Here’s the sidecar parked along the black water of Okeechobee. This is not the area Wallace and I got chased by midge flies. I was headed there when an ugly rainstorm on the horizon improved my plans. Can you see it? This was a day well-spent testing the rig and my endurance. If you ever visit Lake Okeechobee, the locals will test your patience. I’ll write about it now in some detail.
You can call me old fashioned, but when somebody asks me where a lake is, I presume they mean they would like to see a large flat body of water. I also believe they want to park their car and look at the lake, not some 13 mile hiking trail. Well, you see, little things like this make me smarter than anyone who lives around Lake Okeechobee. Because every one of those bastards is a stinking liar. Ooh, did I say that?Yes. Here’s what I mean. You cannot see Lake Okeechobee from the shores because there is a 35 foot high levee around the lake, and that levee is located across a sixty foot wide boat channel that makes an effective moat. From the highway, there are only two overpasses (near the town of Okeechobee and near the Indiantown corner) high enough see over the levee, but stopping is not permitted on either. Do you see the pattern emerging? Anyone who lives near the lake would know these facts. But several generations along that lake have not produced a single person with a sufficiently high enough IQ to relate this information to strangers.
Back in the early decade, when I first went there, I got the runaround from about six people, and wound up driving clockwise on the map around the entire west side of the lake, some 75 miles without any view of the water. I finally encountered a group of hikers from a bible school who let me tag along with them. Funny, I know I made a full report on that but can’t find it anywhere. If you spot it in this blog, tell me where.
On my own, I learned where the few places are to get over that levee. That also means I know the locals are lying to tourists who ask where the lake is. Don’t even bother asking in Belle Glade, they’ll send you down Canal street. The only places you can actually get to the lakeshore are on a tiny strip of old highway on the southeast edge of the lake. The easiest to find is a dilapidated “recreation area” near the Pahokee water tower.When you see that water tower, you are about 300 yards from the water view. There is no signage that says a word about the lake, just an arrow that says KOA. Turn into the road south of the water tower and drive up over the levee. Don’t bother asking for directions, the local goofs will try to send you up to Canal Point or Mayaca, both wastes of time. You cannot see the lake from those places. Even if you get there, unless you know which unmarked exits get across the levee, you will get lost. Plus, they love to randomly put up chain link fences on months with an “r”, or maybe months with a vowel. It’s hard to tell with those thick-headed morons.
Here is the Pahokee beach cabana, complete with skylight. The horizon is level, the shelter is not. This is one of two, yep folks, two. The progressive proles of Pahokee know how to spoil dem visitors. The other one had a picnic table, but this one had less broken glass in the driveway. Over the years I’ve taken hops up to Okeechobee and I’ve had occasion to eavesdrop on probably thirty incidents of locals sending tourists on wild good chases. To make my point, I ask anyway, even though I already know where everything is. Sure enough, I got bad directions today from a gas station operator, a good-looking black lady, and a troop of teens hanging out at a Mexican market. I smiled and nodded, knowing every last one of them was a dirty rotten liar.
I’d be specific, “So, you are telling me if I go up Canal street right there for two miles, I can park my car, get out, and see the waters of Lake Okeechobee”. (Canal street is straight along a canal, no intersections. The pavement ends in a half-abandoned trailer park on Torry Island, seven miles from the lakeshore. All you can see is overgrown weeds twelve feet tall.) I thanked them all for their help, although the black lady kind of looked quizzical when I turned the opposite way down the street from what she had just pointed. She vowed she had been at the end of Canal a week ago and seen the water herself. It’s those teens, messing with this lady by moving the lake again.
In an odd quirk, I’m actually used to this kind of people. Venezuelans will lie to you rather than admit they don’t know something. Don’t ask for the post office in Caracas, they don’t know where it is even when standing directly across from it (true story). And my family, who know perfectly well what question you asked, will give you the answer you were “supposed to have asked for” if, get this, you were as smart as they were. What? Well, of course you aren’t as smart as they are. You don’t hear them asking questions, do you?
Example. “Did that phone call I was expecting come in today?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure, were you here all day?”
“Because I took the phone off the hook.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It’s not my job to answer your phone calls.” (Sound effects: four other siblings join in a hearty laugh.)
“I never said it was your job, but I never thought you'd take the phone off the hook when you knew I was expecting a call.”
“Well, then, next time you'll know to ask.” (More laughter. No, I'm not making this up.)
Friggen geniuses, every lovin’ one of them, “Besides you just want a job to prove you’re better than the rest of us.”
ADDENDUM
My limits are around 7.5 hours drive time, with not more than two hours in one stretch. The throttle is harder to grip than usual, which is fatiguing. Also, be sure to hydrate. I had to stop four times. I believe one should only drink when thirsty and I sapped away at least two gallons without ever breaking into a sweat. Trust your instincts. I drank nearly three gallons of fluids in fifteen hours.
These are some of the plastic bottles I saved from today’s trip, ready to be frozen overnight. Note the clamato, the only drink I could easily find that contained the salt (38% RDA) I was craving by mid-afternoon.I will be taking my old camera, the one that takes up to a minute to get into picture mode. I miss a lot of shots with that clunker, but I spent all my money on the wheels. A huge brown eagle flushed out right in front of my windscreen on 880 at three o’clock. I thought he was a goner but he veered away with a split second to spare. The wingspan I’d guess at seven feet. No video either, the St. Augustine cam I bought eats batteries and the club hasn’t built a bypass yet.
The motorcycle has a natural cruising harmonic at around 54 mph. This causes people to pass you needlessly but we know what’s bothering them. It appears the gasoline cost at $3.80 per gallon is still ten cents per mile, even with the carbs tuned up. But it runs much smoother and I did not hold the speed very steady today. I took the freeway up to Lake Worth, then overland down some side roads. (Don’t waste your money on road maps in Florida. The road signs do not match the legend, and most main Florida roads have up to five different names.)
Although traffic has dried up to a fraction of a few years ago, there is still enough on the side roads that I hold things up at 54. Thus, I may spend some time hunting the lesser four lane roads, such as I-27 to Okeechobee. I’ve also discovered that, like in my Cadillac, I don’t care for night travel. Nothing to see and with the sidecar, you notice the drunks a lot more. It was dark my last hour back to town.
The sidecar will go cross-country, but doesn’t like it. I spun some donuts in an abandoned sand pit up near Hypoluxo. It particularly does not like those little ripples left in the sand after a rainstorm. But it plows through gravel, mud, and shrubbery well enough. I am taking my eBike along. Some say that is overkill, but compared to them, I’m an expert on electric bikes, scooters, and sidecars. I don’t pass too many others out on the roadways, if you catch my drift.
This extra day of tests was a good idea. I do not have adequate road maps, and Google is pretty useless for this type of trip planning. They used MicroSoft-think, making the maps easy to program rather than easy to use. Then they re-write the manual and call this a “feature”.
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