Day 16: Salisbury, MD to Home

The route and roads from Salisbury, Maryland to home are familiar and somewhat often traveled roads for T and G. It is unlikely that there is anything of significance that we could write about on the final leg that would be worthy of sharing with you. So instead, as promised, we are going to give you our listing of our top 10 highlights of the trip,  the only five low lights we could come up with, and some other miscellaneous shared thoughts from behind-the-scenes.

Highlights:

1. Toe dip, San Francisco

2. PCH

3. The elephant seals

4. Seligman on route 66

5. The Meteor Crater

6. The Painted Desert

7. The RoadRunner on route 66

8. Ouachita National Forest on Arkansas route 7

9. Toe dip in Myrtle Beach

10. The beauty of the Outer Banks

*plus special mention, getting home safely has to have its own significance!

Lowlights:

1. The road conditions on route 66 from Daggett to Newberry Springs

2. Rain

3. Heat

4. Russellville, Arkansas is a dry county

5. G's bad hands

*special mention on this side of the ledger goes to wishing we had another two weeks to further explore the small towns along our route.

Further to that point, how long can you spend with a really close friend before you need a break? A week? A couple of days? A couple of hours?  Well, we had 16 days together around the clock under a myriad of conditions that could stress most any relationship-yet we were still wishing for those extra two weeks together.  We spent some time analyzing why it worked well for us, what one or the other guy did that helped to make a difference- for us. Presented as our abstract thoughts, they were:

Trust without hesitation

Humor without reason

Adventure without expectation

Friendship without limits

Assistance without request

Dialog without couching

Good lemonade, no lemons

Keeping focus – there is good in every situation

Flexibility is often a stronger virtue than conviction-compromise is often its own reward

Acceptance for what is 

Laugh at yourself – often!

When riding with someone it is not about your ride,nor their ride- it's about THE ride 

Our past has brought us to this moment, live it fully before it is (our) past.

S2O, signing off.

Day 15: Kill Devil Hills, NC to Salisbury, MD

The morning was ...crisp. We checked out communities in the northern part of the island that G was interested in. It was a pretty ride but then we had to backtrack because there are a limited number of ways off the island.

We continued north towards Salisbury. After yesterday, our butts started to hurt after 150 miles. The last miles were painful. Some of the pain was eased however when we arrived at the hotel and saw large numbers of bikers. Upon inquiry we learned that this was bike week in that area. Another fortuitous surprise. However, after 14 days of riding under many different conditions our bodies were not quite up to keeping pace with the rest of the bikers. A nice dinner, several glasses of wine and we were done. The fatigue is more telling now. Only one more day. It will be good to get home but it is sad to have it end.

Day 14: Myrtle Beach, SC to Kill Devil Hills, NC

The morning was....Fuzzy. The weather was nice, not to hot, just a little cloudy. However, it was the first 300+ mile day we had done this trip. It used to be routine, but we had never run for two weeks straight before. Needless to say, it was a bit much. Our butts started screaming after 275 miles, and once they start fidgeting you are done for the rest of the trip. Even the eventual beauty of the Outer Banks could not ease the pain of our outer flanks.

So dinner at Awful Arthur's( an old standby) and a new Arthur's shirt(also a standby) helped to ease the pain. With a room overlooking the Kitty Hawk Pier and a bottle of wine, the evening wound down. Goodnight.

Day 13: Augusta, GA to Myrtle Beach, SC

"Motion to the Ocean"

The morning was brisk and we donned our jackets to start off. We had a fair number of miles to cover so we got a reasonably early start. As we coursed through miles of tree lined scenery on our " Motion to the Ocean", scores of golden yellow butterflies danced around our heads as though confetti streamers for a victory parade. The miles melted away quickly as we enjoyed thoughts that our labors would soon be rewarded. Who would have thought that a person with one eye and a person using mostly  one hand could traverse the country on motorcycles together. Mountains, curves, rain, cold, desert and heat for more than 3500 miles! And yet we were nearing the bounty.

We pulled into town in the early afternoon. We found parking spots for the motorcycles a block from the beach and headed to the sand at the Oceanfront Bar and Grill. Incredulously we took our pictures (dipping our right foot into the Atlantic, having dipped the left in the Pacific) and asked passersby to help us in taking some more. We decided a victory drink was in order so we went into the Oceanfront Bar and Grill. Needless to say, many had observed our efforts and many more were interested in what we were doing and the story of our trip. BST happily returned to duty and we soon realized that most of the patrons were motorcyclists, knew bikers, wished they were bikers or were just curious about bikes- which was fine by us. One victory drink became two (Fat Tire beer seemed appropriate) and then we wisely decided to gather our bikes while we could still safely ride them. 

Then, just as we had started the trip at Dudley Perkins Harley Davidson and buying shirts, we set course for the local Harley shop. T of course added shirt and hat to his Smithsonian level Harley collection and G again purchased a shirt for self and spouse.

We checked into our hotel, a bit drained from the realization that we could relax some now(though we had several more riding days to get home). Dinner and more victory  drinks definitely seemed in order. We walked to a nearby restaurant and happily pursued both. Then back to the hotel for the bike trip requisite finally, shot and a beet. We decided on a milder abuse-sambucca. The hotel didn't carry it. Back to the restaurant- they too had never heard of it. We defaulted to the tried and true Jack Daniels(honey version). And defaulted some more. Oh hell, we earned it, right? We think the night ended after that.

We deferred posting our celebratory news because we didn't want to take away from the solemnity of 911. However, our venture, our bucket list trip, was born from the realization of the uncertainty of life and nothing more poignantly evidences the frailty and uncertainty of life than the tragic events of 911. We thought it was fitting that we achieved our goal on 911 and it will help us to have something positive to associate with that date. It also happens to mark the third anniversary of T's retirement, strangely enough. 

We have three more days of travel to get home and are tremendously fortunate to have had his experience. We will continue the blog until we get home but there will be remarkably less to note during those days. To compensate, in one of the next few days we will share some behind the scene thoughts on highlights, lowlights and why we feel the trip went as well as it did.

Yippee!

Day 12: Atlanta, Ga to G work to Augusta, Ga

The day was....NOT BALMY!

We got up early for G to go to work. It was at an earlier time than we were used to getting up. We were now on a new time zone so that meant it was also an hour earlier to boot.

What does this all add up to? It means two sleepy hombres with frost on their pumpkins. Later in the day when all G's work was done it was time to head to Augusta. We rode quickly because the time was late. On the way to Augusta our trip meters passed 3000 miles. Hard to believe we've gone so far.

We checked in and walked across the street for some light fare. It was an early night for two tired riders. 

Day 11: Tuscaloosa, MS to Atlanta, GA

It is Sunday and we awoke to a clear and pleasant day it was excellent riding weather to continue the work detour to Atlanta for G. However, pre- ride inspections showed G's steed needed some oil. We replotted our course to the Harley dealer in Pelham, Alabama with the hopes of making it to Atlanta in time to see the Eagles game on TV at 1 p.m.

We rode with all due haste the 50 miles to the dealership and arrived as they opened at 10 a.m.  T added a shirt to his cavernous collection, G is holding out for when we land in Myrtle Beach.

Of course we looked at bikes and chatted with other bikers (BS T). It took longer than planned and we set out again    realizing our time was even shorter than we thought since we would have another time change- we lost an hour!

We got into Georgia, lost our hour and were finally back onto our original time zone. Priority changed then to finding a sports bar to watch the first half of the game because we were at least an hour from the hotel. I wonder why none of the Atlanta sports bars seemed to have the Eagles game on?

We decided to go directly to the hotel and catch what we could. While we were stopped, G looked at his odometer and saw that it read 11111.1 total miles life to date on the bike. It was a weird sight!

We boogied to the hotel and got there at half time. The hotel was pretty empty so the sports bar was willing to change the station to the Eagles game. We almost wished that they hadn't. An unfitting reward after a long fast ride. But it was a win nonetheless.

A quick workout, planning for the next day, a couple adult beverages and early to bed for tomorrow was a work day. On the new time zone!

Day 10: Greenville, MS to Tuscaloosa, MS

This morning we woke to the pitter patter of little tiny rain feet. Not what we wanted to hear, but what we expected from the forecast. The weather channel became our favorite program and helped us to formulate our travel plan. 

We went down to breakfast and met our new best friend, breakfast host Belvis. She didn't treat us any differently than the rest of the patrons, and yet she treated us like royalty. This took away some of the sting from the rain forecast.

We then retreated to the room and continue to watch the weather channel with hope and anticipation. The detour to Atlanta for G to work was already going to cost us 2 to 3 days and we not only had to be there by Monday but we could not afford extra days. And for G, not every day was Saturday like it is for T. Whoops, today IS Saturday – how about that! 

The weather channel was on but we were already planning the chess match of H2O versus S2O!! H2O was going toward Tuscaloosa just as we were, with a gap in the clouds and then another batch of storms. We planned our strategy to wait for the right opening and to try to go at the right pace to stay rain free. T, known for the patience of a killer bee, paced and busied himself with the extra time. G on the other hand had been up with the pain in his hands much of the night and therefore welcomed the extra time to rest.

At about 11 AM we decided it was time. Plus we were being kicked out of our hotel rooms because it was checkout time. The Rain King had used many of his pawns to keep us at bay until 11 AM. We knew that we had a very powerful adversary and had to play the game well. We took our opening and move the game forward. The rain King countered using his minions the Wind Rook and the Wind Bishop to come at us straight on, from the side and diagonally. For over 100 miles we were buffeted and pushed around the roads. We sacrificed a few pawns and we used our knight to go two spaces forward and one over, two to the left and one forward. We stopped and regrouped at Eupora, the site where we went over 2500 miles for the trip. It was there that we boldly, ambitiously took off our rain gear and  pushed forward through the opening that we perceived the rain king's strategy had left us. We passed large flocks of white egrets by local watering holes. We couldn't stop to take pictures because we were still engrossed in the match and there was no place we could safely stop in the stones in the shoulder of the road.

30 miles from Tuscaloosa we knew we had won the match. The sun came out in all it's glory. It was only matched by the wonderful, accepting dispositions of all of the Alabama football fans that were staying at our hotel. We felt like celebrities because everybody wanted to know more about and talk to the guys whose bikes were parked out front.

As a matter of fact, everyone that G spoke to had already spoken to T and knew our story. G has already coined a new name for T and it is BS Thomas. No it's not what you think. The BS stands for biker schmoozer! The Alabama fans really treated us well and gave us a wonderful feeling for this area.