Me and Red-Neck-From-West-Pelzer (rnfwp, Ross) met up at the state line
where 11 crosses I85 and charged off through chilly North Georgia.
We headed South, well to the east of Atlanta and Athens, through
TMON (The Middle Of Nowhere). Did I mention it was chilly? And
windy? Looking back, I have a lowered opinion of myself based
on my decision not to stop and hook up my heated-gear controller.
We went through many nice spring-wisteria covered places, all of which
I would have enjoyed more if I had not been thinking about being
chilly, and ended up in Eufaula Alabama.
The next day I rode a while longer before I submitted to the controller.
We rolled down a miles long quiet curvy narrow country road after that.
I remember clutching my collar together, pressing the fabric of the
heated gear against me, just like sitting in front of a fire and letting
your clothes get too hot. Ahhhh.....
Ross was a good sport about cruising through this...
and changing to 30 miles of this with no warning...
That's just the nature of "a Red Book" ride... the BFGPS plays
the roll of the actual red map book these days, but the
methodology of choosing a route based on avoiding WalMart
and optimizing for curves remains the same. They take longer
and I never know what the next turn will bring. I plot them out
from my easy chair and pretty much follow them to wherever they
take me in my quest to get from point A to point B.
I staged this picture with Wimp in mind...
We finally got to Ground Zero... 6:30...
People were leaving to the planned Strick's BBQ dinner, and
several of us decided to go over there. We followed Hal. Thus
began the grand BBQ adventure. Here's Hal admitting to me
that he had no clue as to how to get there.
"Follow me!", I screamed, and we were off! After a while they pretty
much all gave up on me too, and I was riding alone in a direction
that I thought held promise. I got to the BBQ place after about
30 miles (it is about 1.5 miles from the hotel). RNFWP had just
arrived. Plenty of other riders were there, but none from our little
group. We got mostly done eating and Hal showed up. He sat with
us. Britman and the others finally gave up and ate at "Hooters". When
you read that you have to imagine saying "Hooters" with a British accent.
Saturday we headed out for BBQ adventure, part II, as Ron led
us out onto the trafficky main road and in and out and through
numerous parking lots to the breakfast place where the food
was many levels above Hardee's... from there we took various
routes out to the Lynyrd Skynyrd Memorial, which was way
in TMON on some dirt roads and I was not involved in
selecting the routes
...
On Sunday a bunch of people decided to follow Smokin' Joe to
Apalachicola Florida. They may or may not have realized that
Smokin' Joe was following me. I tried to emphasize the implications of
using a selection of arbitrarily chosen unfamiliar roads as a route.
I was proud of their stamina and "go-getter" attitude
...
I heard a smart-alecky comment that evening about leading a ride
through neighborhoods
...
Our destination was Apalachicola Florida, but near the end we decided:
It's Easter Sunday, it's already past 5:00pm, we don't have motel reservations
and we don't know where an oyster restaurant is. We secured motel reservations
at a nearby place, DeFuniak Springs and settled in.
The next day we split up... here's the Floridians heading off to their respective
homes... along with Robin and Judy...
Joe and Hal and Mitch and Wayne headed on towards Apalachicola.
I heard Joe had oysters for lunch.
I headed on my 2-day route back to SC. Its arbitrarily chosen roads
were largely awesome, good for really rolling. I passed some giant
pecan groves. I'm in the middle of a long straight section of road
here, the grove stretches in front of me in both directions on both
side of the road as far as I can see in either direction.
I passed a sign to the place where Jefferson Davis was captured
by Yankee troops at the end of the war... I detoured, but
the place is closed on Mondays...
That's going to be one big chicken!
I rolled hard and made it home in one day
... I had to adjust
for the difference between DeFuniak Springs and Apalachicola, but there's
a little road (state 90) that rolls just north of I-10, and I hooked back into
my route within an hour or so... here's the route...
https://goo.gl/maps/rz63Zsf2CXbSUCiz5Thanks everyone! This is why we ride motorcycles!
-Mike
