Love to Learn, Learn to Love.

Road Juice [Oct. 30, 2017]

Music today features Jimi Hendrix’s “Are you experience Different?” Well, are you?

This shot is from Tampa, “winter” 2015.
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Annell and I in front of the Comfort Inn and Suites, Charleston, SC, Oct. 30/17
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Arrived about an hour ago, pretty cool out there right now, 16 degrees C. with a significant wind which makes biking extremely tiring but I did make it. It took me nine days to do the 1200 miles (around 2000 km.) as I can handle only a 300 – 350 km. ride each day, about 200 miles. Today was really weird. It took me five hours due to the fact that I stopped more than usually, to add layers of clothing*; did about 300 km (approx. 200 miles) a day and I had to lay over twice I think it was, due to inclement weather.
*My seven layers – short-sleeve T, two long-sleeved tops, two sweaters, my leather jacket and a terrific windbreaker which made a huge difference. Actually.

Charleston
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Riding my trike … I am really enjoying the bike. Man, I’m telling you. The only real problem is weather. There is the odd issue with the trike, but thank the good Lord that thry’ve only been minor so far. Before leaving Montreal on Saturday, October 21st, I had been having trouble with GPS which kept falling off the wind screen due to the vibrations of 103 cu in (1690 cc.), 1100 lb. beast. That problem was regulated as can be seen below:
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I was very lucky weather-wise. It rained twice only during the nine days, once while I was traveling, light rain, short duration and last night. The seven layers I wore kept out the cold but there is still the wind with which I had to contend on today’s ride from Fayetteville to Charleston. Go figure. You would think that the further south one travels it should get warmer unless of course higher elevations come into play further south which was not the case today. The Carolinas are flat, man, some land here is actually below sea level which partly accounts for severe flooding which threatens this part of Ameri-ka.
I actually had to stop twice just to add clothing, my mitts (can’t wear gloves since Scleroderma has done a number on my hands), and an extra sweater.

I have reached far enough south that helmets are not compulsory. I have ridden without a helmet on my last bike trip to the southern states in winter/spring 2015, but only in the cities and towns in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

This is from Lake City, FL on a previous trip. I thought that I would see some Detroit Tiger spring training games in 2015 but the Tigers’ spring training site turns out to be in Lakeland, not Lake City.
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[I remember actually making shrieking “Yahoo” or some facsimile thereof, when I crossed the massive, huge and large Mississippi River delta back then.]

On the highways, parkways, freeways, turnpikes, inter-states, expressways and throughways I always wore a helmet. My friend Albert’s neighbour in Summerville, NC, told me when I was staying with Albert and his lively wife, Joan, in 2015, that if you’re driving a motorcycle at a speed of 35 mph or more, it wouldn’t matter if you were wearing a helmet or not, you would be a vegetable or dead. Sounds like an old wives’ tale to me.

This pic is from 2016, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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Albert on the left and Willie, the latter over 82 by now, and still riding.
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Joan
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Willie and I after a ride. What a cool guy. A retired teacher.
He toLd me that he had me in his heart. Likewise, I’m sure, Willie, man. One of the coolest people I have ever met. You’re gonna have to trust my judgement on that.
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The taxi driver, Bunmi, drove me home from B & E Stadium in Baltimore, MD, where I had gone to see the Ravens crush the hapless fish 40 to a big fat nothing. He’s an amazing guy as was Mohammad who drove me to the stadium. I asked Bunmi if he wanted to have a look at my trike when we got to the hotel where I was staying in Lutherville, about ten miles north of Baltimore. Trump country, by the way. 15C61F17-937C-4941-8D88-965FF95FDA1F

So we go round back and when we’re done looking at my motorcycle, I ask him if I should remove my GPS so that it didn’t get ripped off, something I have never done. He goes :
“Take it with you, man. Where do you think you are? Canada?”

Lutherville
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I meet many people who want to know about my bike. They also ask me if I drove all the way from Quebec – I have Quebec plates on my bike, “Je me souviens”. The older men, my age and a little older, seem particularly interested, their spouses, not so much. “For ged aboud it”.

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