The End of the Road (for now...)

I managed to make a decent showing my last morning, getting out of bed before 7 a.m., and having the bike rolled out of the room and ready to go by 7:15. I stopped just down the road from the Bay Inn & Roach Motel Suites (did I say that?) to get gas. My tires were reading 27 and 28 psi, and should reading 30/32, so I decided to top off the tires as well as the tank.

Got ready to leave before having to go into the convenience store one more time to get batteries. Those two last batteries were #17 and #18 for the trip...that camera positively ate batteries for the first half of the trip (probably because the shutter never stayed shut). When I finally was rolling out, it felt like it was about 7:40, and when I checked my cell phone for the time, it was 7:39. Internal clock is keeping good time, I'd say.

First off, I rolled back through downtown and continued on 31 over to Atmore (or Ratmore, as one local boy named it), before heading south into Florida. The downtown of Atmore had some really nice older houses and interesting bungalows that had been nicely restored. Not far out of town, the Florida line came and went, and I headed east on County Road 4 for about 15 miles. To my utter disbelief I managed to see a couple of curves in the roads. Of course, this was in pretty close proximity to Alabama, so I'm thinking the 'Bama vibes helped keep the roads from being as stick straight as they are in the rest of the state.

About 25 miles later and I was back in Alabama, having made a respectable foray into Florida. State highway signs directed me back to I-65 towards Montgomery. Usually, when I'm riding somewhere, unless I've got a very nice cushion of time, I don't stop for a large lunch, but typically will grab something whenever I fill up. Since this was my last day and I'd gotten a decent start, I decided to treat myself at the first Cracker Barrel after Montgomery for a nice brunch. Montgomery is where I-85 begins and exit 11 is where I got off.

My waitress claimed to be OCD and to have had about 4 hours of sleep, so she was a little jittery, to say the least. The French toast was good, although I think it's crappy they've switched to 100% 'All Natural' syrup instead of 100% "Pure Maple Syrup". The labels are deceptively similar, but the tastebuds will not be duped! I called mom to let her know I'd be later than I'd anticipated due to the chow session, filled up with gas and headed off for the last 300 or so miles just after 11.

Did get to see a cool oldie on the road (there were a couple on the trip), but also came across some seriously stupid driving by a guy in a military Humvee who'd apparently lost his convoy. He changed lanes right in front of me, started to speed up to pass the car in the right lane. Slowed down, put his right blinker on, as if to resume his place behind the erstwhile to-be-passed car, and then proceeded to come to almost a complete stop on the interstate before rolling off onto the grassy median on the left of the interstate, where other members of the convoy had stopped. The whole, 'get into the passing lane, slow down, right blinker, near stop and left fade' had me waaaaay under impressed with this guy's decision making skills. Driving skills. Knee jerk reaction skills. Hope he's not that haphazard under fire. I did at least refrain from blaring my horn as I finally was able to get my bike released from near lockdown braking once he got off the interstate. Interstate! Not podunk highway. Not Main Street near the intersection of Elm. Dude! I'm still getting irritated just thinking about it.

But there's always Atlanta! Even on a Saturday, at 2 p.m., the traffic was quite boggy on the south side where 65 was merging in with 20 and 85. It never came to a full stop, and actually the slower sections were short lived. By the time I got through the worst of it, I was pushing 175 miles on my tank. It was hot and I was ready for a break. The Shell station was a little tricky to get to, with a controlled u-turn being in the equation. There was a service station attached to the convenience store (with a pretty 'vette sitting there), and I sat in the waiting area for a few minutes, enjoying a cold bottle of water. The clerk was chatty and told me about a trip he took to Colorado one time. He drove out to Colorado Springs to visit a buddy of his at the Air Force Academy, but said he ended up spending most of his time in the hospital on the visit. Turns out his buddy is about 4'11" (from how high up he held his hand), but apparently has no filter on his mouth and got the stuffing beat out of him in a bar fight. Hence the hospital visit. Okaaay. Time to move on.

I'd been watching my odometer, hoping for 5,000 miles, and it kept looking like it was going to allllmost make it, but not quite, so as an extra bonus, I decided, ala Albuquerque, to take the scenic way back into Greenville and not just slab it. Those last 50 miles on the interstate are mind numbing on the best of days, and the prospect of going past the lakes and mountains energized me for the last leg of the trip.

Once I'd been going on scenic Highway 11 a while, I checked my trip meter for a mental calculation. There was a sign for Table Rock, saying it was 12 miles away, and the last two numbers on the odo were 62, so that would be 74...26 miles to get home from there. Still going to be stinking close!! Once I got up to Table Rock, I glanced at the odo again to see how close the sign had been. Odo now ended with ....62. Huh? I looked. Rode some more. Looked. Rode. Looked. Stinking absolute rawr!! The odometer was locked and I was going to be denied seeing the 5,000 on there. Cotton pickin'!

I wiggled the stem that resets the odometer and saw a quiver in the last number. Watched it, and it started to crawl again (no tenths, so it seemed to take forever for the next mile to pass). A few miles later and...it locked up again. By now I'm making homicidal noises in my helmet. Worthless piece of horse manure! Messed with the stem again and it rolls a little more, but finally stops with the last two numbers at 74, and rolls no more. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

At least that didn't happen on the interstate...that would have been doubly miserable. The trees on the route also helped cool down the last few miles, and I finally pulled into my driveway about 5:50 p.m. Not exhausted. Not tired. Ready for a day of rest on Sunday, but wishing I had somewhere I could ride to on Monday that was a few hundred miles away.

Once I was in the driveway, I tried to spin the stem to reset the trip meter a little more, since I could focus on it, and not worry about driving. The stem would not reset that side any more, so it appears the spring has sprung it's last sproing. The kicker? What I hadn't noticed?? The end odometer was stuck at 3,974. Three thousand, 974. The day before, I'd flipped 4,000 and 4,500. I have proof! I do! I really did!!

At some point, somewhere, somehow, my trip meter managed to go backwards. And it is evil.

(Final notes will probably follow, but I'm still bitter about the trip meter, so that's all for tonight.)