Starting Out

Well I guess since Suzanne set this thing up, I need to write something down.
It all started out in May 2004 as a trip to Memphis. I called Robert Lea to see if he wanted to go. He ask if I was going to go buy a bike, I had helped him build his Chopper, I said maybe. I really wasn't, I was just going "window shopping".
I went by Mama's and told her where we were going. She said, "Well for goodness sakes ya'll don't go buying lottery tickets while up there." OK Mama no lottery.
Went to Bumpus, saw the Lava Red Harley Fatboy, got the paper work done, and looked for a trailer to buy, but to no avail. It had been a long time since I had ridden, so I got Robert to ride it home for me.
Pulled into the yard at home, Mama and 3 of my sisters were sitting outside. They were trying to figure out what was going on. I walked over and told them of my purchase, Mama was speechless and I think a little disturbed. I said "Mama you said no lottery tickets so I spent my money on a motorcycle".
And that was over 41,000 miles ago.
As I got more proficent with my riding, I started planning a trip after the crops were harvested. At that time of the year the only place to go is Florida. I saw there was a rally in Fort Lauderdale starting Dec. 1,2004. Robert couldn't go so, going it alone, I decided to trailer my bike down.
The rally was at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood. It was good. Steven Tyler was there for the ride, boy I'm glad his daughter Liv didn't get her looks from him. The casino had the women's professional billard champions playing, I bought tickets to see that.
I rode down A1A along the beach, went through Miami by the arena the Miami Heat play at. That was the year Shaq was acquired. They had a 60 foot picture of him on the side of the arena.
I spent one day in Key West seeing the sites and boy you can see some strange sites there. I got someone to take a picture of me and my bike at the Southern Most Point in the U.S. bouy.
After spending 8 days traveling, I was hooked and when I got home, I started planning another trip.

At Christmas, my cousin Janet called to say she knows a girl I need to meet who also had a motorcycle. I told her I wasn't interested in going out yet. But a couple of weeks later I get a call from a Theresa??? saying call her and let's ride. Few days later I call her back and ride to Silver City. It's a cool 40 degrees. To cold to ride. We go to Jackson, freeze our tails off all day, but neither wants to be the first to holler calf rope. I figured if she was that gritty, then we could travel some miles together, and have.

The next big trip was at the end of Feb. 2005 to Daytona for bike week. The group of 6 was composed of Jim Tackett, Eddie Fancher, Robert Lea, Skipper Grantham, Mark "Pug" Bowie, and me. I'm not going into details about this ride, only to say we did have a great time. Even if Eddie got in trouble with the Law. Also, Mark became known as Pug. We even ended up with the group picture of us on the beach hanging on the wall of Flatlands .

Next trip was to Lafayette, La to the State Hog Rally. Robert, Jim and I were making the trip. We stopped in Vicksburg to eat lunch, making it to Baton Rouge at rush hour time for the bypass around town. Also it was falling a flood, all you could see was red taillights in front of you. Traffic was running 70-75 mph and we were too just to keep from getting run over. I was not a very happy motorcycle rider at that point. We had about 15 miles of that before breaking into the clear weather.
We saw Tony, Trike Mike, Dan, and Walter from Greenwood at the Harley dealer in Scott. They were camping out just down the road. So far the closest I've been to camping is the Holiday Inn but I have bought me a tent.

When we left headed home, I left the group at McComb and went to meet Theresa at Hattiesburg for a rally there. The temperature plunged that night. We were south of town at the fair grounds, Theresa had us a place to stay in Collins, 12 miles away she said. I got so cold I was putting my hands on the exhaust pipes for warmth. I was counting the miles off on my odometer. At 12 miles we were coming into Seminary, it was still another 7 miles to go. She didn't take in account we were on the south side of Hattiesburg and the 12 miles started on the north side. Trike Mike and rest of their group were there camping. The next day anything that was wet was frozen.
We made it home without any of us catching the flu.

For the Dec. ride I got another rider, Joe Fennell, my brother-in-law to go with me to Key West. We rode our bikes all the way this trip. We took 75 to Tampa, crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge at St. Peterburg, boy it's a beautiful bridge. Joe and I were nervous at the height and wind while crossing it. Went across Alligator Alley. into Fort Lauderdale, on to Key West. On the way back home up 95 we took the tour of Kennedy Space Center.
Bad weather was headed to us and when we left St Augustine the next day I told Joe we need to get as close to home as we could. We ended up in Hattiesburg at 8:00 that night, the temperature was falling and we couldn't find a room. Betty Jane and Theresa went to calling around and found one in Magee, bummer, another 20 something miles to ride in the cold. The next morning we scraped ice off the seats before heading home.

Well I guess I'll leave it here for now on the posting. It has been rewarding experience so far for me to see so much.

And remember "Money can't buy happiness, but it can substantially upgrade the quality of your misery".