One year ago today: October 3, 2015, Taylor backstage.
This woman will never be happy until she meets me.
Five years ago today: October 3, 2011, music, Colarado, ohms.
Nine years ago today: October 3, 2007, my university lecture.
Random years ago today: October 3, 2008, proof, I found the Buffet tile.
Here's a pic added in 2017 to liven up this page.
Should you get some repetition and disjointed info, that’s likely because this post is a written a week late and largely redacted, mainly from my trip log. Since nobody makes a decent laptop any more, it is tricky and not made any easier by Microsoft now making their word processing formats proprietory. Back at 509, I can’t open the material I wrote at the old library in Dade. I’ll get it, but what a hassle. Stick it up yours, Microsoft, even if you no longer have room up there for much else.
As with most times I’m on the road, the trip is the day. I don’t stop at roadside casinos and pubs as a rule. And if you are going to avoid any “historic villages”, it is probably a great idea to start with Overtown in Miami. I got 12 to 15 miles down the highway and the rain started. Let me put this into perspective. There was no rain or hurricane warning over the past few days, although a few distant reports of Hurricane Matthew indicated it might be in the Miami area by Friday. My plan was to leave to return on Thursday morning.
Instead, I had to pull over at an abandoned garage canopy north of Fort Meade. Find that on your map, it is an excellent motorcycle route and a far better deal than the Interstates. I missed some excellent photos in Wachuala. As I got into town, I got slapped on the back by a massive rain squall I didn’t see coming, and was soaked by the time I got fifty yards into the Burger King. The place flooded. That’s the pics I missed, I didn’t want to embarrass the one fast food place I’ll still stop at regularly.
The water quickly filled the streets to the curb and then rose to about four inches high outside the Burger King doors. We were trapped inside since anybody who opened the doors would have been mighty unpopular. The manager gave us high stools to sit on and served us free coffee. As it let up, I crawled south to the Crossroads and over to Okeechobee.
There, I stopped in to check out that coin machine Agt. R. might want. I was soaked and dripping too much water to work my camera, but it is some weird machine, not a coin sorter I think. But I did see switches on the feed mechanism PNDQH that must represent the various coins or I lack imagination. By now it was 5:30PM so I could not stay.
I went south down 441 east of the lake and hit dark at Pahokee, where I made a bad decision to head over to the coast on Route 60. My logic was that all that rain where it should not be was coming from Lake Okeechobee. Wrong, and that Route 60 is a pig for long red lights in the middle of nowhere. By 7:00PM I was still trying to reach West Palm Beach.
The blinding rain was now getting annoying. I don’t mind a little adventure but I began to pass many an intersection off ramp where the police were shutting down the roads. It got so bad I pulled off on Hypoluxo, which you think I’d learn not to do. It is a bad area of town and none of the gas station food stores sell coffee. They have the machines there, but don’t bother. I’ll leave it to your imagination what kind of customers they have that don’t drink coffee. By now, the water was curb deep and flowing down every street.
Fitzroy dolphins.
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I stayed over a half-hour, this was the only major stop on this trip and I had to phone ahead to JZ to explain why I wasn’t there by late afternoon. It was him that surprised me instead. He has no vehicle. Looks like he kind of forgot to tell me that he drove the van without the hydraulic pump until it required big repairs, and he ditched it. Yes, before he made any arrangements for a replacement.
So I stopped at the old club for a couple, nothing’s changed over there. A few locals speculated this was an arm of Matthew, but they fail to understand that would make the Hurricane 500 miles in diameter. I arrived at JZ’s around 11:30PM down the Palmetto. The scare of the storm made for very light traffic. There are still no signs of hurricane, just this incredible downpour for hours on end.
To give you an idea about such weather, I required 9-1/2 hours to move the batbike the 220 highway miles on the route for this journey. Deducting my breaks when visibility was zero, I was “behind the wheel” most of that time, plowing through puddles and dodging flooded tire grooves. Put another way, allowing for the few times I could get the batbike up to speed, that means I did large stretches of the final 180 miles on this trip moving 21 to 22 miles per hour.
If there are any new people reading, I can afford a car any time I want one. I drive a motorcycle for the adventure, not to save money. If I had made any of these trips inside a comfy car, I would not remember them already. I’m not the kind of person who likes to live that way.
Note this bare patch on my rear tire. I only got 3100 miles out of this Dunlop, which the motorcycle shop says is average. I’m not buying that, the majority of tread wear on a sidecar is from weight. And my sidecar is not that much heavier than your average Harley. Return later (maybe in a week or so) for the results of this observation.
I had plenty of time to think about the situation with the new guy who wants to do the Karaoke tracks. My thinking is that it just isn’t professional enough for my standards. I have not said no yet, but to play it safe, I’m digging out my old Ibanez six-banger.
Here is the resultant damage to the rear batbike tire. This is a $170 repair, but it is also routine on these motorcycles.
Last Laugh
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