Monday, April 30, 2012

Cape Fear 1000 - 2012

Its been a long and expensive winter for the motorcycle.  After the DSH, the bike sat for a little while.  Thanksgiving, the wife went in for surgery and had a long recovery, then Christmas...   I just let the bike collect dust since I couldn't ride it with the coolant leak.  I finally ordered the parts to fix it after the holidays, and got to working on it.  I got the thermostat o-ring swapped out which was the reason for the leak, and since they were in the kit and the carbs were out, the coolant log o-rings also.  The first ride I did all year wasn't until March.  I rode up to Montezuma, GA to meet about 30 riders for lunch.  All the repairs worked fine.  No more coolant leaks!  Score!!  2 days later, I walk out into the garage, and there is coolant and oil all over the floor.  Crap!  Water pump internal seal gave out.  No way to repair that, so I had to order and replace a new water pump.  Ever since I bought the bike, there was a very minuscule oil leak I thought was coming from the bevel gear gasket.  Turned out it was the water pump the whole time, since there was no more leak after the swap.  2 weeks later, I pulled the carbs again, and sent them off to be tuned and fuel overflow tubes installed in the float bowls.  The rubber carb boots were hard as steel, so I ended up having to buy a new set of those too.  With the new pliable carb boots, the re-install took no time at all compared to the first time I tried it.  I was also able to find online an older Garmin 2720 to match the one Richard Buber gave me at the Montezuma ride, so now I have 2 waterproof motorcycle GPS.  I got the mount and hardwire cables installed a few weeks before this ride.  But I needed to rig up a way to listen to the GPS and my phone (music) through headphones while on the road.  I couldn't find anything cheap enough, so I found some plans online and built something that worked.  It allowed me to listen to the turn by turn directions when close to a location, and music when I'm on the long roads between bonuses.  Pretty cool for $20 in parts.  It tested out fine.  Now all I needed was some new tires.  Finances were tight, so I had to wait till the last minute to get those.  I finally tracked down a matched set for the Connie... Avon AR26's.  Not the canyon carving Avons, but they were the only things I could find that fit and weren't a mismatch of brands/compounds.  I had to call 3 places to find someone to install them the weekend before I left for the start.  But they got mounted, and all is well.  New tires, new (to me) GPS and a spare, tunes, cleaned carbs, and no leaks... Almost like a new bike!!  (Not really)

A week or so before the rally, we got our rally packs in the mail.  It had our rally flag,  an odometer check card, and our rally sticker... all with our rider numbers on them.  I was # 418.  The ODO check pretty much meant there would be a mileage cap this year.  I doubted I would push any mileage limits, but it would make everyone converge on the same place to do the ODO check.  I hoped it was near the end, and not stuck in the middle somewhere.  My starting location was Arcadia, FL, and the end is in Wilmington, NC.  Driving start to finish w/o any stops is right at 700 miles.  But I have to get to the start!  That's only 350 miles... Now we just have to wait for the bonus listings to be emailed to us Wed night.  I figured I get all the way points put in Streets and Trips, plan a few routes and go to bed at a normal hour.  Then have Thursday as the travel day, and final route planning.  Plenty of time on Wed and Thurs to not loose any sleep.  Well I was wrong!!
We got the bonus listing around 6pm Wed, and I started going through the listings.  As expected, there was a mileage cap of 1385 miles.  And the ODO check to verify your mileage was less than an hour from the end.  I started plotting way points into Streets and Trips and was able to skip a few pages entirely since the locations were in MS and OH and IN... By the time I was done, I only had 35 places to choose from.  That seemed low to me.  Sure enough... about that time we got an email via the message boards that we got a bad rally book.  We'd have to wait for Jim Bain to get home and sort it out.  So around 9pm the REAL rally book shows up in our email.  This time we had over 100 way points to enter.  I got finished inputting everything around midnight and planned one route before I went to bed.  I'll look at it more once we get to the motel in Arcadia.

I pretty much had the bike packed other than my computer bag the night before.  I needed to stop by the wife's office to pick up some printed copies of the rally book.  All I have at the house is an inkjet printer, and with rain in the forecast, I didn't want all the words to bleed.  As I was heading out, I connected up my homemade audio mixer to the GPS, and phone.  All I heard was loud static and noise.  So much for that idea.  I threw it out and and just connected up the GPS.  I went and picked up the paperwork, gassed up, and went to meet dad.  For the whole weekend, it was looking like nasty weather.  And the forecast for the ride down was severe thunderstorms the entire ride.  Dad and I met up and started the ride down south.  Somehow we rode in BEHIND every rain storm.  We rode through wet roads, but every rain cloud passed before we got there.  That was pretty lucky.  We made a stop for lunch, and another stop for gas on the way down, but for the most part it was just a boring ride down the super slab.  Right before the gas stop, I had noticed my SPOT gps tracker low battery light was flashing.  So I swapped them out after we filled up.  The batteries had been in there since early March, and only been used for about 6 hrs.  They should have been OK, but they died.  I pulled a pack of 4 out of my tank bag I had bought before the Nov DSH, and swapped the 2 out.  Those should last the rest of the weekend.

We pulled into Arcadia and drove straight to the restaurant most everyone was meeting at.  Reef and Beef...  One waitress for the whole place, and she was a lil busy with the 20 or so of us.  But the food was decent enough.  Once we got checked into the motel, I started trying to plan another route.  I was sitting around 35,000 points without the wild card bonuses.  I couldn't seem to find a way to pick up many more points w/o going over the mileage, or going over my time allowance.  I wanted to plan for the full 6 hrs rest bonus for 11,000 points, and 1 hour for stops.  So I needed to stay under 22 hours according to Streets and Trips.  My first route ended up what I decided to stay with.  So I uploaded the routes and way points into both 2720s and just in case... into my non waterproof Nuvi 3670 Garmin.  Then I started writing them all down on my cheat sheet.  To speed up my stops, I don't write anything into my rally pack on the road.  Everything goes into a tiny notepad.  But as I'm finishing up, I notice my big points bonus up near Macon is actually supposed to be way down in Pensacola.  I'm a few hundred miles off and 4000 points are now gone. There is no time to re plan everything so I just drop it and hope I can make a few points up on the road.  Like Eds Last Resort last year, I planned to get ALL my bonuses before I stop for the rest bonus.  Then I can plan backwards for the ODO check and time restricted bonuses to see how long I can rest.  If I'm behind, I can shorten the rest bonus to a min of 4 hrs.  So its a 2 hr built in window to play with.  I'm pissed at myself for the error but I need to get some sleep.  Its after midnight again.

Cell phone alarm wakes us up around 7am and we repack all the crap on the bikes.  We'd scouted out a few places for a good start receipt, and ended up using the CVS downtown.  Usually you try to find something as far outside of town that you can to be that much closer to the finish line.  But all the gas station receipts everyone found were crap.  So 7 of us were lined up inside the CVS at 10am ready to go.  I bought a pack of cashews, got my receipt, got on the bike and headed out.

My first stop was Solomon's Castle just up the road.  I got flashbacks of Eds rally when the GPS took me down a gravel road for 2 miles to get there.  Luckily I didn't drop the bike this time and made it there pretty quick.  There was another rider already there and off his bike.  I pulled in, did a Uturn and stopped to get a good view of the gate.  I got out my High Speed Photo Bonus Apparatus (HSPBA), took my picture, jotted down my info into my book, and was gone.  The other guy was still trying to get his picture.  The next stop was the sign in front of Alafia State Park a short ride up the road.  2 mins and gone. My next bonus was just a gas stop in Kissimmee, FL.  The gas station was about 1/2 a mile up on the left, and traffic was thick.  But I got in and out pretty quick.  I filled the main tank to the max, got my receipt, and got back on I-4 headed to Daytona.  My next stop was to get a photo of Stavros Pizza on Beach street in Daytona.  GPS took me almost right to it, but it wanted me in the alley behind the joint.  There were 2 bikes coming out of that alley :)  So I drove around the block till I saw it.  I stopped behind a parked car, got 2 photos, and wrote down my info.  I was leaving as the other 2 bikes were parking behind me and the riders dismounting.  I knew this next section was going to be the slow part of the trip.  I took US1 all the way back to 95, and then cut through Palm Coast to get to Ft Matanzas.  All slow roads except for the 95 part.  And I had to pay a toll in Palm Coast.  But I got my photos and drove north on A1A to get to St Augustine.  I found a park behind the Lighthouse to get a good photo of that.  Getting through St Augustine was very slow and it took me 15 mins to go about 3 miles.
 But once out of the tourist area, the traffic was light.  I stopped halfway between St Augustine and Jax to get a liter of water to drink, and a 32 oz gatorade to put in my camel back.  It was HOT!  I swapped my full fingered gloves to open fingers and what a difference.  Once I got moving again, I ate a pack of beef jerky out of my tank bag en route to Ft Caroline.  It was right off 9A/295E in Jax and fairly easy to get to.  I took my photo and left.  My next stop was not until Vienna,  in central GA.  It was right in line w my gas stop in Macon.  But when I got to the way point... it was a pine tree farm.  So I got out my car Garmin and my rally book.  I entered the coordinates in the 3760 and I was about 45 miles off!  Another way point I screwed up.  Luckily it was still in the same general direction.  I was hoping to make it to Macon on both fuel tanks, but I was going to be short.  So I stopped and filled up both tanks somewhere before Vienna.  I had run about 340 miles on the 2 tanks since Kissimmee.  Once I had the right coordinates for Vienna, it wasn't too hard to find.  GPS was a block off, but I was able to find it and get the photo.  I lost about 10 mins on the screw up, but I was still 15 mins ahead of where I was scheduled to be.  The gas stop in Macon was pretty quick, but I was in downtown Macon riding through a college campus.  Back off the major roads, I was riding to the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton to find Brair Rabbit. It was dark now, and temps dropped a ton, so I donned my rain suit pants and fingered gloves again to keep warm once I got my photos.  As I was pulling out another rider pulled in.  My GPS hadn't registered I was moving in the direction I was, and had me turn the wrong way.
So I did a Uturn and got moving the right way again.  The next stop wasn't too far away.  It was a Confederate Memorial in Sparta.  It was too far away and too dark for my HSPBA, so I had to get off the bike for this shot. Gettin a photo of a white flag and a white memorial in the dark is harder than you'd think. I drove back off the sidewalk and went to find a Church where former Ga Gov Raburn was buried in 1819.  The grave was on the opposite side of the church than the parking area so it took a few mins to locate with a flashlight.  Got my photo and ran back to the bike.  I could hear some dogs across the street barking and didn't want to spend more time on my feet in the dark than I had to.  This time I read the GPS wrong and took a left instead of a right leaving the church, and tried to attempt a Uturn next to the house w the dogs.  I heard the barking then saw the shadows racing toward me, so I gunned it and went to the next side street to turn around.  I had to dodge them again on the way past their house, but no missing limbs.  My next stop was in Crawfordville, GA, which is much smaller than where I live in Crawfordville, FL.
And we only have 3 stop lights!  Heavy's BBQ was shutting down, which was probably lucky since the owner was standing next to the pit bull guarding the door. One of the employees leaving asked a few questions about all the motorcycles taking pictures of their sign, but I was moving again after about 5 mins.  I needed to wash my windshield as my collection of GA insects was blocking most of my view, but again, I didn't want to spend much time fighting off pit bulls.  So far I had been really lucky and not seen a single wild animal.  I was sure I'd be dodging bambi through the backwoods of GA, but not tonight.  All I had to deal with was fog and mist in the many of the valleys.   I was finally back on Interstates and did a short jaunt on I-20 to get to The Laurel and Hardy Museum.  Right off the hwy I stopped at a gas station to clean my windshield.  Rony B. was there gassing up so I said hey and continued on.  What a difference a clean windshield makes riding in the dark.  Who would've thought!  I drove up on the sidewalk again for a photo,
but it was lit up enough to use my HSPBA.  Another 2 minute stop and I was headed back to I-20.  The next stop was another Confederate Memorial in Augusta, Ga.  It was pretty quiet getting in there, but all the kids were bar hopping downtown and I was dodging drunks to find the memorial and a good parking spot for the photo.  The memorial is 100 ft tall so I needed some distance to get it in the photos.  I found a good spot and pulled over.  Luckily it was also lit up enough to use the HSPBA to get the shots.  But I had to deal with a young drunk heckler shouting at me the whole time cause he couldn't see well enough with the beer goggles and spinning earth to figure out what I was doing.   I really didn't want to have to beat him with my camera to escape, but his nice
 friends led him away.  The next bonus required me to get a photo of Zimmy the Turkey at the National Wild
Turkey Federation.  I lit him up with my headlights and was able to get a good photo without getting off the bike.  Winding down to my last stop of the first leg of the ride, was the worlds largest Fire Hydrant in Columbia, SC.  It was finally after midnight, so I could find a place to start my rest bonus.
I headed back down I-20 to get a little farther down the road and to find a cheap roadside motel.  I passed one exit and there were a few nice hotels, so I continued on a bit.  I pulled up on the GPS a Best Western and a Sunshine Motel at the next exit, so I pulled off there and hunted for the Sunshine.  Apparently they've been bought by Econo Lodge, but for $50 and vacancy, I didn't care what they were called.  I checked in, got my start receipt for the rest bonus, and headed to the room.  There was a Waffle House next door and it was then I realized I hadn't eaten anything since the jerky in Jax 10 hrs ago.  I figured I'd wait and eat there on the way out after some sleep.  So I ate half of the little sleeve of cashews I bought for my start receipt in Arcadia, and started calculating the next leg of the trip.  I had only scheduled for the ODO check and one time restricted bonus after that for this leg.  But I was going to have plenty of time to do a full 6 hrs rest bonus, pick up 2 bonuses on the way to the ODO, and still get to the final location with time to spare.  So I set my alarm clock for 6 which I thought was enough time, and put my camel pack in the fridge to cool the water that was left in there for tomorrow.  Then I changed my mind and re-set it for 5:30 to ensure I had time to eat breakfast too.  Time for 4 hrs sleep!
Well for some reason I just woke up at 6:15.  Crap!!  My alarm didn't go off!!  I jumped out of bed, threw on my clothes, and re-packed the bike.  I drove past the Waffle house to get gas, and figured I didn't have enough time to sit and eat, so I grabbed a Diet Coke and a protein bar at the gas station, for breakfast, and a gatorade for the camel pack.  It was then I realized I left the camel pack still in the room fridge.  So I went back to the room, finished off b-fast, filled the camel pack and went to the front office to check out and finish the rest bonus.  I had to ask for the receipt, but luckily it had the exact check in and check out times listed.  I had 5:50 minutes for the bonus...  close enough for me!  4 hrs was the min, so anything over 4 was icing on the cake with 6 being the max.  I punched in the extra stop on the GPS and got back on the hwy.
Headed off the hwy to this stop, about a mile into town, an LEO clocked me on the 45mph side of the 35mph sign doing 50.  He was nice and only handed me a performance warning.  I pulled into the next bonus location behind another rider who was already taking pictures.  I pulled out the HSPBA, got my pics, wrote down my info and was gone before the other rider was even back on his bike.  Man that thing is fast! I took it slow back to the hwy as not to anger the locals anymore.  I then drove to a High School in Lumberton, NC to get a photo of their Pirate logo.  A quick in and out.  Once back on the road I saw another way point I might could pick up on the way to the ODO check but it was going to cost me an extra 30 mins.  I decided against it and continued on to find the ODO check in Warsaw.  Luckily the GPS was dead on to find the rest stop off the hwy, which was between the lanes of the interstate.  Weird location.  But I pulled in there, got off the bike so I could do the bonus associated w the ODO check, and put the description on how to do the check in the window of my tank bag so I wouldn't screw it up.  I turned in the card, they asked if I wanted to do the bonus, and said go to start the clock.  I donned my helmet then gloves, mounted and started the bike, and began the 20 mile course.  It was get on the hwy, obey all traffic laws, turn around at the next exit, and come right back.  Easy enough.  I quickly glanced at the instructions I pulled out, and it said "Turn left onto the entrance ramp of eastbound I-40 East"... so thats exactly what I did.  Headed to I-40 E.  But as I was tuning onto the ramp, I saw a bike pulling off the hwy behind me.  Hmmm.  So once up to speed headed east, I took a better look at the instructions.  That was the 2nd part of the instructions!! The first part was "proceed westbound on I-40..."  WTF!!  I had to ride a few miles to turn around at the next exit, and work my way back.  Once I got there, I informed the staff I needed to re-start the ODO check.  I guess I was the first one to screw it up so far, so they called HQ for a ruling.  Nowhere in the rally book did it say we only had one chance to do the check, but it did say it was REQUIRED.  So they let me restart but told me to expect some sort of penalty later on once they figure out what they would do.  That pissed me off... but a penalty is better than a DNF.  I restarted the ODO check and went the correct way this time.  The goal for the bonus associated with the ODO check was to do the entire course at the same average time as everyone else.  So I eased through the gears at a conservative pace until I hit the 70 mph speed limit.  Then kept the GPS speedometer locked on 70 as best as I could.  I did not go off the bike's speedometer, since this is what we were calculating to find out how incorrect it was.  I made it 10 miles down the road, and eased it off the ramp to make 2 lefts and get back on the hwy and come back.  Again riding as any 90 yr old would to try and be the same as everyone else.  I made it back to the rest stop, checked in, and got my 2 ODO check cards back, and headed right back to I-40 west to get to the last photo stop in Holly Springs.  The entire ODO check fiasco probly cost me 25 mins, but I had a good cushion to get to Holly Springs before the 12:00 time window opened.  Once I got to HS, I was still about 15 mins early, so I stopped to get gas to be sure I would not run out on the ride to Wilmington.  I probly had enough, but I wanted to be sure, and I had the time to kill.  I gassed up and made my way through some heavy traffic to get to the Veterans Park.  I still had about 5 mins to wait until my camera said 12pm.
There were about 8 other riders that had the same idea.  We all had our flags lined up on the wall, and started shooting pictures at 12:00 on the nose.  I made a quick pit stop on the way back to the bike, packed the tank bag, and  filled in my stop info.  And I still was the first one out!  But we had 3 hrs to make the 2 hr trip so I guess most folks sense of urgency was gone.  But you never know what traffic will be like, or possibly a wreck on the road to have to get around... so I kept up my rally mantra and kept the wheels moving.  It was a straight shot back down I-40 to get to Wilmington, and a pretty boring ride.  But 20 miles out, the road was ground up for repaving and the bike was real squirly on the groves and ridges.  So I slowed down to about 55 from the posted 70.  At one point I hit a small pot hole, and heard a pop under the bike so I quickly made it off to the emergency lane and checked the tires.  They were up and looked fine so I continued on.  I got off the Interstate and on to Market street... 1/4 mile from the end motel.  I was looking for a store to get a 6 pack of my favorite beverage for the last 1000 point wild card bonus.  I was at a stop light 500 yrds (according to the GPS) from the end, but I knew I'd have to find a store and double back... and then my heart stopped.  I was engulfed in a cloud of smoke and initially thought the bike was on fire!!  I was about to hit the kill switch and jump off when I realized what I smelled was anti freeze... and the smoke was pretty much gone.  Just a big flash of steam and it was over.  So I passed up on the beer bonus and drove it straight to the finish line.  I pulled in under the awning and finlly hit the kill switch.  I was checked for my rider #, mileage, rally sticker and beer.  I had all but the latter.  They gave me my check in card and told me to pull the bike off to the side parking lot and pickup my ending rally package with our Tshirts and name tags from inside.  I got all my paperwork together from my tank bag, and grabbed my laptop bag from the saddlebag and headed inside to start the scoring process.
First I pulled my camera card out of the camera, and opened it up on the computer.  We were limited to 3 pictures from each bonus, and any photos NOT of a bonus would be a penalty.  So I cleaned up all the bad shots and kept only the good ones I thought would be enough to prove I was there.  But I FORGOT to save a copy of all my photos to the computer!  About that time Dad shows up, and we had a quick chat and I told him about what happened to the bike.  He said he'd already scored out, and would try and diagnose it while I scored out.  I had all my receipts... I triple checked my transposition of info into the rally book, and got in line to score out.  I was pretty sure this time I would not leave any points on the table. Then I realized I didn't have my rally flag and ran back to get it.  That would have been huge points!!  But after about 30 mins of waiting I finally got to a very nice lady to score me out.  She went through everything I had and I got every bonus I attempted, but now it was down to the ODO check and associated bonus.  The guy running around helping the scorers reiterated he had to find out from Jim Bain what my penalty would be for doing the ODO check twice.  So I politely brought up the fact nowhere in the rally book does it say we only have one chance to attempt the ODO check, and since it was MANDATORY, there should not be a penalty. (If we screwed up any other bonus, we have the ability to re do it, with time being the only penalty.) He assured me there would be some kind of penalty and went to confer with Jim Bain.  After about 20 mins he came back.... NO PENALTY, and almost max points on the bonus!!  Awesome... I didn't have to even raise my voice :)  I was totaled out at 49,796 points.  I hoped for a top 10 after knowing I left a few thousand points out there due to my bad plotting of way points and not getting the beer bonus.  But for my first 24 hr rally... I thought I did pretty well, all things considered.  Now... whats the status of the bike.

I got out to the parking lot, and dad had all the fairings off, oil cooler unbolted and had managed to pull off the ruptured hose that was right behind the headers.  It wasn't a small hole or cut ... it split 270 degrees all the way around!  There was no repairing that in any way.  I was extremely lucky that didn't happen anywhere else than where it did.  I took dad's bike and headed to the auto parts place to see if they had any bulk hose since it was almost a straight pipe with maybe a 20 degree bend in it.  The girl came from the back of the counter with an almost exact copy of the pipe but was an inch too long.  I can cut that!  I grabbed some new clamps, high temp silicone, and a gallon of antifreeze and rode back to the operating table.  We got it cut and fit onto the pipes after some wrangling.  This pipe is between the headers and motor so the finger room is pretty tight.  But once we got it fitted in there, we realized the rubber pipe was touching the headers due to the pipe being a bit thicker than stock.  We tried just about everything to get some distance between the two, but nothing worked.  Dad took the trip back to the parts store to pick up some header tape.  There was no room to wrap the header, so we just rolled the tape up and stuffed it between the header and coolant hose.  Its a wet chemical activator, so we buttoned up all the body work, and let it sit and cure while we headed in for dinner and the awards ceremony.

We ended up near the tail end of the line but I got to talk shop with Jim and Donna Phillips, and Mike Nolan.  I sat at a table with Ed Tillman, 'Miss Kitty' Nancy Oswald and her hubby Walt, Mike Allen, the winner of the mini rally, and some others I just can't remember their names.  Of course Ed was throwing out his comedic zingers the whole time...  But Jim Bain finally got up on stage to start giving out the door prizes and the the winners plaques.  I didn't get any door prizes, of which there were only 2 I would have wanted.  A Cape Fear hat or the fuze block.  I could care less about a magic coyote sticker...  whatever the hell that is.  But he finally got to the finishing results.  He started with... not FL. The mini rally I think, then the other two start locations.  Congrats to the other winners!!! But all I wanted to hear was the FL results.  When Jim read the points for 5th I was surprised to realize I was in the top 4.  I gave dad a thumbs up, since I knew I had more points than 5th.   But he kept reading off names that weren't mine.  4th, 3rd, then 2nd... Miles Lee!!     I was really shocked with a 2nd place finish.  With what I thought was already a conservative route, and the 2 screw ups... a 2nd place finish on my first 24 hr rally was completely unexpected.  Then he read Greg Rice's points... 20,000 MORE than mine.  WOW!!   Greg rode a hell of a route, and came in only 5 miles under the mileage cap.  No margin for error on that ride.  I'd have blown that on my ODO check redo.  Or blown my coolant pipe 100 miles from the end.  But Greg did awesome... Congrats to us both!  After the awards were done, I shook a few hands and took a couple of photos.  But the bike was still under the awning in front of the building we were in, so I rode it to a normal spot over by the rooms.  When I parked it, it was dripping what appeared to be coolant.  Crap.  Too late, too dark, and too wet to deal with it right now.  It'd have to wait till morning.  Me and dad headed to the room to crash.  We did not set an alarm!

Even w/o the alarm, I was up about 7am.  Dad was still snoring, so I got dressed and went out to triage the bike again.  I cranked it up and rode back under the awning since it was raining and I didn;t feel like crawling around on the wet pavement. I pulled the tupperware off while it was heating up.  I guess what had leaked out last night was just what had spilled when we refilled the coolant system.  It was not leaking now that it was running and heated up.  But the header tape was cooking and smoking like crazy.  I'm glad I wasn't on the road while it was burning off.  It was a lot of really smelly smoke.   But it finally cooked off, and still no coolant leak.  All I can do now it road test it and hope the repair makes the 650 mile trip home to FL.  I put the plasctics back on, and went back to the room.  Dad was finally up and stirring.  I checked the weather and it looked fairly clear to the south and we should have a mostly dry ride home.  It finally stopped raining before we headed out, so I didn't put on any rain gear.  If you've read any  previous blogs... I do the Bubba version of rallying.  I don't have an Aerostitch all weather riding suit, heated gear, or anything fancy like that.  Just an armored jacket, blue jeans, and a separate rain suit.   But I had sprayed my jacket and boots with water proofer before the rally.  We met up with Otto Hoel, also from FL, and decided to ride home together after a stop for breakfast.  We made it to a mom n pop version of a Waffle House about a mile down the road.  I left the bike running as I got off and de-geared.  Still no leaks.  This was my first breakfast in 3 days that was not a protein bar!  We left there, gassed up, and headed towards the interstate.  Its a good ride to get to I-95, but we made it and headed south.  After a ways, we pulled off at a truck stop to check the bike again, and I picked up some more gatorade for the camel pak.  Still no leaks!  Dad and I have fuel cells, where as Otto does not so we were on his mileage for fuel stops.  2 more fuel stops and one rest stop on the way to FL.  Repair still holding.  Our last gas stop was Kings Bay, GA, then we headed to the house.  We only hit 2 spots of rain on the way south, but I didn't think it was worth the time to put on rain gear so we rode through it.  I finally made it home about 7:30 that night and went straight to the shower!  I'd been in the same clothes for 4 days, and only 1 shower!!!  I meant to shower and change clothes after the rest bonus sleep, but after the alarm not going off... there was no time.  Luckily the wife was not home when I got there otherwise she probly would have just burned my clothes before I stepped inside.   But most important... the bike made the trip without issue.  Other than a blown .1A fuse on the Garmin cable.  All told... it was a 2250 mile trip.  350 to the start, 1250 for the rally, and 650 for the ride home.  Now its time to prepare for battle to defend my Ed's Last Resort Rally title.  And wouldn't ya know... Greg Rice is signed up for it too.  Gonna be a fun one!

Miles