November 20, 2013

Morning:
           First stop is Foley, Alabama. Where the gas pumps are so slow I gave up after five minutes and only 2-1/2 gallons. I drove on. I tried to mention it to the station attendant, but she was so fat, I think she was related to the Honda guy in Raton, NM, or the security guard at Meteor Crater, Arizona. Never try to reason with a gross fat pig, they have much else to worry about than anything you could say to them. I’m now off the freeway and keeping an eye on that oil leak. I’m still 734 miles from home.

           But I’m on home turf, so I put in 516 miles today. That is an estimate because wearing the full-face helmet, I didn’t notice my hand held recorder was full. So I didn’t get the exact mileage. The Tom-Tom is no help, it is fixated on freeways. But it was thirteen hours, mostly road time. That also means the rest of the day was nothing much, so here is another sprinkling of random but unrelated photos from the trip.
           In any order, these are photos of a typical outdated road sign mess, a classic Mississippi kudzu attack, my growing concern for tread wear on my expensive new rear tire (the one I finally replaced, but had to buy the tire in Texas and get it installed in Arkansas), and yes, there really is a town in Texas called “Welfare”. I was going to stop there but I thought it might be full of Canadians.
           The map showed a bypass of Pensacola and Tallahassee, highway 98. Oops, the first 70 mils was a traffic nightmare, nothing like 29 years ago when Dr. Jose and I sampled the easy women at Ft. Walton Beach. I didn’t plan this return, Ft. Walton Beach is merely one of the little towns that appeared on the way. It was 20 or 30 miles east of Pensacola, yet I kept hitting red lights at intersections in the middle of nowhere. I counted 50 or 51, of which 40 turned yellow at the worst time.

           Just outside Panama City, it finally breaks into open country, so I breezed on to Mayo. Remember Mayo? That’s the place I had coffee coming back from Savannah where the ladies wanted to introduce me to a married woman. The shop was closed, asking around they say that was not for the day, but permanent. See what happens when you disappoint too many bachelors?
           I pressed on to Ocala, but a Tom-Tom shortcut sent me down a lumpy backroad I had to take so slow, the last hour I drove in the dark. Remind me to find a directory of Walmarts, for they can be difficult to find in mid-size towns with more than one major artery. I’ve also found Walmart signs can be too small, face the wrong way, and oftern behind some trees. Smart phones are still to 1G to work for finding the next Walmart. Like I said, if you already knew the address, you’d just drive there.

           As I cruise the home stretch, the states will pour in. But this trip was definitely in excess of 8,000 miles and gas was at least $800. That’s comparable to the air fare avoided. Food? My diet is so restricted that I spend roughly the same at home or away. For completeness, I did keep track of food. The category “other” includes items like motels, beer, postcards. So you can’t base to much on that tally, however, it is divided into “avoidable” and “unavoidable” expenses, so stick around for those results.
           The trip, including the remaining 310 miles tomorrow will have been 29 days, of which 24 involved cross-country road time. For a guy now officially old, how am I holding up? Fine, no changes. Nothing to report. I’m not even road-weary. Motorcycles are not easy travel, yet I have not a single ache or pain from it except a mildly uncomfortable shoulder I dislocated last January. I don’t know if I lost weight, but my clothes are billowing on me.

           Driving the Honda is a workout on its own. It behaves on the freeways, but everywhere else it requires man-handling. For other exercise on the way, I walked a lot when I could. I say the trip trimmed me up a bit. The one big worry, any hint of stress-related high blood pressure was not even an issue. I never went above 129.