125 Miles, 9 Sandies, and One Tortoise
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125 Miles, 9 Sandies, and One Tortoise
First, before anybody starts making nasty comments about the heat, let me say this: it was a pleasant ride.
A perfectly pleasant ride.
For the first 125 miles, anyway.
We had nine Sandies rolling along, enjoying the morning, minding our own business and generally behaving like responsible adults who had somehow been allowed to own motorcycles.
Then we opened the gates of Hell in Shalimar.
You know that blast of heat you get when you open the oven door on Thanksgiving and discover somebody has put a 24-pound turkey in there?
That’s about what Shalimar felt like.
We left GTD and headed over to Penny’s on North 85. Breakfast was great, and the folks waiting on us were outstanding. Southern hospitality is a wonderful thing. You can feed nine hungry motorcycle riders, keep the coffee coming and still smile at us like you actually want us to come back.
After breakfast, we headed out on a loop through the northern part of the county.
That’s where I earned my “Enter Heaven” badge.
I helped a Gopher Tortoise cross a busy highway.
Now, some folks might call that a good deed.
Sam may have a slightly different opinion.
I saw the tortoise, hit the brakes and stopped suddenly—without giving Sam any warning whatsoever. Apparently, my turn signal was on vacation that day.
I almost put Sam into the back of me.
But the tortoise made it safely across the road, so I'm pretty sure St. Peter has already made a note beside my name.
“Best of intentions. Questionable braking technique.”
Misty joined us for the second trip and got good marks from JoeJoe on her riding ability.
That’s high praise coming from JoeJoe. He's a tough judge. I’ve seen him evaluate a perfectly good motorcycle rider like they just showed up for a job interview without a résumé.
Tommy didn’t have to perform any Motorcycle Voodoo Hocus Pocus today, which was probably a good thing for the rest of us. More importantly, Tommy managed to keep up with his most important piece of equipment—The Infamous Dry Humor Hat.
He didn’t lose it anywhere along the way, either.
The Tommy wit was still sharp, dry and right on point. Frankly, after 125 miles in this typical heat, I’m not sure how he kept it that sharp. Most of us were getting a little soft around the edges, but Tommy’s humor was still coming out drier than a West Florida dirt road in August.
No voodoo.
No hocus pocus.
Just Tommy being Tommy.
And honestly, that's probably plenty of magic for one ride.
At one point I made the mistake of mentioning that Randy might not be happy if we got caught in the rain.
Randy and Brigitte immediately chimed in:
“You can’t get rid of us that easy.”
Well, I would never dream of such a thing.
Really.
Trust me on this.
I have witnesses.
Ken caught up with us at Penny’s. Ken is one of those fellows who knows the North County like he drew the map himself. After all those years as a Deputy, he knows where everything is, including places I apparently haven't discovered yet.
Which is important because I have a tendency to get a little lost.
And when I say a little lost, that’s Southern understatement for:
“We have no earthly idea where we are.”
It’s like saying the Pacific Ocean is a little salty.
And when I'm lost, nine Sandies can look exactly alike.
That's why we've established one of the great Sandie Riding Rules:
If the lead is lost, we all are.
We learned that one the hard way.
These days, with cellphones, GPS and enough technology to launch a rocket to Mars, you'd think getting lost wouldn't be much of a problem.
You'd be wrong.
Nine motorcycles scattered across the back roads of North County is still basically Herding Cats—only the cats have helmets and radios.
So we stick together.
Nobody gets too far ahead, nobody gets left behind, and if the leader takes a wrong turn, well...
Congratulations, everybody. We're all going that way.
And that, my friends, is how you turn a pleasant 125-mile ride into an adventure involving nine Sandies, a Gopher Tortoise, one near rear-end collision, a little heavenly intervention, and enough heat in Shalimar to cook Thanksgiving dinner.
All in all—
Just another pleasant ride with good people.
Don’t forget next Saturday Road kill café, new leave time GTD 7;30. We are taking a bit of a different route. True Sandie route, hopefully the link works
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