Key West or Bust, Day 4

Finding Love on the Interstate Wednesday May 14, 2008 Last evening the hotel valet people put us in the underground parking garage. This is always a cause for pause, because the guard gate arm doesn’t always properly sense the motorcycle and returns early to its guard position, which is especially inconvenient if the motorcycle is being followed by a little Escapade trailer, and said trailer is higher than the bar at rest. So the valet guard manually opened the gate for me as the bike passed through. This morning, I fear the same problem. Kitty goes to find the attendant while I test the exit gate. I pull up to the gate and it opens on cue. I sit there for a while and it stays up, then I back away and it closes. I decide it senses the bike and will stay retracted, so I try again and hurry through without a problem. Kitty hasn’t found the attendant, so we are on our way. This is a day of mostly Interstate travel. We have almost 400 miles from Savannah, Georgia to Sarasota, Florida where we are scheduled to meet a long-time family friend. We plan to travel I-95 into Florida, and before we get to Jacksonville, take Rt. 200 west to US 301 south and follow it until we hit I-75. It’s not a particularly long travel day for us as Interstate days go, but it is the longest day of the trip and a bit of mental positioning is in order for this day. I have stood front and center and declared my aversion to Interstates when Kitty and I are traveling together. But the day is what it is, and I can meld into the moment, so the long straight stretches become, not a boring Interstate, but a part of the biker experience. Because Interstates need love, too. So while we’re rolling down the seemingly endless four-lane highway lined with palmettos and pin oaks, let me explain a few details for the non-bikers who might be reading this. For my biker friends, you can skip this just like you would skip the Interstates we are riding today. We tow an Escapade trailer (http://www.californiasidecar.com/) that has a capacity of over 25 cubic feet, about the size of a Honda Civic trunk. Quite sufficient for Kitty’s makeup kit! (Actually, Kitty travels light — it’s all my stuff that takes up the space.) Our 1500 Gold Wing SE has adjustable air suspension, cruise control, CB radio, regular radio, and a tape deck. When we talk to people about taking long trips, I think they envision Kitty perched precariously on the back of a tiny little seat with no support, frantically clutching onto the rider for hundreds of miles on end. Actually, Kitty’s seat is as comfortable as a rocking chair, with a back support that reaches her shoulders and armrests on either side with various pockets to put stuff. We have Shoei helmets outfitted with microphones and headphones. The bike’s stereo system can be played using the on-board 4-speaker system or routed through the headsets. We always use the headsets. When a musical passage is playing and either of us talks, the music is automatically muted for the duration of the conversation, after which it returns to normal volume. My Garmin StreetPilot 2720 GPS unit is pre-loaded with maps and over six million waypoints for the entire US and Canada, and I can upload or download waypoints, routes, and tracks to and from my laptop, which always travels with me in the already-described trailer. The GPS is connected into our headset so that Jill’s voice (there are over a dozen different voices and languages) can guide us to whatever destination we have chosen. US 301 strikes an arrow into the heart of Florida until it reaches Ocala, featuring a speed limit of 65 mph except for the occasional towns along the way. In one of those towns we stop for fuel and break, and I’m reminded of a recent Sunday sermon by our son Kevin. He talked about when speedos go Star Wars. That is, the speedo wearer has the body hair of Chewbacca and the physique of Jabba the Hut. He described walking on a glorious white-sand beach and seeing such a creature. Here he was with his gorgeous wife Kristal, in the exquisite surroundings of a beautiful beach, and all he could do was stare at the speedo guy. Kevin, my son, I now understand how truly upsetting this can be! At our fuel stop, I saw a bicyclist with skinny legs that didn’t look like he could even pedal a bicycle, skin-tight speedos, and… a huge stomach that lapped way down over the speedos. I now agree: speedos should be outlawed. It may take quite a while to recover from this unsettling image. Today Kitty has discovered that she has a voice and she continues to feel better, which is a good thing because we will take the minimum number of rest breaks. Since Kitty lost 50 pounds, she is like a different traveler. Used to be we’d stop every hour or hour and a half max, and now we sometimes ride nearly tank-to-tank, or about three hours, if the weather is cool. Hot weather affects us both, and as we travel, the temperature rises from a cool 67 F to about 86 F, and we do stop oftener than planned. Still, we reach Sarasota by about 4:30 PM. Our Sarasota friend Mary had asked us to stay with her tonight, but it turns out she’s going out of the country tomorrow and I’d sent an email telling her we’ll get a hotel and just hook up for dinner. I give her a quick call my cell phone. “Hey, Mary, we’re here!” “What?!” she nearly yells into the phone. “Where are you? Why aren’t you here?” I explain and she insists that we cancel the hotel and come to her place for the night. I have a GPS waypoint for her house and Jill leads us flawlessly to her beautiful Florida home. After cleaning up in a shower filled with an alarming number of bottles, vials, sponges, and other objects that I only vaguely recognize, we head out to a local seafood restaurant, Stonewood. I order seared Ahi tuna, which turns out to be delightfully rare with a complex layer of tastes. The wasabi, though, is covered up with lettuce and comes as a complete surprise when I scoop up a mouthful with some lettuce and a piece of tuna! Mary and Kitty and I talk about old times and new, and, as is often the case with long-standing friends, about good and not-so-good times. As we’re finishing dinner, Kitty gets a call from Kristal (daughter-in-law) and Danica (granddaughter), and I get a call from our dear friend Karen with some fantastic news on their life project (http://www.updateonbabyclark.blogspot.com/). And so back to Mary’s house, where I clean and cover the bike parked in her driveway. It just goes to show that if you’re looking for love in all the right places, you can find it even on the Interstate.