And We're Off!

On June 27th I returned to St. Pete from a wild cross-country motorcycle trip up to Illinois.  I almost crashed three times.  Some idiot ran me off the road near Clarksville, Tennessee, I almost rear ended a car near Plains, Georgia, and I had a front tire blowout near Lake City, Florida.  All of these incidents occurred on my way back home.  The bike rests now in the little garage downstairs, tired and limping a bit from the use.  It's owner, tired and limping as well from the unrelenting abuse riders of motorcycles get from the elements, the endless mental calculations, and the brute physicality of riding an exposed and vulnerable metal machine.

But first we begin the trip... 

After a couple of rain out days, the bike was ready to pull out of St. Petersburg and head up North for a few days of R and R after a couple years of sitting with Norah.  Watching the Weather Channel for days led me to think that it would be difficult to thread this needle: surely in June there will be rain somewhere along the route.  And then, the forecasters say Tuesday will be kind of OK, but Wednesday even better.  I decided to make a go of it, and Tuesday morning, early, still dark to avoid rush hour, bike packed, I set off on an adventure.  

First days' destination was Warm Springs, Georgia and, time permitting, on up to Gadsden, Alabama.  The point of all this back-roads obscurity was to commune with rustic Americana and to avoid big city driving.   I had very much hoped to take pictures of entertaining or interesting things along the way and to meander, rather than dash back home.  Sadly, like many things, this was to be tested and twisted in the coming days.

Before I begin let me say that I was extremely well prepared.  I had acquired a backrest, new battery and rear rack for the bike that would provide comfort and space for stuffed leather luggage used in my trips out West in '04.  I also had driving gloves, my modular helmet, my heavy riding boots, protective padded jacket and sunglasses.  I had a small 30 ounce bottle of gas if I ran out somewhere and felt as ready as possible to climb this personal Everest.  What I didn't have, and would regret it later was sunscreen.  More on this later. It was a nice morning and I shoved off at 4:00 am after a light breakfast at IHOP.   

I should also admit a bit of personal feeling also while I'm at it.  I'm no idiot (he said bravely and optimistically).  I know how the world works.  I know that bikers are as likely as any out on the road to tumble and, ahem, succumb.  Like most trips I take, I also have a sense of foreboding.  Call it "Travel Awareness" but since I can remember I get a certain sadness when about to hit the road.  Will I make it?  So off I go with a sadness, an exhilaration and hope for a fun and successful trip.  And since it has been nine years since my last long cross-country trip I wanted also to prove I could still do it.  Just a personal thing, I guess.

Traffic through Tampa was light and no problem whatsoever.  I've done it before on the bike so I was familiar with the Dark City.  It wasn't long till the bike and I were humming as one, as it were.  Except for gas stops which occurred all too frequently (my bike is a gas guzzler) the road was straight, the sun coming up and I was left to the steady thrum of the bike and my thoughts, which were wide-ranging.  I left the interstate at Cordele, Georgia and wound around through nice roads and fairly light traffic till I reached Warm Springs.

For those who are not familiar, Warm Springs is the place Franklin Roosevelt went to exercise his polio-stricken legs.  He made 44 trips here through the years and it became known as FDR's Little White House.  Camp David had not been invented yet, so presidents relied on their own resources to escape Washington and relax.  For FDR it was a secluded little town in the Georgia rolling hill country.  The area was known for its mineral springs and became a haven for polio victims young and old.
But before we get to Warm Springs we have about 170 miles to cover.  And in the best tradition of bloggers everywhere, I stopped a couple of places to take snapshots of local scenes.

Small town America has been dying for awhile, but this town looks like it was well into its death throes long before the trend.  In something pretty appropriate and not in this picture, to the right was more dying town and parked on a cement slab was an old '40's car for sale.  It looked a lot like the buildings and I can only imagine how long it had been there, waiting for a buyer who probably won't ever show up.  This is Cobb, Georgia.  If not for the road I was on there wouldn't have been any traffic at all.  It is home, however, to the largest pecan orchard in the world.  A sad, depressing place.  

Like all adventures, things don't always go as planned.  I was driving along and noticed this small outcropping of tombstones with a Confederate flag perched in the middle.  I decided to stop the bike and swing it around and record this scene which almost ended in disaster.  The bike is heavy, around 760 lbs without the extra weight of the luggage and gas.  I pulled the bike over, looked for traffic then swung around and back to the cemetery.  Picture taken, I get back on the bike but the driveway is small and the red Georgia clay is pretty soft, so I make too narrow a turn and I lost control and the bike went down.  Luckily the engine guards did what they were supposed to and minimized any damage.  The engine was unaffected so with superhuman strength and an unwillingness to let anyone see my embarrassment and panic, I raised that sucker like a mother raising a car to save her child.  I decided at that point that too many stops for pictures was possibly injurious to my health so it would have to be an extraordinary item to warrant any further stops.   The calculation became:  1.  Is it worth it to slow and stop bike to the right? 2.  Is it worth it to look both ways, swing heavy bike back in opposite lane and travel back a mile? 3. Then find place to slow and stop bike on the right, dismount, and take picture? 4.  Then repeat steps 1 and 2 to resume trip? There were not too extraordinary items.  

Bike righted, ego soothed, I trekked across Georgia in search of Warm Springs and the Little White House.   Luckily there were no more incidents and the countryside was pretty, the roads good, and the morale excellent.  Throughout the trip the countryside would remain pretty.  The roads would be good.  The morale as well as the glutteous maximus would suffer along the way.  

More Wednesday.