Canopy
Tuesday May 25, 2010
Copyright(c) 2010, Jim Beachy
We sleep in a little longer this morning to make sure we don’t waste the excellent beds the Hampton Inn chain has placed in all its rooms. It’s the same style mattress used by the parent Hilton Hotels, and if I can’t be in my waterbed this is the next best thing.
Eventually, though, we have to get up and wake sleeping monster lying outside our room. We uncover it, raise the CB and radio antenna, and low and behold, it’s a Gold Wing motorcycle with a color-matched Escapade trailer! Once again it’s cloudy, but rain isn’t expected to move in until noon. We’ll be long south of here by then, headed toward Tallahassee, Florida. So once again we opt to ride without rain gear and after fueling the bike, we head southward on US 319 at about 9:00 AM.
We ride past miles of newly-planted fields whose gray sandy soil bears no hint of what is to grow there. We don’t know what’s planted there, but a good guess would probably be cotton or peanuts, judging by the number of both cotton gins and peanut processing plants, identified by the name of the company on the building.
Rolling southward, rain occasionally splatters onto the windshield but only in one brief section is there anything that could actually be called rain. The abandoned homes of yesterday have mostly but not entirely been replaced by well-maintained homes on beautifully landscaped property amid tall pine trees or stately pecan trees.
But the abandoned businesses are still present. I suspect that if one could do an inventory of businesses out here in the heartland of southern Georgia, there would be more abandoned than functioning. Amid the apparent pockets of prosperity there are still the haunting reminders of plans gone sadly awry.
“I hear a buzz,” Kitty says.
“Is this in your helmet?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, “because that’s where my ears are!” I don’t know what causes the buzzing, as I don’t hear it, but it’s a clever answer and we both laugh. After a while it’s gone.
We talk about our impressions of this ride. I wonder, if one could create a panel of impressions that register with both of us and then compare them, how many impressions would overlap? Naturally we often point out things of interest to each other. But then Kitty sees a “baby horse,” as she calls it, lying at its mother’s feet while I see the tail flukes of a life-size blue whale as its body disappears into someone’s lawn. I have no explanation for this but that’s what I see. Kitty sees a beautifully manicured and landscaped home at the same time I see the hulk of an abandoned house and wish it could talk. But in spite of our different impressions, or perhaps because of them, I often think it would be hard to improve on my lot in life: Riding a great motorcycle through an expansive countryside with a beautiful woman of exquisite sensitivity who actually loves to do this!
We hold US 319 through all its twists and turns as it is joined at various times by a bewildering variety of other route numbers. In Thomasville we stop for fuel and a lunch break, which usually consists of some carrots and peanut butter, maybe an apple or other fruit, sometimes something we pick up at a roadside stand.
When I insert my credit card at the gas pump, it displays a sign about seeing the attendant. “Sorry, Hon, we’re closed. Our whole system is down,” says the woman who greets me at the door. (As a sidebar, I’ve learned that the farther south you travel, the more likely it is that a waitress or a service station attendant will call you “Hon,” at least if that person is a woman and you are a man. I find this disconcerting but I believe I no longer cringe or look startled when this happens.)
I can’t help but point to the t-shirt I happen to be wearing today: “Temporarily Out of Service.” Everyone in the station gets a good laugh as we ride across the road to another venue.
We leave US 319 at this point and take local Route 122 for the last 10 miles or so into Florida. “Welcome to Leon County” says the small road at the state line. It’s a very unceremonious entry to Florida. Tallahassee is noted for a number of so-called “canopy roads”, where canopies of moss-festooned oak trees cover the highways that fan out of the city center like spokes of a wagon wheel. I’ve mapped the “Centerville Canopy Road” in honor of our hometown, so we ride the last 20 miles into Tallahassee under an exotic archway of giant live oaks draped with grey-green banners of Spanish moss. It’s been a light 195-mile day.
My friend Emma Wood and I haven’t seen each other in several years. We’ve run into each other in places that have
run together in our minds, from New York to Texas to North Carolina. We met once on a remote road in Utah, Kitty and I heading north, Emma headed south, just a 30-second conversation on CB but one we both remember because neither had any idea the other would be there. So we’ve been plotting so see if we could get together this trip. We finally hook up by phone, and she rides the 50 miles or so to meet us at a restaurant within walking distance to our hotel. After an evening of talking about rides, riding, family, and life, we wave good-bye as she literally rides her Gold Wing into the sunset toward her home.
After riding for nearly 900 miles through the fields and forests of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and now Florida, we’ve gone almost as far south as we can go toward the Gulf coast. Tomorrow we hope to find some coastal routes as we head west.
Tuesday May 25, 2010
Copyright(c) 2010, Jim Beachy
We sleep in a little longer this morning to make sure we don’t waste the excellent beds the Hampton Inn chain has placed in all its rooms. It’s the same style mattress used by the parent Hilton Hotels, and if I can’t be in my waterbed this is the next best thing.
Eventually, though, we have to get up and wake sleeping monster lying outside our room. We uncover it, raise the CB and radio antenna, and low and behold, it’s a Gold Wing motorcycle with a color-matched Escapade trailer! Once again it’s cloudy, but rain isn’t expected to move in until noon. We’ll be long south of here by then, headed toward Tallahassee, Florida. So once again we opt to ride without rain gear and after fueling the bike, we head southward on US 319 at about 9:00 AM.
We ride past miles of newly-planted fields whose gray sandy soil bears no hint of what is to grow there. We don’t know what’s planted there, but a good guess would probably be cotton or peanuts, judging by the number of both cotton gins and peanut processing plants, identified by the name of the company on the building.
Rolling southward, rain occasionally splatters onto the windshield but only in one brief section is there anything that could actually be called rain. The abandoned homes of yesterday have mostly but not entirely been replaced by well-maintained homes on beautifully landscaped property amid tall pine trees or stately pecan trees.
But the abandoned businesses are still present. I suspect that if one could do an inventory of businesses out here in the heartland of southern Georgia, there would be more abandoned than functioning. Amid the apparent pockets of prosperity there are still the haunting reminders of plans gone sadly awry.
“I hear a buzz,” Kitty says.
“Is this in your helmet?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, “because that’s where my ears are!” I don’t know what causes the buzzing, as I don’t hear it, but it’s a clever answer and we both laugh. After a while it’s gone.
We talk about our impressions of this ride. I wonder, if one could create a panel of impressions that register with both of us and then compare them, how many impressions would overlap? Naturally we often point out things of interest to each other. But then Kitty sees a “baby horse,” as she calls it, lying at its mother’s feet while I see the tail flukes of a life-size blue whale as its body disappears into someone’s lawn. I have no explanation for this but that’s what I see. Kitty sees a beautifully manicured and landscaped home at the same time I see the hulk of an abandoned house and wish it could talk. But in spite of our different impressions, or perhaps because of them, I often think it would be hard to improve on my lot in life: Riding a great motorcycle through an expansive countryside with a beautiful woman of exquisite sensitivity who actually loves to do this!
We hold US 319 through all its twists and turns as it is joined at various times by a bewildering variety of other route numbers. In Thomasville we stop for fuel and a lunch break, which usually consists of some carrots and peanut butter, maybe an apple or other fruit, sometimes something we pick up at a roadside stand.
When I insert my credit card at the gas pump, it displays a sign about seeing the attendant. “Sorry, Hon, we’re closed. Our whole system is down,” says the woman who greets me at the door. (As a sidebar, I’ve learned that the farther south you travel, the more likely it is that a waitress or a service station attendant will call you “Hon,” at least if that person is a woman and you are a man. I find this disconcerting but I believe I no longer cringe or look startled when this happens.)
I can’t help but point to the t-shirt I happen to be wearing today: “Temporarily Out of Service.” Everyone in the station gets a good laugh as we ride across the road to another venue.
We leave US 319 at this point and take local Route 122 for the last 10 miles or so into Florida. “Welcome to Leon County” says the small road at the state line. It’s a very unceremonious entry to Florida. Tallahassee is noted for a number of so-called “canopy roads”, where canopies of moss-festooned oak trees cover the highways that fan out of the city center like spokes of a wagon wheel. I’ve mapped the “Centerville Canopy Road” in honor of our hometown, so we ride the last 20 miles into Tallahassee under an exotic archway of giant live oaks draped with grey-green banners of Spanish moss. It’s been a light 195-mile day.My friend Emma Wood and I haven’t seen each other in several years. We’ve run into each other in places that have
run together in our minds, from New York to Texas to North Carolina. We met once on a remote road in Utah, Kitty and I heading north, Emma headed south, just a 30-second conversation on CB but one we both remember because neither had any idea the other would be there. So we’ve been plotting so see if we could get together this trip. We finally hook up by phone, and she rides the 50 miles or so to meet us at a restaurant within walking distance to our hotel. After an evening of talking about rides, riding, family, and life, we wave good-bye as she literally rides her Gold Wing into the sunset toward her home.After riding for nearly 900 miles through the fields and forests of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and now Florida, we’ve gone almost as far south as we can go toward the Gulf coast. Tomorrow we hope to find some coastal routes as we head west.
GPS Track Day 3
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