20121212 - New Port Ritchie to New Port Ritchie via Okeechobee, Naples and Ft. Meyers

Another weekend ride.  The plan is to run across to Okechobee and look at some houses and come back through Naples, Ft. Meyers, Tampa and back to New Port Ritchie.  Depending on what time I'm done looking at houses, the route will look something like this.  Fort Meyers and Naples  might be good areas to look in for a house, so I'm going to do some scouting.  I don't have to be back until Monday at 9:30 so I can make my morning meeting, so I can take my time and do some exploring along the way.  I've already ridden alligator alley a couple times and I've ridden from Bradenton to New Port Ritchie before; but, most of the rest of the route is new.  I'm particularly looking forward to the trip around the lake.  Weather is supposed to be sunny and 70's tomorrow in Okeechobee.

The original plan was for me to leave in the morning; but, doing hours and thirty minutes of riding and getting there at 8:30 meant kickstand up at 5 am sharp and a 4:30 wake up call.  I get up early enough as it is, I don't need to do that.  It's not like I'm trying to make a 7am boat launch or do an IBA run. When it dawned on me that this was the situation I was in, I threw some close, my computer and chargers  in my hard case, forgot my toiletries and headed out.  When I got to Lakeland Florida, it was time to stop for dinner.  Cracker Barrel is one of my favorite restaurants when I'm riding.  Their service is always good, the food consistently good and usually, I don't have to wait very long.  Tonight, I had to wait and while I did, I pulled out my ROAD ATLAS to check out the remainder of the trip.  I knew I would have to turn south soon.  I just didn't know when.  As it works out, I need to go south now.  I've riddnt into South Central Florida before, and it's sparsely populated and I can't remember seeing any nice clean hotels, so I was thinking maybe I should just stay here tonight.  I've got an hour of riding under my belt, so I don't have to get up early tomorrow.  Right about then, I saw the embroidering on the jacket of the guy sitting in front of me.  It said 2,000,000 safe miles.  Yes, 2 Million.  So I asked him if he knew anything about the trip to Okeechobee and chances for hotels along the way.  In a perfect southern drawl, he said "You need to stay riiiighhht here."  A friend of his, apparently another truck driver happened by and the guy I was talking to asked him.  He also said I wasn't going anywhere tonight if I had any intentions of sleeping in a hotel before I got there.  So, there you have it.  I decided I'd be staying here.  It also so happened that there was a Sleep Inn right next door and they had rooms.  So, here I am, writing this post from room 202.  Oh, I didn't mention.  I'd been using my phone pretty hard today and the battery was at 10%, which meant that if I got out into the sticks, broke down, etc. I wouldn't be calling anyone for help...another good reason to be here.

[Lakeland to Naples]

39 degrees was the temp at 6am when I went kickstand up.  I had to be in Okeechobee by 8:30 to meet Jeff, my real estate agent.  I had enough sense to take my heated gear with me, so temperature wasn't really a problem, except for the continual fogging of my windscreen and face shield  on my helmet.  It was just cold enough in the wind to want the shield down; but, every time I put it down, it would fog right up.  Leaving it cracked one notch was just enough to allow an annoying amount of cold air in.  That was the best I was going to get, so that's the way I road.  It's better to have a cold face than not be able to see at all.  It was dark at 6am.  The sun was going to snooze for another half hour, maybe more.  The route took me down 98 to 60 to 441.  It's a nice ride and the guys from last night were spot on.  There wasn't a hotel, motel or inn anywhere in sight.  The Trans Canadian Highway has more places to stay...by a long shot.  There wasn't much in the way of restaurants or gas stations either.

As planned, the sun started peaking up over the horizon and I happened to be in a place where there weren't many trees or obstructions, so I rode into the sun rise for the whole show.  First, the fog coming off the wet areas became visible, then the horizon started to turn purple, then a layer of orange, that faded to peach, then to purple again and then light blue.  It was pretty spectacular.  At some point, a cloud got in front of the sun and you could see the outline of the cloud in front of the rising sun.  It was very cool.  Temperatures weren't much higher than 41; but, I knew that it would be getting warmer by the minute now that the sun was on the rise.

Right about the time the sun was all the way up, I passed a sign that said "Panther crossing."  Panther crossing???!!!  So many questions come to mind when seeing a sign like this...Are they kidding me?  How big are these panthers?  How fast, hungry and angry are these panthers?  Have there been motorcyclists torn out of their seats by panthers?  What is the proper procedure if you encounter a panther at highway speeds?  Do you slow down, let it approach you and then gun it?  Do you twist some throttle and try to go behind it?  Do your drive at it and let it decide which way it wants to go?  Seriously, what do you do?  I know for sure the guidance on what to do if chased by a dog is complete BS.  I guess you just make your decision and go with it.  I imagine hesitation could get you killed.  What if the panther knows you're confused, or was taking lessons from a squirrel on how to make a motorcycle skid off the roadway....panther causes accident and then goes and starts eating the wounded motorcycle rider.  What a very smart; but, lazy panther.  Anyway...

I arrived in Okeechobee about half an hour early.  I had no idea but, Okeechobee actually has some infrastructure.  The first thing I saw...and I didn't have time to look around...was a Golden Corral.  I'd never been to one of these places; but, the idea is...all you can eat for like $11.  They have a serious breakfast spread.  It's almost like a brunch spread.  All I wanted was an omlet and some toast.  Since I was paying for it, I got a small cup of corn beef hash and a small cup of grits too.  That plus the omlet plus a cup of tee made for a good breakfast.  I was tempted to eat more; but, there was this guy with his name on the back of a school bus drivers hoodie that weighed 400 pounds if he weighed an ounce.  I was there less than 15 minutes and in that time, I saw him get up and get 3 plates of food.  When you think about it, where else would someone this big eat, particularly on a bus drivers salary?  This ended any ideas I had about tying on the feed bag.  It was almost enough to make me break down and have yogurt and fruit for breakfast.  Fortunately for me, I saw this guy BEFORE I spotted a huge container of BACON.  Had I not, I might have just taken that and eaten that for breakfast.  Maybe this was an intervention from God.  Again, I digress...

I met Jeff.  He's a very affable, Kentucky bred, ex law enforcement kinda guy.  We got along right from the start.  The first thing he said was that there was a Christmas parade in town and the whole town is going to be a giant mess in just about half an hour.  He suggested we take my bike over to his house, about 3 miles away, and park it there.  He said it would be safe and we'd ride around in his pickup truck.  We did that.  Blah, blah blah.  We saw a bunch of crappy houses.  Blah, blah, blah.  Back to the bike.  Jeff and I shook hands and I was back on my bike.  Now, it was a pleasant 71 degrees.

I followed 441 around the east side of the lake.  It's a big lake; not great like big; but, big nonetheless.  For some reason, I couldn't find rt. 27 to take me to rt. 75; but, that's OK.  I stayed on 441 all the way to Davies Fl., right outside Ft. Lauderdale.  It was 81 degrees on the East coast.  Traffic was horrible.  There were way too many traffic lights and lots of cages darting in and out of traffic.  441 leads to 595, which becomes 75 - the Alligator Highway.  The Alligator Highway is so named because it cuts through the Everglades and probably does host a couple million of em.  The interesting thing is that about 30 yards off the pavement there is a fence that is 8-10 feet high and topped with 3 strands of barbed wire.  For those of you that don't know anything about barbed wire topped fences, they are always angled toward what you want to keep out; prisons - angled in, private residence, angled out.  These were angled away from the highway.  This begs the question...what is on the other side of that fence that requires barbed wire topping on a fence because it can scale an ordinary 8-10 chain link fence? I can't imagine an alligator scaling any kind of fence...digging under, maybe.  As for snakes, if they are small enough, they could fit through; but, I can't imagine the barbed wire topping stopping a snake that really wants to get over.  I imagine a properly sized boa constrictor could get over a fence that size.

On the other side of the Alligator highway is Naples.  I wanted to look around, and the sun was going to go down soon enough, so I found a hotel and checked in.  The guy at the desk was nice enough.  He thanked me for being a loyal Best Western customer and gave me a suite with a King sized bed for a regular room price.  There's also a balcony with chairs on it.  Very nice!

Hopefully, I'll get more sleep than I did last night.  The idiots in the room above me were loud until about 1:30 in the morning.  Some people are just inconsiderate.  For some reason, I couldn't sleep either.  I remember waking up every hour on the half hour.  The only time I don't remember seeing was 4:30.


...

Sleep was good.  It's possible there was even some drool involved.

Since today was going to be a light day of riding, I decided to get some breakfast, call Dad for his birthday and wait until temps reached 60 something.  There's no need to put on an extra layer of heated clothing when it's just not needed.  The plan was to ride out to the bay and stay as close to the bay as possible. 

Leaving the hotel, I went West until I hit 41N.  That took me to 865 and onto Ft. Meyers Beach.  This was a huge bummer.  Real Estate is so built up that it's nearly impossible to see the bay from the road.  All you see is big hotels and palm trees.  What a disappointment.    Oh well.

Coming out of Fort Meyers, I wanted lunch and was in the mood for fish, so I stopped at the Fish Monger restaurant.  I walked in and was greeted by half a dozen seniors that were sitting at the bar with football jerseys on.  The first question they asked was who I was rooting for and I said I didn't care.  They said I could root for the Packers or the Steelers.  Whatever.  Then I waited, while other seniors showed up and were served first.  I was getting pretty torqued that I was being ignored.  Apparently, these were regulars.  Finally, the bartender came over - yes, I was sitting in the bar - and I was able to ask for a menu.  That and my iced tea took awhile to get to me; but, it finally made it to my table.  I ordered the Mahi Mahi, sandwhich,blackened.  The sandwhich had real fish on it and was pretty good.  If only the service were better, I'd recommend the place  That said, I wouldn't recommend not going, just be prepared for a wait.  Onward I went.

The trip got a little better as I made my way up to Sanibel Island.  $2 gets a motorcycle across the bridge vs. $6 for a car.  It's a very cool bridge that crosses the bay.  It's worth the $2 to cross.  The island is pretty neat and it was interesting watching people fish, with pelicans standing right next to them waiting for them to reel something in.  Lazy birds!  They know how to fish.  They should be out getting their own meals.  Next think you know they'll have Internet and call for Pizza.

Once off the island, I thought I should start getting home if I wanted to be home before dark and before the temps started to fall, so I made my way to I-75.  I've learned my lesson that there is nothing to be gained by traveling state and county roads along the Florida coast...either side.  It's nothing by people, traffic and more traffic lights than can be imagined.

I managed to get home just after the temps descended back into the 60's.

Here's the whole route...

How long will it take me to completely fill in Florida?  I know...resolution matters...

20141207 - Ride like a pro course

Today started like any given Sunday.  I was up long before the sun and putzing around on my computer.  I don't know what made me think of it; but, I remembered that the Ride like a pro course was somewhere in Florida.  I wanted to take this course, so I looked it up.  I was shocked to find that the course was being taught by Jerry Paladino himself, right here in New Port Ritchie.  OK, what dates are available?  I know that course sometimes has a waiting list.  What?  Today?  It's 8am, what time do they start?  9!!!  It's only 6 miles away.  I can easily make that.

I paid the $175, showered, got gas and made it to the site without any problems.  I was early and there was only 1 other guy there, other than Jerry.  I found out there were a couple cancellations due to weather.  Weather!!  It was 65 degrees and misting.  The pavement was wet, but please, weather?  Anyway.  Jerry looked at my bike and said with radials on, I should be fine.

The day starts with the slow ride.  Andy, my class mate, was riding a new Harley Street Glide.  He went in front of me.  We both rode pretty slow, so much so that Jerry said that was enough of that.  Time to move on.

The second exercise is the cone weave.  At the end, there is a U-turn.  This was pretty easy also; although Jerry noted that I lean with the bike.  He said fine at high speeds, not good at low speeds.  I need to counter lean.  Fair comment.  After doing several of these, we moved on.

I noted as we were going that we were constantly going through the exercises.  In a class of 12, there would have been a slower pace and not as much individual attention.

So far, so go.  We took a break and when I took my riding jacket and helmet off, I realized I was soaking wet from sweat.  Your body is working harder than you think.  I couldn't stand to put the jacket on it was so wet.  I turned it inside out and hung it over a chair to dry.  I grabbed my Harley rain jacket and mounted up.

About this time, Donna, Jerry's wife arrived.  She's a pretty fantastic rider.  She can out perform probably 80% of the rider s I know at slow speeds on a big bike.  She would help demonstrate many of the things we would do.

Next up, offset gates.  Think of these like switch backs, only they are staggered and you have to turn nearly 270 degrees to get back far enough to get to the next gate.  It is an absolute requirement that you don't pay any attention to the gate you're going through.  Your eyes need to be on the next gate.  Of course, as we got better, the gates became smaller.  We would do gates for the rest of the class.

The next exercise is the clover leaf.  We did a couple with a full circle in them.  This is where things start to get tough.  Andy dropped his bike twice in the clover leaf.  I came close countless times.  It's very hard.  It's all about friction zone, and focusing on where you want to go.  Some time in here, Donna started shooting video and sometime after that, Jerry started leading all 3 of us into the cloverleaf at the same time.  This made me very uneasy.  Oh, I forgot to mention that after the first couple rounds, Jerry made the entry gate very narrow.  There was no way to swing wide.  After this, we moved on to the circles.  There were 3 consecutive circles - 24 feet, 22 feet, 18 feet.  Andy got through all 3 without problems.  I did not.  The 24 foot circle was easily doable.  22 feet was where the trouble started.  I almost dropped my bike several times and exited prematurely.  It took many many evolutions to get comfortable with the 22 foot circle.  It's very tight.  It was at this time that I learned that I really needed to use the rear brake to make this circle.  At some point, we stopped and took another break.

Next up, we did the emergency swerving exercise.  At 20 mph, we had to emergency slow and take evasive action around a clover leaf.  This was simple.  I feel like I could have done it twice as fast.

Next up, the competition.  The idea was to do the clover leaf as quickly as possible.  Donna did it in 23 seconds, Andy 26.something and me, 26. something, with a 1 second penalty because I touched a cone.  I actually did it twice because the first time, I was a full second behind Andy.  Andy gets the best rider trophy.  Pretty funny for a guy that dropped his bike three total times during the class.

After this, we were done.  Jerry asked if we wanted to stay and work on anything and I said that I definitely wanted to go back to the circles.  They were frustrating me.  Finally, I was able to consistently get the 22' circle.  My handlebars were at the post though.  About the 10th time trying to get the 18' circle, I drove the bike into the pavement.  I simply stepped off the bike as it went down.  It's a horrible noise and I was wondering how much damage there would be.  I had crash bars on the front and the rear.  Now was the test.  I uprighted the bike and had significant gouges in the crash bars and one dinged panel toward the top of the bike.  Ughhh.  Well, clearly, the bars just paid for themselves.  The last time I dumped the bike, it cost $1500 to fix.  If I want to fix the one panel, it will cost about $150 bucks.  Not to be one to give up, I got back on the bike and kept trying.  Finally I got it.  I made it all the way around the 18' circle.  Over the course of the 4 hours, I made the 18' circle maybe 3 times.  It's very hard and I need more practice.  I'm sure the bike can do it.  It's the rider that needs work.

When we got done, Jerry said I did a great job.  He said the last guy that came though on a K16 couldn't do the offset gates at all an that this bike is a handful.  He said the light flywheel makes things very difficult.  He said if you notice, there are no BMWs seriously competing in motorcycle rodeos.  He said the LT's were much worse.  He also said that Gold Wings were easier to ride in this course.

Jerry and Donna offer 50% off if you take their course a second time in a year.  I definitely will and I will probably take it more than one more time.  As long as I'm so close by where they train, I will keep coming back.  At $175, it is well worth the investment.

20141130 - Lake Placid Florida and back

I'm late in writing this blog entry by a week.  Normally, I'm much better at keeping up.  What can I say, it's been busy.

[First a little catch up]  As some of you already know, I moved to Florida.  This is the second time that my bike has been tied down.  I bought a 7x14, dual axle, enclosed trailer.  While I like riding cross country to get my bike wherever I happen to be living at any given moment, it was getting pretty expensive to keep flying back to pick it up wherever I left it last.  When I'm on the move during winter, I want my bike with me and I can't justify paying airline expenses and/or hauling expenses.  After awhile, it simply adds up and pays for a trailer.

As a note to all my die hard friends who say ride it come hell or high water - sue me.  I don't care.  I've ridden in snow, sleet, freezing rain, high winds and on ice.  I've ridden in temperatures that are close to zero.  I've ridden one hell of a lot of miles and with my bike with me everywhere I go, I will lose far less time playing catchup, and ride much more.  I have nothing to prove to anyone.  In fact, as a result, I'm riding now when I would otherwise be without my bike for much longer.

[Back to regularly scheduled programming]  Sorry for the dissertation and digression.  It was an awesome, sunny and warm November day in Florida.  Half of the United States was covered in snow.  Minnesota, where I narrowly escaped freezing temperatures and snow, was reporting 12 and was under 16" of snow. This ride started in New Port Ritchie and went to Lake Placid Florida and then continued on rt. 70 to Tampa and back to New Port Ritchie.   Sinyeon was with me.  She's becoming quite comfortable on the motorcycle.  She tells me that she sleeps back there.  She's dying to take some riding lessons.

About midway through the ride, we stopped at a BBQ place - Fat Boy's, I think.  It was 45 minutes North of Lake Placid on Rt. 27.  The staff is very nice.  Sinyeon got beef and I got pork.  They didn't have shredded and the sliced were bland.  The beef, on the other hand, was tasty.  I'd go back for the beef and to try something else.  You could definitely stop at much worse places.  Oh, in true southern fashion, the sweet tea was perfect.

The whole reason for this ride - as if there has to be a reason - was that I'm looking for a place to buy a house and want to check out different locations.  This one would put me neatly between coasts, probably afford me some hurricane protection and I could dive either cost readily.  That was the thinking anyway.

Coming back, it was mostly uneventful, except that the sun was ducking down and the warm air was going with it.  I wasn't cold and with my touring jacket on, I'm good into the 50's without heat.  I was worried about Sinyeon though.  Shes a tiny girl and doesn't have extra insulation.  She had she had a couple sweatshirts on, a jacket and a wind breaker; but, I didn't think that would be enough.  I asked her to tell me if she got cold.  I worried about it from Lake Placid all the way back - about 3 hours.  I asked her several times if she was OK and she kept saying she was.

We got to the Tampa bay just about half an hour late.  As the sun went down, it turned the western sky to an awesome orange, a sight I'm sure would have been much better if we were on the bay bridge at the time.  As it was, we were going in and out of trees.

When we got into Saint Pete, it was chaotic.  Traffic was flowing; but, it was time for an abundance of caution.  Just as I was exercising said abundance of caution, a police car comes up hard on my left, lights and siren going.  The car in the left lane simply stopped and didn't yield to the right.  I stopped to give up my lane in case he wanted to go around to the right...and because I'm supposed to.  Instead of taking the right lane, he just sat behind him, siren wailing.  In retrospect, he was right to do so.  If he tried passing on the right and all of a sudden, the car decided to yield to the right, it would have been problematic. After about 15 seconds of this, he took the turn lane and passed him on the left.  About a block later, I see another police car on my right at the corner of the intersection in front of me.  It looked like he was stopped on the corner but given what I just saw, I covered the brake anyway.  He didn't look like he was trying to get though the intersection; but, then he turned on his siren and I started an emergency stop.   Sinyeon's helmet forcefully hit mine.  If she weren't wearing it, she'd have broken her nose.  I could probably have stopped; but, I would have been right in the middle of the intersection and I had no clue if the guy behind me was paying attention.  I decided to keep going.  I remember as a paramedic being much more assertive in emergency driving.  This police officer was at least as far back as the stop line.  If I wanted the intersection, I advanced safely and firmly forward.  I left no ambiguity about where I wanted to go.  That wasn't the case here, and I think it was dangerous.  I'm very happy that there wasn't an accident.

So, I'm still checking on Sinyeon and she's still saying she's fine.  We're about 40 minutes from the house.  About 10 minutes out, I asked her if she wanted to stop for dinner and she said no, go to the house.  When we got there, she was frozen.  She didn't want to tell me she was cold.  She wanted to tough out the ride.  Well Sinyeon, guess what, you're starting to make your bones as a motorcycle rider.  I'm proud.  That said, don't do it again.  Tell me if you're cold.  There are options that generally involve hot food and beverage and even stopping for the night.

Here's my new map.  This ride was the little loop in the middle of Florida - 282 miles, just qualifying for a place on my blog!