Into Florida…

Blind dog and his seeing man… Mimi’s neighbour and close friend, Rusty Fleming.

I left Brunswick half an hour before Patricia, and arranged to meet her south of Jacksonville. She had some last minute stuff to sort out, and I was quietly melting in the Georgia heat, which came a’calling earlier than it usually did…

Rusty and his blind dog came over to share a final cup of coffee with me and we chatted about a potential next visit to this neck of the woods, all depending on when I returned to South Africa.

There was much of Georgia that I still wanted to see, but time was not on my side, if we were to make it along the route I had planned and back to Jersey in time for Caley’s wedding, something I was not intending to miss !!

While we chatted, Nick, blind as a bat, bumped his way around and into the bike until Rusty finally picked him up and set him on my pannier for a photo call…

With a final wave to all, I rode down Union Street and onto the main road that would take me down to Highway 17, which in turn would take me along Ocean Highway and onto the I-95…

I took the longer route out of town because I wanted to ride over the Sidney Lanier Bridge one more time, a structure that I think is as beautiful as it is simple…

A beauty of a bridge…

I reached the Florida state line about an hour later, crossing the St. Mary’s river which acts as the boundary between Georgia and Florida, from the river’s headwaters hundreds of miles away to the west.

Crossing another line… In more ways than one !! Didn’t see the other sign in the background… Honest !!

These cows have something against chickens !! Clever ad campaign all along I-95…

Another state, another bridge. This one is over the St. John’s River, just outside Jacksonville.

I cruised past Jacksonville, crossing the St John’s River, the longest river in Florida, and one of the few rivers in the USA that flows north,

I dodged roadworks on the I-95 and got through to the southern part of the city where I pulled over to wait for my back-up driver.

The next few days would be a test of our communication skills, and I tried to make things simpler by agreeing that when we got to a town and could not see each other, we would always meet at the first service station on the right hand side of the road…

This worked well most of the time, except when there was no service station on the right hand side of the road, then all bets were off and frantic calls and texts ensued…

Downtown Jacksonville as seen at 80 mph… This city is the largest by area in the state of Florida

St Augustine town hall. Spanish influence etched in every brick…

We had planned to stop along the way for lunch, and chose the historic and pretty town of St. Augustine to do just that.

We parked close to the old town hall and then walked through the bustling and tourist filled pedestrian streets, a block up from the main road that runs along the waterfront…

The city is the oldest continually occupied European settlement in the USA, and was founded by a Spanish admiral in 1565.

It served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years, and today is a major tourist attraction, although it’s local population numbers barely more than 12 000…

After attacks by English privateers, including the infamous Sir Francis Drake, who burned the city down to the ground in 1586, the Spanish built an elaborate fort to protect the town from further attacks.

The Spanish offered refuge to any slaves who managed to escape from the British colonies to the north, and gave them arms and supplies if they agreed to join the Roman Catholic Church and swear allegiance to the King of Spain.

It does not say whether the slaves were given ammunition as well…

I wanted to take a walk around the fort but a sudden downpour sent us running from the restaurant we had enjoyed lunch at, to the safety of the car…

I was quickly beginning to understand that down here in the south, and especially Florida, you could expect rain around lunchtime, or by mid-afternoon at the latest.

Sometimes it hung about for hours, or was swept away by the wind as soon as the clouds had dumped their contents…

Riding in the afternoons would become a bit of a lottery over the next few days and I invariably got caught out by rain clouds that looked innocuous enough, but turned out to be anything but !!

These tractors are a cool way to see the historic sites of St. Augustine…

Just about says it all… Southerners are a different breed to their northern countrymen.

Despite the rain, tourists still thronged the streets, dashing between doorways or taking shelter under any awning they could squeeze under.

The local street tours continued unabated; little red tractors pulling two or three covered trailers, filled with “lookee-there’s”…

We rode out of St. Augustine and back out onto the highway, wanting to get to the small town of Mims, just north of Titusville where Tommy lived, in time to have a swim in the ocean, weather permitting.

We passed this sign in a store window, and agreed that both our hearts were smiling… Altogether now…. Aaaaah, sweet….!!

The days ride was not meant to be a long one, just 350 kms in total, but we had left later than planned and our leisurely lunch stop had also eaten into our timing… The rain we had to ride through south of Daytona did not help matters either !!

It came lashing down and visibility was soon reduced to a hundred yards or so. Patricia disappeared in the spray behind me, and I quickly realised that she drives much slower in the rain than I do…

I have no problems with riding in the rain and remind myself that once you are wet down to your skin, you cannot get any wetter !! I prefer to drop my chin onto my chest and push on regardlesss, not slowing down unless I am being buffeted by high winds too.

In the wet, the weight of the Big Fella tends to plow through any puddles that might have formed on the road and the Michelin Anakee 2 tyres that I have used for my entire ride around the world, are regarded by many, including myself, to be the best wet weather tyres on the market…

The fact that the set Iwas on had already covered almost 25 000 km was another matter entirely…

In any case, my instructor at the School for Lunatic Bikers once advised that there is no point in wasting time by stopping for rain, as it was always bound to stop at some point, and stopping just wasted precious time.  He must have been right, because I cannot recall it ever raining forever !!

Passing Daytona, I had to fight hard to hold the Big Fella back… He gets like that when he smells a racetrack…

Entrance to the Marine Park just outside Titusville.

Critters abound here it would seem.

I also met Tommy’s son Stephen, and was re-aquainted with his daughter Christina, who I had met in November 2011 at Patricia’s niece’s wedding.

After a hot day in the saddle, we enjoyed an hour on the beach just north of Cape Canaveral…

The sea here was a lot cleaner and after crossing a shallow sandbank, we were able to relax in deeper water and actually catch a few small waves. This was a vast improvement on the muddy waters of Georgia !!

Roaming the seashore with Tommy and Stephen.

Patricia and her nephew Stephen and niece, Christina.

While we were frolicking about, a ranger came roaring down the beach and instructed everybody he came into contact with, to pack up and prepare to leave. Apparently the beaches we were on closed at 6.00 pm ! Perhaps the authorities are afraid that people would swim over to the Space Centre under cover of darkness to hijack a rocket !!

We dutifully got all our stuff together and made our way back to the car-park, where I changed back into my riding gear and rode back to the mainland. I looked over to the Kennedy Space Centre where so many space shuttles had been launched from. I wished that I could have seen one blast off into the stratosphere, but since the Space Shuttle program has been mothballed, that was not something I was ever likely to see…

“What are we doing here…?” asked the Big Fella. “Well, I figured that since we’ve been around the world already, the moon might as well be next…!!” He seemed content with my reply…

After that, refugees are on their own !! Mother Theresa must be spinning in her grave !!

This motorcycle repair shop stands just around the corner from Tommy’s house. I think I may qualify for entrance, although the guys sitting outside it looked as rough a bunch of bikers as I had ever seen…!!

I wanted to get an early start the following morning, knowing that it was going to be a hot day and wanting to get as far along the road as possible before the heat really kicked in. For this reason, we declined Tommy’s kind offer to spend the night at his place, and opted instead to check into a motel, further along the interstate.

Not sure what it is world famous for, but the food was darn good !!

That, and the fact that when Patricia opened a suitcase, the room that she was in soon looked as though a bomb had gone off in it… We did not want to subject Tommy’s home to that !!

I guess the amount of gear that I take off my bike doesn’t help matters either !!

Later that evening we took Tommy and his family out to dinner at a local restaurant and as luck would have it, ended up spending half an hour in a queue, before we managed to snag a table.

While we waited, we watched children feeding the fish and turtles that were contained in a large pond that was built on three sides of the restaurant.

While Patricia and Tommy caught up with their news, Christina, Stephen and I played “20 Questions” ,a guessing game that they were very adept at, and at which I was clearly not !!

We said our goodbyes in the parking lot and followed by Patricia, I rode out onto the interstate and made my way south for several miles, down to the Super 8 Motel. In less than half an hour, we were showered and in bed, chatting about the ride we would make the following day…

It had been a good first day on the road together and a heck of an improvement on arriving at a hotel in the dark, alone but for a laptop, and the use of a TV that usually didn’t work !!

We went over a few hand signals that I wanted Patricia to be able to understand, ones that would tell her how much longer we would ride until we stopped, or how much fuel I had left on board etc… On this first day she had not understood much of what I was signalling and I guess the signals bikers use are not generally required by people using four wheeled methods of transportation…!!

For them, it is a simple matter to pick up their mobile phone, call each other and exchange info… It is not so easy to answer a phone doing 80 mph, wearing a helmet… Although I have become quite adept at texting while I ride !!

We were both looking forward to getting down to Key West the following day, so that I could tick off another of the goals I had set for myself, and Patricia could revisit a place she had not been to for many years…

©GBWT 2013