Sturgis Rally
Wednesday, Day 15
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Highlights of the day
Seems that the rain lightened up just before dawn. Everything was still wet though. We checked the weather and got some breakfast before taking off for home. The weather for today is not going to be good. The front has a lot of rain, still more tornadoes and is heading directly east below us. The plan is to take a southern route for the Florida border and then slide in behind the storm and follow it home. Sounds like a great plan in theory. We'll see how that works for us.
We head out onto I65 south toward Birmingham. We just couldn't have timed that better either, rush hour. Just on the southside, we hit rain again. Now we're not traveling at a good speed but overall it was a good thing. If we knew now (to slow down), what we are going to know later, it would have made for a more pleasant trip home. We also managed to get derailed and onto the wrong road on the southside of Birmingham. Don't know we did it but we did. So we stopped to ask for directions. You would think that people who live in the area would know how to get onto the main highway and which direction was South. I guess when you don't have a car, you have no need for a highway and those are not the right people to ask for directions. You don't think about these things until after you put all the clues together, then it all falls into place and makes sense. So after the gas station attendant, the guy with no car, the next guy manages to at least point us in the right direction so that we can make it back on the highway. At this point, Ricky's patience meter is in the red. Yes, that's like out of gas and reserve doesn't even exist. Going to be a great trip home.
Finally, back on the highway and in the right direction. Both of us a bit annoyed at the incidents of the morning and the weather. We just want to get home and get dry. When we get to Montgomery, we are going to shoot SE toward Dothan, AL and then straight down south into Florida and across I-10 East. Why don't I just start laughing now.
Montgomery looks like a good place to stop and get some lunch. We can also get the best route south. Now the thing about me is I don't like to ride in front. I can do really well in the back and I don't like to ride so close that I can't react. Ricky on the other hand likes to ride tight and remember the patience meter? It's now reading ZERO. He is not any too happy about me riding slow and cautious. Excuse me but the roads are wet, we are in traffic, in town. So the annoyed voice says, "Come on, lets go!" OK fine, I'll go. So I give it some gas and at that same time, the car in front of me gives it the brakes. Now I have to give it the brakes. The back wheel locks up, I go into a rear wheel skid and I can see the underside of that car just as clearly as I can see it's bumper. Somehow, I managed to pull it out of the skid and cut into the left lane, where the car to my left had obviously seen what was going to happen and hit the brakes. Ricky said something to which he got a dirty look. I pointed to a restaurant a few blocks down and headed for it. If he was with me, fine. If not, that was fine too. Don't remember what kind of restaurant it was but it was a place for me to recover from that near disastrous end of my trip.
After lunch we pulled out the map and decided to shave off the SW GA corner and SE to Bainbridge and take 27 down into Florida and ot I-10. Somewhere after we got onto 27 we managed to get back off of it and end up in Whigham, GA. Whigham is not even on our map. So Ricky asked the police officer for directions and we went on our way. It probably cost us another 20 miles but we ended up where we should have after our detour. We hit I-10 and the wash from the trucks was heavy. Then we hit heavy rain as we had managed to get under the moving storm. The next bridge we found we scurried under. Ricky was cursing the truckers as they would pull in front of us and as far as he was concerned they were deliberately trying to soak us. He wanted to wait out the storem and let it get in front of us then we would proceed once again. We watched several trucks running at speeds well above the speed limit. Once the rain slowed, we got back on the road. About 10 miles down the road, one of the trucks that had sped by while we were under the bridge was jack-knifed into the woods, the driver still in the seat behind the wheel. There were a couple small trucks stopped to help so we kept going. Once again we got under the storm and stopped under a bridge. Another half hour goes by and we scoot on out and on our way again. It's now 5:00pm and pouring down rain so we pulled off at a convenient store to wait it out. I couldn't go in because not only were my boots full of water, my gloves had soaked through the stitching and water had gone up my sleeves from the blowing winds. I might as well have had on a wet suit rather than a rain suit for all the good it did me. I would have turned to ice going into the store as the A/C had fogged up the windows and you couldn't even see into the store. While we were there, another motorcycles was waiting out the storm and a U-Haul had pulled over with a cracked windshield. The driver told us that he had a tree fall on the truck.
By 6pm, I'm tired of waiting out this storm, which doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. But it is getting lighter on the western side of us. I talked Ricky into once again setting out on our way. The rain had pretty much stopped and we were traveling between 65 - 70. Half an hour down the road and out of no where a red car speeds past us on the shoulder of the road doing well above 80mph. In the distance we see the car go off the road, slide sideways, then back toward the road. We slowed down as we anticipated the car to come back up on the road and cause many accidents. There was no where for us to go as there was traffic tot he left of us. Then the car slides toward the treeline and comes to a stop. As we passed the car, we saw children in the back seat. We slowed to a stop and a truck behind us stopped as well. We walked over to make sure the children were alright. I called 911 and reported the accident. The girl that was driving the car didn't have a cell phone and asked to use mine to call her husband. She called her husband already.... at the local jail. After she hung up she started yelling at Ricky, "Why didn't you get out of my way? I had my emergency flahsers on, blowing the hor, you have to get out of my way!" We looked at each other in disbelief. Was this girl totally nuts? Where were we going to go? Into the side of a tractor-trailer? Just so she could get on with her emergency? Talk about people who can't accept responsibility for their actions. At this point, I'm thinking if it wouldn't have been for the kids inthe backseat, I'd be damned if I would have stopped to help such an inconsiderate human being. The emergency we found out was that her husband was getting released from jail and she was running late to pick him up.
When the deputies arrived, she immediately set to telling them it was our fault for not getting out of her way. After about 30 minutes of this one of the offices walked over and said we could go. Ricky made sure heknew what had happened and he said, "Yeah, that is the same thing she told us but we explained Florida law to her and she is going to get several tickets. You all drive safe". So we went on our way and the time was just about 7:00pm.
By now the storm is way ahead of us and unless we go faster than the speed limit, we won't catch it. We didn't talk about it but neither of us even mentioned dinner. The accident was 15 miles west of the I-75 interchange and we still had about 150 miles to go, that puts us with another 2-3 hours, depending on the weather. I had figured about 9:00 pm, we would be getting home but now it looks like it is going to be more like 10:00pm.
We stopped one more time for gas just before Jacksonville. I took off my wet long sleeve shirt and replaced it with a dry sweatshirt. Changed my soaked gloves to more dry fingerless gloves. My boots, well, SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH. Can't do anything about that. It was dark by the time we hit Jacksonville but at least we didn't have to deal with rush hour traffic. It was getting coler as we got onto I-95 south. I could have sworn I saw a little dog roaming around the on ramp but it was dark and the rain had once again started to come down. I couldn't wait to get off the Interstate in favor of a slower road so that it wouldn't be so cold. I had to have Ricky take the lead once it got dark as my night vision just isn't comfortable for me to lead the way. We finally rolled in the driveway at 10:30pm. I said, "I would be happy with a hot shower, a hot dog, and some sleep". 10 minutes after the hot dog I was asleep on the couch. We spent 16.5 hours on the road that day going a miserable 599 miles.
The next day we got calls and emails from Phil, Allen, and Dennis wondering what had happened to us as they hadn't heard anything and we certainly were not going to call anyone at 11pm. Dennis had said that he was going through bike withdrawals and wanted to make another trip. But in his boredom he had taken his starter apart. He just had to call us with his find. There inside his starter was the skeleton of a bug. The skeleton was keeping the starter from making contact in that one little spot and that is why the bike was not firing up. Of all things to cause it not to run.
Today's best pictures
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| Ricky the "Bungee Man" |
Caution |
At the lodge |
More Photos from this trip
The Journey
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