Jacksonville Florida.

By all rights I should be in bed after a long ride, but it’s going to take a while for me to unwind.

For the most part the ride today from Hamilton Alabama was fairly boring. Don’t get me wrong it is a beautiful area, but a lot like Ontario. Only a little hotter, and a lot of vine plants growing up and around trees and other things.

Just before heading into Jacksonville I stopped at a gas station for fuel, and a break as usual, when I ran into a guy by the name of Sunny. I didn’t think people still named there kids, well… Like that… But hey it’s different. Anyway he was having problems with his car, aka it wasn’t shifting properly. I checked, and he was dangerously low on automatic transmission fluid. Having no money with himself, he was going to try and drive home as is... (60 miles)… Well I figured I might get some good karma if I just buy him a litre of tranny fluid, and send him on his way properly. Well I felt good about my self, said good by to him and finish my business (Gas, Food, water and washroom).

I got back on the road, and not ten minutes in there is a cop car on the side of the road. I rolled by slowly, looking to see what had happened. After what I saw I had to pull over. Turned out to be Sunny… The police officer was quick to hear my story, but then gave me a tong lashing for helping the guy out… Turns out Sunny was high as a kite! After leaving the gas station he knocked down a bunch of construction pylons and clipped a parked front end dozer. I had no idea he was high! There’s more to that story, but some other time…

A little later on I hit something hard. The bike jolted, and the steering went mad. I regained control quickly enough, but heard something nasty dragging behind me. I have no idea what I hit, but the dragging was from the center stand. It was a little late out, and it’s always scary to work on the side of the road in the dark, in the rain, with lighting all around. In the end it took me less than a minute to tie up the stand, but I didn’t want to do that with out something or someone around me watching for on coming vehicles… I was oddly confused when the first guy to stop to make sure I was ok, said that he couldn’t wait that long… Why bother stopping if you can’t spare a minute? After that I thought the bike was going to be history! I had tied flashing bicycle lights to the back of the motorcycle. Learned that from a past experience. I thought the bike was far enough off the road, but as luck would have it, this older lady came barrelling down the road way too fast and not paying attention to anything. From a safe distance I franticly waved my arms and a flash light to try and get her attention as she took the corner very wide and on to the shoulder… At the last moment she hammered the breaks on her old Delta 88… Honestly I thought she was going to skid into the bike from the way she hit those breaks. . As it turns out she was a nice lady… Just doesn’t pay attention to what she’s doing :)… She patently waited there with her four ways on, as I tied up the center stand. Now that I write that, it doesn’t seem all that exciting or scary… But it seemed like it at the time… :)

Any way I should head to bed soon…