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!