As we turned onto I-75 we got a respite from the sun and got a chance to let the bikes run out a little. Mike was still in the lead and he let the Connie eat some pavement. I'm not saying he was going overly fast but I had to twist the KawaTanker's throttle a little bit more than usual. We got to the exit around sunset and pulled into a packed truck stop to fuel, get a drink and maybe make a call or two if our phones worked.
Mike had a chance to call his daughter, after all, it was her birthday and what are dads supposed to do anyway, right? His phone had charged enough that he was successful in calling her and his wife Natalie. I decided that I would take this opportunity to call home too. One problem...the phone was almost dead. The Target recharger I had dropped $15 on did not work after all. Should I chance running out of juice on one call or save the juice for a few strategic text messages. Text message it was. After all, my SPOT was on and tracking so everyone could see where we were.
Mounting the bikes, Mike motioned me to the lead...oh great, just what I wanted to do, lead down through Tampa and into St. Petersburg, not one of my favorite places to ride. Off we go, back onto the super slab and heading south. I got a little giddy up in the KT and we were on our way. I'm sure Mike felt the pace a little on the slow side.
As we rode through downtown Tampa and out onto the Howard Franklin Bridge, or as we call it Howard Frankenstein Bridge, I noticed the wind had picked up and was blowing quite nicely out of the north-west. As we approached the bridge, I looked off to my left and right to see what the water looked like in the dimming light. Nice swells with white caps, excellent! That meant a great little crosswind would await us as we reached the apex of this bridge and with any luck, an even nicer one on the Skyway. How lucky can we be?
Down the apex we come amid the fast paced traffic, cages and trucks flying down the road oblivious to the stated 65 mph speed limit, intent on nothing else but getting home to watch American Idol or something of that sort. I scanned the road and saw that the far left lane was pretty empty and lead us into the empty lane, glad to get out of the mess in the other two lanes. As we made our way toward the far end of the bridge I caught a glimpse of something on the road to my left...couldn't make it out but thought it was just blowing paper or something inoquece.
About 100 yards later Mike appears to my right, motioning toward the bottom of my bike. What does he want? That isn't a sign for fuel, heck we just stopped. Does he think my tires are low? Checked that earlier, all was good. Maybe he needs to stop and his radio isn't transmitting.
He gets in front of me now and turns on his turn signal so I decide to follow. We slowly make our way over toward the shoulder. What is going on? Is my bike on fire or something? I sniff the air...smells like sea water, which it should because we are over Tampa Bay. I look down at my pants to see if they have oil on them, nope. Now we are stopped and Mike turns around in the saddle and yells something. Silly Mike, I have earplugs in.
M:
R: What?
M: Look under your bike man, what the heck is that?
R:
M: What is it?
R:
M:
The strange object I saw out of the corner of my eye was a life vest that had gotten blown out of somebody's boat as the pulled it toward their intended destination. As we pull away it starts to dawn on me how close that was to being a very bad situation. If the vest hadn't caught the spring on my kickstand, it could have very easily become lodged between the rear tire and the fender or the drive shaft. That would have probably been a very bad situation indeed.
Onward toward the Skyway again and my thoughts change to how much wind will we encounter on when we get there? Will the winds be down or will our 150 foot climb end up with gusts over what we have already seen? Approaching the entrance to the north toll booth we slow and pull of to the side to take our next photo. Mike decides that we should simply have one guy take the photos and the other hold the rally flags for speed purposes. Okie dokie, I'll hold, you take the pictures or should you hold and I take the pictures. We go with plan A.
The wind was now a non-factor because it was at our backs so up the bridge we go. I will say it was a gorgeous sight to see the area from the top of the Skyway by night, something I had never done before. Seeing all of Tampa and Bradenton/Palmetto in your field of vision with all the lights is something to see for sure. Our time was now around 2000 and I was starting to feel the day take its toll.
Still in the lead and on I-75 proper now, I put the KawaTanker on cruise. This was going to be a boring ride down toward Naples, about 150 miles +/- of nothing but flat roads and a few cities with crazy drivers. We motored on down the highway, listening to our Sirius radios and trying to figure out why Mike couldn't hear me on the radio. I had no clue what was up with my radio, probably rain got into it earlier in the day and rendered the transmissions unhearable by Mike.
We pulled into Naples at about 2200 and refueled at our exit that lead to our intended next road, US Hwy 41 across Florida to our next 5 points of the rally. We decided that a drink and some food would be good so we took a little longer break here, enough to get some water, a snack and send my last text. Simple message: Naples at 10 PM, battery dead, follow SPOT.
Now we head out into the vast southern reaches of Florida...the Everglades. The road signs warn of alligators and panthers in the area. I'm hoping for no sightings of either. The temperature was now in the low 50's so I was pretty sure that we wouldn't see an alligator. Panther...they spook easy so probably not that either. Still it will be a slower ride now, night time speed limits are 45, so we aren't going to haul it through, nice and easy.
Destination is Smallwood Store and Museum, somewhere east and south of Naples. I say that because my GPS, Gretta the Lyin Machine, has decided she didn't want to work either. She froze up hours ago and I'm waiting for her to die so I can restart her. Big Jim had told me how to reset it once but I can't remember how to save my soul. Oh well, Mike has his so we are all good.
We make the turn south toward Smallwood. I hadn't looked at the route too much in advance of the ride so I had no idea what we were in store for. This place is was out in the middle of nowhere, through a couple small town, down a goat trail, then a cart path, and finally some lane and a half path to a small building built on stilts. We position our bikes so the headlight are aimed at the plaque and get the flags in position for the picture. The entire time I'm thinking: I sure hope some back water local don't think we are robbing the place and come out with guns ablaze and asking questions later. Whew, done and back heading north, out of the backwoods.
Back on 41 and heading for point number 6, the Miccosukee Indian Village and an appointment with a giant Miccosukee Indian wrestling an alligator. It was around 2330 when we were heading that direction. My GPS suddenly decided it was going to become compliant, probably because she noticed the KawaTanker wasn't successful earlier in the day with the same shenanigans. I KNEW WHERE WE WERE NOW! Most excellent. We were exactly in the middle of nowhere, heading for south nowhere in a little bit.
We rode on and on and on toward Miami, the GPS saying we were getting close to our intended destination. I looked off to my right and saw a village or something that resembled one but continued to follow Mike's lead. He turned on his turn signal and we entered a store/air boat place. Mike stopped. I pulled up beside him.
M: I think we are looking for something up by the building
R: You sure
M: Yeah
R: Ok buddy, you have the pictures.
Pulling up toward the building, we are looking for a big Indian wrestling an alligator...nothing but pictures of food on the sign and an air boat. Dang, did we miss it? Mike says we missed it, have to head back west, back to the village we passed a mile back. Oh well, first mistake of the day in routing.
Turning into the parking lot, we see the giant statue and aim our bikes across the lot at it. As we pull up and get off our bikes with our headlights properly aimed, we both noticed two security cars to our west in the far area of the parking lot. Probably Miccasukie Indian guards. I think this is what they were saying as they looked at us:
G1: What the heck are they doing?
G2: Looks like two biker dudes but I can't see what they are doing.
G1: Should we go investigate?
G2: Probably just some more of those silly guys we saw earlier in the afternoon taking pictures. We'll just watch them and make sure they don't do anything stupid.
G1: Ok, but I'll get my one bullet ready just in case.
Leaving Barney and Andy behind, I'm in the lead heading toward our seventh point, the infamous Flamingo Visitors Center in beautiful Flamingo, FL to search for the Guy M. Bradley plaque. Little did we know that at 100 hours we were getting ready for the worst and scariest part of our trip yet.
Have you ever put your pant liner in while looking out onto Straight of Florida? Or better yet, ever seen a spooky dude leering at you from the woods in the middle of nowhere?
Part 4: Who is that dude?
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