Today's Miles: 360.5 Don's Total Miles: 1,526.5 Sherry's Total Miles: 1,746.8
Today is THE special day of the trip. Ahhhh, you say, it must be the day with the most miles or maybe we will be the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary or.....or....or. You would be wrong. Today is Sherry's birthday. I have been told that I am not at liberty to post the age but I will give you a clue.....she is over 15 and less than 100. Sorry, but due to my self preservation that is as close as I will get you. Ok, so it is a special day for her but for me it is another day of being able to ride my bike. And ride we did.
Surprises of surprises but the hotel actually had the normal Choice Hotel breakfast. Do you think that it was in honor of the birthday? Whatever the reason I was down there bright eyed and bushy tailed (kind of) at the 6:00 start. Good and fresh coffee, eggs, sausage, biscuits & gravy, and three glasses of orange juice. Life was good. There was a steady parade of other travelers coming in for their morning shot of energy. I have to admit that with the pandemic it was a little surprising that the breakfast was happening. Then again, I thought of the thousands of baking bodies I saw on the Tampa Bay shoreline along the Causeway.......maybe there is no pandemic in the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg area. I am not one to argue or stir the pot so I just sat and watched and ATE.
I was there about a half hour when Birthday Girl walked in. She apparently had been up as long as I had because she said that she had walked across the street and sat while the sun came up. She also threw caution to the wind and filled a plate from the buffet line.
I won't bore with the individual details (like I bore you with all the other details) so I will group this next DAY LONG activity into this one paragraph. Starting with the middle of breakfast and then continuing ALL DAY Sherry received somewhere around 2,000 birthday telephone calls.....give or take. While riding we would stop at a light and I would hear her talking. Thinking that she was asking me something or making a statement I raised my shield and looked over......nope, she was talking on her bluetooth. I eventually came to the conclusion that I wouldn't talk to her again until tomorrow. She apparently has a deep fan base.
The ride north on U.S. 19 and U.S. 98 was a prime example of why Florida has the reputation for straight and flat roads. The thing that struck me was even with the 900 to 1,000 people that are moving into Florida DAILY there is miles and miles and miles of wilderness.
In addition to the wilderness we did see a few other things that captured our attention. There was the guy dressed like a pig with a sign that said "honk if you like bacon". I heard Sherry's horn and I thought maybe I had left my saddlebag open again. Then there was a message plastered on the back window of a pick-up truck that said "Trump In 2020 F**k Your Feelings". I don't care who you
are voting for....that was funny. Then in Inglis, FL at the intersection with State Road 40 there is Follow That Dream Blvd. Such an appropriate sign to read when on a motorcycle road trip.
Going through Crystal River was a joy. What a great looking little town. The little shops and restaurants were so very inviting. Of course, we turned down the invitation to continue our ride.
We stopped at the Discount Food Mart in Chieftain for gas, a bathroom break, and some refreshments. It was not one of your High End places so Sherry had me check out the restroom first. I have seen better but I have seen a LOT worse so I gave her the "go ahead".
We continued on U.S. 98 heading west across the Panhandle of Florida. We did a gas stop in Apalachicola with about 60 miles to go to our hotel. There are miles and miles of U.S. 98 that go right along the Gulf Coast. It was so beautiful with a "cooler" breeze.......it made it 90° instead of 95°. It really was a very nice ride.
One thing that was very remarkable was the damage caused by Hurricane Michael in October of 2018, going on two years ago, was still very widespread. Houses, businesses, and forests were still in a state of destruction. There was a LOT of rebuilding going on but there is a LOT MORE of rebuilding that has yet to be done.
I looked ahead and saw a Comfort Inn and Suites.....it looks like we made it. Not so fast Bucko! We walked in and said that we had two rooms reserved and we got "Noooo, I don't see that name". Sigh, there was another Comfort Inn and Suites 8 miles further down U.S. 98. Thankfully, this has happened to me before (I am too embarrassed to tell you how many times) that I don't carry my bags in until I am checked in.
About 15 minutes later we pulled into the RIGHT hotel and checked in. They very graciously let us leave our bikes under the registration entrance canopy. We through our bags into the rooms, combed our hair, and out we went. Sherry wanted a Birthday Dinner in a real restaurant. She said that she also wanted to
have a drink or two so she didn't want to ride. The only restaurant within walking distance was McDonalds and that wasn't happening. So I let her ride bitch on my bike (she calls it "two up" but, hey, tomato/tomaaato) and we went in search. We wound up at a Thai restaurant called Thai Basil. We had a decent meal, got great service, and they even brought Sherry a "Birthday Key Lime Pie".
We rode back to the hotel and Birthday Girl headed to her room to read 10,000,000 texts, messages, and birthday comments...along with probably more phone calls and I to mine to............type. This is the result. Hope that you enjoyed and I will talk to you again tomorrow.
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