{"id":16569,"date":"2011-02-16T18:08:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T23:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/16569\/glorious-vacation-day-1\/"},"modified":"2011-02-16T18:08:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-16T23:08:14","slug":"glorious-vacation-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/16569\/glorious-vacation-day-1\/","title":{"rendered":"MOST GLORIOUS VACATION&#8211;DAY 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Day I\u2014Tuesday, June 1<sup>st<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Loaded all the same stuff as last year minus the leather jacket and heavy gloves.\u00a0 (This will prove to be a major mistake.)\u00a0 In their place I packed the computer Gloria bought; I\u2019m hoping to learn how to use it on the road.\u00a0 Tristan and Jenny assured me that <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">all<\/span><\/strong> McDonald\u2019s restaurants have free Wi-Fi.\u00a0 I thought I could write up the trip as it happened.\u00a0 In practice, it\u2019s like kissing while chewing gum.\u00a0 It just gets messy.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Start miles=20,387\u2014time 7:03am:\u00a0 All times will be Eastern daylight time, as I have no intention of resetting my watch for every time zone I intend to cross.\u00a0 SR520 to the Orlando EW expressway to Regan turnpike, North to Gainesville: 1<sup>st<\/sup> gas\u201410:20am\u20143.35g-20552 miles.\u00a0 Continue to I-10 west thru Tallahassee: 2d stop\u201412:30pm\u20143.114g-20704 miles.\u00a0 3d stop\u20143.114g-20835 miles 3:10pm.\u00a0 Arrive in Alabama 4:50pm at 20907 miles.\u00a0 Good Lord!\u00a0 It took 520 miles and just under 10 hours just to get out of Florida.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At this point I decided to stay on I-10 until I came to Pascagoula, Mississippi. Then I would go south and ride old Rt. 90 thru the beach cities observing the oil spill first hand as I go.\u00a0 It makes one feel important to see something in person that everyone is talking about.\u00a0 There is enough daylight left to get me to Bay St Louis, Louisiana and I can visit the beaches that I knew so well back in the sixties.\u00a0 I had been successfully ducking thunderstorms all afternoon, but now they were getting ugly.\u00a0 The black bottoms of the southern Nimbus clouds appeared to be growing hair and lightning was frankly scaring the Hell out of me from time to time.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I still managed stops in my old stomping grounds of Gulfport, Biloxi (that\u2019s BLUX-see to you Yankees) and Pass Christian.\u00a0 Somewhere near here, I gassed up again during a rain:\u00a0 4<sup>th<\/sup> gas stop\u20142.93 gallon-6:20pm.\u00a0 Traffic was stop &amp; go but the beaches were near barren and pristine.\u00a0 There was much talk of the oil spill, but I saw no sign of it.\u00a0 I was too early.\u00a0 The pictures on TV were from some outer islands and the main body of the spill will show up long after I have left the area.\u00a0 The main difference now is that there are no houses near the beaches.\u00a0 A spate of hurricanes cleared them out a few years back, and this time new housing was built about \u00bd to \u00be miles from the water.\u00a0 I love these good ol\u2019 boys and belles, but have never accused them of being a quick study. LOL.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I made the mistake in Bay St. Louis of deciding to stay on old Rt. 90 to New Orleans.\u00a0 Thought I could get a room on Bourbon Street and spend a night at the famous French Quarter. It was not to be.\u00a0 From here the road was in the middle of a swamp.\u00a0 One could not pull off to the right or left without having Louisiana quicksand become his coffin.\u00a0 It was here and now that the worst storm of the day attacked me head on.\u00a0 Rain and wind were relentless and there was nowhere in this God forsaken swamp to escape.\u00a0 Only the near continuous ground strikes by lightning provided enough visibility to keep the bike moving.\u00a0 I crouched behind the windshield, turned on my emergency blinkers, and reduced my speed to 25 miles per hr for what seemed like hours.\u00a0 At last, there appeared a public rest stop just off the highway.\u00a0 Better yet, like Florida they boast nighttime security.\u00a0 I can dry out, lie down on a bench and get some much needed rest without being bothered.\u00a0 Wrong again!\u00a0 Security in Louisiana is there to make sure you don\u2019t abuse their hospitality by staying out of the rain more than a few minutes.\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t just let people stay overnight\u201d a guard explained to me.\u00a0 Authorities in Louisiana will impress me less than any other state on this trip.\u00a0 Their welcome to visitors is furiously underwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Still raining, I remounted the bike and rode north to I-12 (New Orleans bypass) and held the throttle down until I came to Baton Rough.\u00a0 Gas stop #5\u20143.386 gal-21148 \u00a0miles.\u00a0 Time =10:50 pm, time for a motel.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Miles for the day=761\u2014time on the road=almost 16 hours.\u00a0 G\u2019nite!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Day I\u2014Tuesday, June 1st \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Loaded all the same stuff as last year minus the leather jacket and heavy gloves.\u00a0 (This will prove to be a major mistake.)\u00a0 In their place I packed the computer Gloria bought; I\u2019m hoping to learn how to use it on the road.\u00a0 Tristan and Jenny assured me that all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}