Key West or Bust, Day 2

Of Monks, Tarheels, and Bumper Stickers
Monday May 12, 2008

I never wear my wrist watch on a trip. Because I'm on vacation and for the most part, time is extraordinarily low on the hierarchy of Things Important. But sometimes, even on vacation, timing does matter and the watch has an alarm that we occasionally use to help us wake up in the morning. .Last night I’d carefully set my wrist watch alarm and the motel alarm for 6:45 AM. Apparently I need better alarm technology. None of the alarms sound, and we awake at 7:05 and have to hurry through the morning so as to arrive at the California Sidecar factory at 8:00 when they open. Thankfully, although we’re under heavy cloud cover, it isn’t raining as I thought it would be, so loading out is easier than expected and we almost make it. It’s only a 4-mile ride.

At the California Sidecar factory, I talk to Scott about three things I want him to look at: A loose snap for the front cover of the trailer, a factory-recall shock absorber check, and something I’d just noticed hooking up my trailer for this trip, that when touching the brakes the LED spoiler brake light dims instead of becoming brighter.

While we wait, I clean the bike in the parking lot and Kitty hangs out in the little cafeteria reading a book she brought along. It’s a quick clean-up job because I’m at all not sure we won’t run into more rain today by the looks of things, but I feel better with a shiny, water-droplet-less bike. I’ll clean the trailer later.

An hour and half later, Scott bursts into the cafeteria and announces, “All done! Good to go!” He explains that they tested the light and everything is working as it should. “Did you do your test with the bike running?” he asks. I have to think for a second and realize I checked the trailer lights with the ignition switch on but the bike not running. After we hook up the trailer with the bike running, I have Kitty step on the brake pedal while I observe from the rear. Yes! That Kisan Tailblazer is surely throwing out a whole bunch of blinking red lights that slowly grow to a solid glow over four seconds! The spoiler is working as it should. Wow! That is definitely what I want on the back of my bike and trailer when I apply the brakes!
And thus we head southward. We haven’t eaten breakfast and it’s now mid-morning, so in Lynchburg I route the GPS to a restaurant we recognize that serves both breakfast and lunch. Because choices are good. Jill flawlessly leads us to… an on-ramp! No restaurant in sight. A rare miss for Jill! But I love her anyway. I search for other options and we end up selecting a Cracker Barrel. After brunch, I clean the trailer while Kitty wanders about in the country store and emerges with a bag full of stuff. Because she can just “throw it in the trailer.” Motorcycling with a trailer is a definite boon to the vendors along the way!

It’s chilly. Who knew it would be 48 F in the middle of May in southern Virginia? Kitty decides to wear her balaclava to keep the wind off her neck, since the passenger always gets a lot more wind than the rider. Now this always makes me think Kitty looks like a monk and I’m always secretly relieved when she assumes her normal appearance as a biker with a helmet.

We run under heavy clouds that slowly become more broken even while spitting down a few fine drops of rain on the windshield. And just about when we turn south into North Carolina after US 29 bypasses Danville, we see blue sky for the first time this trip. It’s a wonderful, spirit-lifting thing and makes me think of a bumper sticker I once saw that read “If God isn’t a Tarheel, then why is the sky Tarheel-blue?” It is indeed a lovely thing to see some blue sky even if just in patches. Gotta love North Carolina!

By the time we make Charlottesville, North Carolina, where we had tentatively decided to stop, the sky is mostly clear, the temperature is 64F, and Kitty thinks she’d like to ride a little farther. She’s still not up to her normal strength and stamina, and remembering that only three days ago her fever was 102, I want to make sure we don’t push too hard the first couple days. But we ride on into South Carolina to the little town of Richburg and find a place to stay for the night. By now the clouds have fled and the sky is overspread in a splendid, unblemished azure hue. The temperature displayed on my fairing thermometer is a pleasant 73 F. So for the day, we've traveled 280 miles, leaving somewhere over 200 miles for tomorrow’s route to Savannah, Georgia. Looks like maybe we can sleep in and still get there early.

We walk to dinner at the Front Porch Restaurant, a southern little place featuring an inviting flower-festooned front porch complete with rocking chairs, and inside, a simple wooden floor and portraits of regular South Carolina people decorating the rough-hewn wooden shingle-board walls. Walking back to the motel from the restaurant, Kitty laughs (if her broken half-voice would qualify as a laugh) as she sees one last bumper sticker: “This is just a STUPID STICKER but you’re squinting to read it anyway.”