Shakedown cruise to Panama city (Part 2)

Thought I would pick up where I left off yesterday when the batteries died on me. Got a question by text: Just what do you do with your gum while eating a bagel on the road? Good question and I have a very graphic answer in the photo. I store it by sticking it to the lid of my coffee thermo and then when the bagel is gone and I have had a chance to rinse out my mouth with coffee to get rid of the bagel bits so that it will not disolve my gum then I put it back in my mouth to chew for a couple of hundred more miles.

A matter of perspective. Most people look at trees on both sides of the highway as a colorful sight. Me, I see it as a highway patrol heaven where they can sit in the meridian and nail unsuspecting motorists from both directions under cover of dense vegetation. Have seen more that one motorist meet their Waterloo. On I-10 within 50 miles of Tallahassee is compounded by the highway patrol training grounds at the State Police Academy.

This is what I call an identity crisis. Florida State University is known as the Seminoles and they had a home game. There must have been 10,000 vehicles on the roads with stick on Indians and war clubs stuck to the glass. You can get a better view by clicking on the photo. Don’t know how they get away with using an Indian tribe as a mascot but then who knows.

To my mind, the secondary two lane roads in rural Florida are the most dangerous threat to motorcycles. This is especially so when they are clear cutting slash pine. The logging trucks come out of blind woods with these super long loads of logs. To get stuck behind one of thos trucks is to eat pine bark for miles. It is hard to pass one because the flying pine chips reduce visibility and turning lights on these trucks are natoriously malfunctioning.

Pulling a trailer with a motorcycle is a tricky proposition. You see, there are no trailer brakes and the brakes on a motorcycle are miniscule at best. That means in a city, I am working the lights two or three ahead so that I can gear down on the approach to a red light and hit when it is green so that the brakes are not engaged. On the highway, it means being super alert so that you don’t get caught in a spot where you have to make quick stops.

Again and again I am asked as much as I ask myself why am I doing what I do? As I said up front, on any given day you might get a different answer but by far ahead of what ever may be in secon place is the faces of that represents the hearts of those in the photo below.

 

 

 

 

This is what makes the world go around and life worth living. Smiles plain and simple. Children that will now have a chance to get to the starting blocks of life. Mothers that will now have an opportunity to be a mother.