, Alabama (population 13,051). From there I'd take Rt. 231 (a divided highway, even!) through Dothan, Alabama (a place that I'd actually heard of) until 231 basically connected with I-10. From there even my bike knew the way home.
Rt. 10 turned out to be quite unlike I-10, lemme tell ya. Rt. 10 was a narrow two-lane road that wound up and down hills and into valleys. Nice scenery. Through farmers fields and through small towns. Across bridges and marsh land. Rural Americana at its best. I saw sights that I hadn't seen since the last time that I was in Kentucky. A land of contrasts. Big Weyerhauser industrial plants in the middle of nothing. Mobile homes galore. You name it.
This was definitely off the beaten path.
By and large the people were nice, if a bit leary of this stranger wearing big boots and riding a big motorcycle.
On the other hand I had to keep telling myself that background noise that I constantly heard when I stopped was NOT dueling banjos.
I rode on.
At one point I went around a corner in a small town and the bike just didn't handle right. Having some fears of whether or not this town even had a motel in case I had a bad tire, I checked the tire pressure to see if I had a flat. Nope, must just be getting tired and over reacting. So I rode on.
And rode on.
The GS would hold 60 plus mph on the flats without too much trouble but passing was becoming an adventure. And going up hills the old girl definitely didn't have the pep that she usually had. Would I make it home? Now my leisurely ride was taking on a bit more urgency.
Got to Troy after riding about 130 miles in 3 hours. From there I picked up a bigger road and rode south.
Rode through Ozark, Alabama, one of the "top 15 places to retire."
Tell me. Who makes up lists like that? This place was OK, but was in the middle of NOTHING. Trees, yes. Surf and seafood, no. Not where I'm gonna retire.
Got into Dothan. Now Dothan's a big enough city to actually have a bypass. Too bad that I didn't know that at the time and I wound up driving straight through town.
Onward, until finally, right at sundown, I got to within a few miles of I-10.
And then it started to rain.
I could see it raining down the road, and raining hard. So I turned around quickly in order to backtrack and get underneath a service station canopy.
There I was, underneath the service station canopy, when a monsoon hit.
So I take yet another smoke break (the wise reader will notice the inadvisability of smoking while standing next to a gas pump ;) and changed into my rain gear.
At which point it quickly stops raining. You have to laugh.
Back on the bike, and I could just feel the sense of relief to find I-10. Because from here, all I had to do was follow that road another 250 miles or so and it would end in downtown Jacksonville. Even I couldn't get lost at this point.
I needed to hustle in order to get home. And that goal was … to get to the Broken Spoke Saloon before they closed at 2AM.
The GS doesn't really like to run over 65 mph right now, but that's OK. At any speed past that I'd outrun my PIAA 910 driving lights. And call me old fashioned, but a close encounter with Bambi would ruin both my day and Bambi's day. Tonight was not a good night to run into a deer.
So I kept cranking, and kept concentrating on the side of the road. Throughout the entire night I only spotted one deer, and that was a young fawn barely two feet away from the bushes at the side of the Interstate.
In 250 miles I made one fuel stop. A leisurely one, admittedly, but only one. Judging by the front of my bike I had swatted every bug in the county, but I was making good time.
At 1:10AM I rolled into the parking lot of the Broken Spoke in Jacksonville. A few minutes later a Fosters oilcan was being presented without my uttering a word. I was tired. I was basically speechless for a few minutes until Mr. Foster's brew allowed me to regain my strength. At which point my cohorts began kidding me unmercifully, not the least because I had left my nametag on my shirt.
Ahhhhh ... it's good to be home! And it's wonderful to get out and ride around this country of ours.
~~~~~~~~~~~
PirateJohn --
Keeper of the HumourList at http://hometown.aol.com/PirateJohn/pirate1.html ; motorcycle and other links at http://hometown.aol.com/PirateJohn/funlinks.html
"Mother, mother ocean,
I have heard your call." -- Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at 40
Member, Iron Butt Association (LongDistance Riders touring motorcyclists) --
SS1K in 2000; 50cc in 2002
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