Archive for the ‘My Cross Country Journal’ Category

Day Two – Saturday April 11, 2009

Up at 5am to get packed up and ready to roll. The bad weather has subsided and the skies are clear. I have a long journey to New Orleans ahead of me today. It’s about 750 miles and takes about 11 hours in a car. It took me about 13 hours on my bike. When you have to stop every 2 hours for gas, not to mention sitting on a motorcycle doing 80mph for that long you need take a few breaks. Not much else to say about the ride down….just a lot of riding.

Just after reaching Louisiana I had to stop to clean the bugs off my face and my glasses. I got pelted by a dragon fly and let’s just say he didn’t make it and he remains were all over my face. There are so many bugs through the south and I ate a few. When I was pulled off the side of the road cleaning off my glasses a guy on crotch rocket passed me going the other directions. About 5 minutes later he pulled up behind me. He said “hey bro, is everything alright?” I proceeded to tell him that I was just cleaning off the bugs. He laughed and said “dude, you need to put that full face on down here with all the bugs down here.” I laughed and said that I was a glutton for punishment. I thanked him for stopping to check on me and his response was “he bro, it can be a lonely place out here on a bike when you’re by yourself and I am just doing my duty by checking on a fellow biker.”

There is something truly special about riding. You have a whole new family. It is truly a lifestyle and a culture. Bikers almost always wave at each other when passing by out of respect. There is so much to more to riding a bike than just the thrill. I am truly grateful to be a part of such a great culture.

Upon stopping for one more tank of gas to get me to my final destination I met about seven guys on Harleys filling up at the same station. One of the guys asked me where I was headed with all that gear. I told him I was going to New Orleans then off to the west coast. He said they were from New Orleans and heading back that direction. They offered to ride with me in to town and they would show me where my hotel was. Of course I was thrilled about this. I got a nice escort to my hotel by 7 other Harley guys! That was freaking cool! That was a fantastic finish to a long day of riding.

Upon checking in to the hotel I went to the bar for a drink and some food before even heading off to my room. After relaxing with a couple cocktails and some good food, I went off to get showered up and ready to hit up Bourbon Street.

Bourbon Street was fun. I pretty much started at the beginning and walked down one side and then back up the other side stopping in to places that peaked my interest. Mostly I went in to the bars that had live music. I’m a sucker for live music. I did notice however that there where a lot of performers and not actual bands. Basically they had all the regular instruments set up, but the where actually playing the songs on a sound system and there were a couple of guys up there singing the lyrics. Some of the singers were actually pretty good, but the whole thing was kind of disappointing. Aside from that it was a good time and there were lots of other “real” bands playing that were really good.

After leaving Bourbon Street on my walk back to the hotel I stopped Harrah’s Casino for a little action. I won a little money at black jack and roulette. Then it was on to hit the sack, I was exhausted and I have a long day of riding ahead of me tomorrow.

Okay, so I am really late publishing my cross country journey, but it’s better late than never I guess right? So here ya go, day one!

Day One – Friday April 10, 2009

Well, after spending all morning packing up and trying get everything into my motorcycle bags I realized the I didn’t have enough room to fit everything that I originally planned on taking….like my computer. I had to go back to UPS store and ship the rest of the stuff that I couldn’t fit.

Then, it was on to the North Hills to pick up my full faced helmet that Cyrus was kind enough to give to me and to say one last good bye to my friends. Good byes are always tough, especially when you’ve made such good friends in one place.

Anyway, on the road I go… when I left Raleigh it was sunny and warm, well about an hour in to the trip it started raining, then it started pouring. I stopped at the HD dealership in Charlotte to pick up some new gloves. The gloves I had were not waterproof or warm by any means. So, an $90 pair of gortex gloves later….I had dry and warm hands.

After leaving the HD dealer, I stopped at a biker bar next door for some lunch and was trying to wait out some of the storm. At this point is was pouring so bad that there was zero visibility. After I finished my lunch, the rain actually stopped. Although I knew the storms weren’t over I had to get back on the road and try to get as far as possible. I had to be in New Orleans on Saturday night because I had reservations and I didn’t plan on missing them.

So back on the road I go. After about 20 minutes I hit rush hour traffic and with the storms, plus it being Friday….this was not good. I can sit in traffic, in fact I just drive up between the rows of cars anyway. J After bobbing and weaving through the traffic, I saw a bunch of flashing lights….there apparently were a couple of accidents up ahead. Well, back in line I go. L So as I sit the rain starts coming down again and hard. So I am just sitting in rush hour traffic which is literally not even moving and then it starts to hail. Yep, that’s right hail and it was big hail. The closest exit was off in the distance and there were police everywhere so there was no riding up the side of the road to get off.

I sat in this hail storm for about an hour until I finally made it to the exit. I got off the exit the hopes to find shelter. Luckily there was a gas station right off the exit. I hung out there for a while trying to see what was going to happen. The manager there informed me that it was only supposed to get worse. I checked with weather.com on my blackberry and he was right. I was driving right in to the storm, not to mention traffic was not moving. At this point I have been on the road for 8 hours and have only made it just about 30 miles south west of Charlotte….that’s not very good time. In fact, that’s about double what it should have taken.

I was in luck, there was a Holiday Inn right down the street. It was 7pm and I was wet, cold and tired. It was time to call it a day. I pulled up to the Holiday Inn, walked in the lobby and said to the front desk associate “I need a room”. She looked at me like I had 2 heads and said “well I would say so”. She among everyone else I encountered along the way thought I was crazy….not like I haven’t heard that before anyway. J Well, fantastic first day of my journey, this crazy guy will continue his journey tomorrow.