Hobie Cat

I used to have an 18 foot Hobie Cat sailboat when I was in high scool. I loved that thing. So one thing on my list to do while I was in the Keys was to rent one. Brent and I finally found a place that had them and called about renting. They said sure, but there was a storm coming so we only had about a 2 hour window. That was fine with us so we suited up and headed out.

Brent and Me Sailing in the Keys

Key Colony Beach, FL

Vic rode with me for about an hour, showing me a route to avoid Miami traffic, as I headed to Key Colony Beach in the Keys. The ride was about 4 hours, and I arrived at my friends' Brent  and Suzzane's house. From here on out the pace will be much more mellow. I'll spend a day or so here hanging out before I go to Key West to start my ride to Alaska.

I haven't decided yet which route I'm going to take yet to get to Denver. Denver marks the start of my ride  north to Canada and my route is more established.

I'm Getting a Certificate!

I managed to pull it off--1000 miles in 24 hours, which got me from Alexandria, VA to West Palm Beach, FL. Yesterday I rode for about 11 hours and covered over 700 miles. I traveled through torrential rain in South Carolina and sweltering heat in Georgia and FL, and loved every minute of it. I don't care that my body still feels like it's vibrating, or that my hands are numb, or that my butt hurts; I'm going to get a certificate!

Pulling into WPB I couldn't believe I'd only left home the day before. It made me realize what you can do if you just do it. Like on a 3 day weekend I could ride to Cocoa Beach and be back to work by Mon afternoon ( that is, if I worked)., if for some reason I wanted to go to Cocoa Beach.. And you guys were right, my ass is sore. Really sore. But that's why they call it the Saddle Sore 1000 I guess.

I'm staying with my cool new biker friend Vic, who I met online in the FJR forum. I posted in the forum about my ride and he said Hey, I live in Palm Beach you can stay here! So cool. You can actually make real human connections online I discovered.

Vic

Gas Stop

Departure Day

Today is the day I leave VA for Alaska on my motorcycle, via Key West. What?! Yes, even though many have tried to talk me out of it, I'm riding to Key West first. To me, it makes perfect sense, because if I ride from Key West to Prudhoe Bay, AK (the Ultimate Coast to Coast) I get a certificate from the Iron Butt Association! I mean hell, if there's one good reason to go 1,200 miles out of my way it would be to get a certificate. But there's more. The Iron Butt association also gives a certificate for riding 1,000 miles in 24 hours. That's called the Saddle Sore 1000. I figured since I'm riding so far anyway I might as well go for that certificate on the way down to FL. See the logic? Not everyone does, but it's obvious to me. C'mon people.

Departure

One Possible Route

Test Ride 2: Outer Banks, NC

Test Ride Day 2

View Larger Map

The next day, the ride home was spectacular. The storm had cleared the sky, and it was about 65 degrees. I rode on Rt 3 north to Moorefield, WV. It was an awesome road with nice turns and roller coaster like hills. I was the only vehicle on the road most of the time. It runs for 35 miles through a valley with mountains on each side, and follows a river at times. The FJR was running great (as always) and it was blissful. I highly recommend that road if anyone's ever out that way. Oh yeah, another lesson, charge all your cameras and stuff before you take off (obvious I know). I wanted to use my GoPro Hero camera to film this amazing road, but the battery died. Decided I may want to spring for an extra battery as well. I did learn that the suction cup mount works great attached to the saddle bag, very secure actually.

I didn't get to test everything I wanted to, but in the end it was still a valuable learning experience. I'll try again this weekend if all goes well.

Test Ride

So I'm here in Brandywine, WV at the Brandywine Motel, room 6. It's 8:50 pm. This is my first test ride for my trip to Alaska on May 29. I got a really late start today, and didn't leave Alexandria until 4pm. No big deal though, the whole point of this trip is to carry my gear and see how things go. My intention was to camp out tonight at the Brandywine campground, but when I got there, it was closed. Just as well, because it started pouring rain while I was eating dinner at Fat Boy's Pork Palace, enjoying an awesome meal of ramps, eggs, bacon, ham and potatoes. If I'd camped I would have eaten an MRE. So luckily this motel was nearby. $47.

The ride was good, I was on the bike about 3 hours. Of course that's nothing compared to the hours I'll be putting in on the Alaska trip, but this is just a test to see how the gear rides mostly. Since I got a late start, I just took I-81 down to Harrisonburg, then 33 West. Normally I would avoid the interstates. 33 had some awesome twisties through the mountains for a stretch.  The bike just came out of the shop last week, getting all tuned up, and it was running awesome.

Got a chance to test out my new deLorme inReach satellite tracking device. It worked well, and tracked me all the way here, transmitting my position every 10 minutes, and plotting it on a map on the web. It has 2-way messaging capability even when you're out of cell phone range, but I haven't played with that yet.

It was also a chance to test out my large MotoFizz camping bag, which straps to the passenger seat. Most of my camping gear goes in there. It attached to the bike nice and secure, and there was plenty of room for my gear.

I ran into some rain about 20 miles east of Front Royal, but it didn' last that long. It was colder than I expected. As a base layer I wore an Ice Breaker wool shirt, and then my motorcycle jacket, and that was it. I stopped at one point to put the rain liner into my jacket to add a little wind blockage, and in case I ran into more rain. It helped a little, but I was still kind of cold. I'm likely to run into similar weather up in Canada, so I'll have to add a few layers to my packing list.