Day Five and Six

New Orleans, Louisiana to Daytona Beach, Florida

Mileage: 636

Total mileage to date: 2322 (from Litchfield Park)

Batman's cousin, Donald showed up at our hotel in New Orleans about 10am. We were just finishing breakfast and needed to load up the bikes for the trip to Daytona Beach. Donald would be heading back to Houston on his own. For his first long distance ride, he did very well, but his body was unhappy the next morning. Long distance riding is not for everyone and your body needs to be conditioned for it. It' not just physically challenging, but mentally as well.

Again, it was right at noon when we left the hotel in New Orleans. We're heading to Daytona Beach, Florida, but first, we wanted to make a stop at Hurricane HD on the West Bank in Harvey, Louisiana. I wanted yet another Harley-Davidson tee shirt and Batman wanted to buy a "Guardian Bell" for Donald.

A Guardian Bell is a small stainless steel bell with some sort of design on it. You are not allowed to buy a Guardian bell for yourself. It must be a gift. It's a good luck charm for riders. (I'm not superstitious, but believe me, they work!) The one we chipped in to buy for Donald has a cross on it. Very nice. After the presentation, we had him hang it on his bike. When we met Batman in Las Cruces, New Mexico, he presented Sludge and me with Guardian Bells. Sludge and I already have them but another won't hurt. Thanks again, Batman!

We left the dealership close to 2:00pm. I was getting a bit worried because this leg of the ride was nearly 640 miles. Our minimum travel time was going to be 12 hours. "Geez", I thought, "Another 3:00 am arrival!" (Remember, the time zone changes again.) That was clearly not to be the case.

As we left New Orleans, I suggested that Sludge take the Road Captain position beause he was the most familiar with the roads in town. Along the way was the facility where we worked together on the U.S. Space Station, "Freedom", back in 1987. We wanted to stop and see it on the way to Biloxi, Mississippi.

Twenty minutes into the ride, we were crossing a large bridge called "The Industrial Canal High Rise. It's a very steep ride up and down the other side. I was riding in position #2 in the right lane and Batman was the Tail Gunner. I was keeping an eye on the small pickup truck in front of me when a digging shovel began to float in the air! I thought that it was going to blow out and seconds later it did! It was bouncing end over end and I was quickly catching up. As soon as I tapped the brakes, the shovel settled down to a slide against the inside ledge of the bridge. Squeezing over to the left side of the lane, I was not able to notify Batman of the shovel. He also saw it and had moved over. We couldn't go too far left due to the other traffic. When I had a chance, I went around the pickup and back to the right lane. I looked in my mirror and couldn't see Batman. I pulled over as quickly and safely as I could to wait for him. I waited for five minutes, but still no Batman! Has he laided the bike down? Was he in an accident with another car? There was no place to turn round. I would have to drive a mile to the next exit and come back. I decided to head up the highway on the emergency lane into oncoming traffic. Just as I turned my bike around, I could see Batman coming. I cranked on the throttle and he caught up to me just as I was coming off the emergency lane. Our exit was two miles down. At the first stoplight, I asked him what happened. Apparently, there was also a white bucket in the back of the pickup that blew out and Batman ran into it! There was no damage to his scooter, but the bucket didn't survive. Take a look at the picture of his front tire. The white spot is where he hit the bucket. It's amazing that these idiots just throw things into their truck beds with no idea of what can and will likely happen.

It was 3:00pm when we left the plant and continued on Route 90 toward the beaches in Mississippi. As we entered the Mississippi coastal area, we noticed that even four years post Hurricane Katrina, the devastation was still clearly visible. There were many lots with concrete pads still in place. The only clue that a house was once there. Many of the buildings have been rebuilt or are brand new, some were still in need or repair. It was a sad state of affairs, but overall, much progress has been made.

The beach road was extremely windy and there was a great deal of sand on the streets. Between Mother Nature and the vehicles around us, we were getting sand-blasted. After an hour on this road, we agreed that is was time for lunch. We pulled into a mall with a Subway sandwich shop and the owner stopped to talk with us about our bikes and the adventure we were on. All along this ride, people have been very curious and have wished us well.

Buy the time we reached Interstate Route 10, it was close to 5:00pm and we still had 550 miles to ride. It was windy, but the sun was still shining. As the sun started to set, the wind picked up and the temperature began to drop...quickly.

It took us seven hours to cover the 320 miles to Tallahassee, Florida. It became so cold that we pulled over to change into our winter gloves and face covers at a rest area half way between Biloxi and Tallahassee. Batman and I wear half-helmets and our faces are exposed to the elements. He knew that it would be cold on this ride, but not in Florida! Maybe in Oklahoma or the mountains of Tennessee. The temperature was in the low 50's again and the wind chill was approximately 38 degrees. We fueled the bikes and had dinner at an IHOP restaurant in Tallahassee around midnight.

We're back on I-10 an hour later and it was even colder. Jacksonville, Florida was 165 miles away and the temperature was dropping. We estimated that it was in the high 40's. That would make the wind chill closer to freezing. We agreed to stop every hour to try and warm up at the rest areas or at the end of an exit ramp. At about 3:30 am, we were passing through Jacksonville, Florida and were only 75 miles from Daytona Beach, Florida. It smelled like rain in the air. I was right. A few miles south of Jacksonville, it started to rain. Then the skies opened up and it poured. We had to slow down to 45 mph and put on our 4-way flashers so that we could be seen. We never had a chance to stop and don our rain gear. By the time we reached a rest area thirty miles south of Jacksonville, we realize that we were soaked to the skin and decided to continue on. Our bodies were working hard to battle the elements and we're all fighting sleep, but we had to continue on. We reached exit 193, Route 1 south, about 5:30am and pulled into a gas station to hide under the canopy.

The gas station had a sitting area and we figured that we would wait for the rain to stop or let up enough for us to make a run to the hotel. An hour after torrential downpours, the rain decreased to a shower, so we scurried to our bikes and headed south on A1A to the hotel. Again the rain picked up and the closer we drove to the shoreline, the higher the wind speeds were. At one point, Batman and I were blown from the left lane to the right lane! It was 7:00am when we cut off our engines in the hotel parking lot. We had not slept for 24 hours!

We must have looked like drowned rats when we reached the hotel. What were the first words I heard from the check-in manager? "You were supposed to check in last night!" I held my tongue, but did manage to ask if she had noticed the weather outside. Minutes after we unloaded in the room, Sludge was off to do laundry. Batman and I lie on our beds talking about what we had just accomplished and I heard him begin to snore. He was out in mid sentence! I passed out soon after. Four hours later I woke up due to an extreme cramp in my left calf, the gear-shifting leg. Sludge had suffered the same discomfort that night. Two days later, both of mine are still sore! My back is doing well, but my right shoulder is still bothering me. (I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon two weeks before the ride. Apparently, I have a rotator cuff injury. I believe that this was due to some strength training exercises at the gym. I was working out hard for the ride and it didn't do me any good.)

As I soon found out, the off shore storm I was watching online from my laptop had tuned into a tropical depression on our way through the panhandle of Florida. Bad luck.

We have been glued to the television watching the weather channel for a break in the weather. Apparently it's not going to happen soon. This storm has dumped 15 inches of rain in the Daytona Beach area and the forecast is rain for the next 6-8 days! There is flooding everywhere. We've seen sandbagging and knee-deep water on some streets.

Yesterday afternoon, I asked the guys to sit down and discuss our options. Certainly, we cannot saddle up and ride north. The winds are still near 40mph and the rain is still coming down in buckets. The southeast coast, all the way up to the Carolinas, is forecasting rain.

On Wednesday, we basically, we sat around, did laundry and ate. This weather sucks.

More later...