Key West 2004

I got a new motorcycle recently - an 1150GS Aventure. Took a quick tour down to Key West to stretch its legs.

I left Chicago this morning around 9:00a and took mostly backroads and a few dirt roads here and there where it looked interesting. Crossed the Ohio River and pulled into Paducah, KY about 5:00p. Did about 400-425 miles today. Took it easy and enjoyed the ride. Used to riding an LT and am used to the wind pushing the LT around. The wind pushes me around on the GS. I may have to do something about getting a replacement windshield or get some tobinators (sp?) or something. All in all, though, great ride.

Added XM radio to the bike for the trip and it was well worth it.

Am doing Atlanta tomorrow and will take lots of pics in Tennessee - am gonna go find some fun areas near Monteagle. How could you not want to get lost in that area?


Didn't get a bunch of great pictures yesterday, but this one was pretty cool...



So I'm crusing down through Tennessee the other day and I pass through the Monteagle area and decide to explore. As you're coming down Interstate 24, the interstate splits, with each lane of traffic going around one side of the mountain. Near the bottom of the east bound side there's a run-away truck ramp and, interestingly enough, a dirt road that said something along the lines of "authorized vehciles only." Well, shit, if a GS ain't an authorized vehicle, nothing is. I cruised back and took dozens of photos. The road basically goes from one side of the "mountain" to the other - in reality, it's less than half a mile and fairly decent gravel/track. I suspect there's actually tons of gravel roads all over that place, but I was a little nervous about getitng busted and didn't stick around for that long.

Ah... the photos... I took the memory card out of the camera while it was still on. Damn. I'm gonna try to recover some of the images when I get back home, but for now, no Monteagle pictures.

After Monteagle I cruise down to Atlanta - which is where I grew up. I found myself downtown on I-75 around 4:00p on a Friday afternoon - big mistake! Nothing like Chicago traffic, but it sucked.



I get up kind of late on Saturday and motor off towards Key West. I make it as far as Ormand Park (north of Orlando - about another 400-450 miles) (which, btw, i'm finding out that my limit is about 400-500 miles per day on the GS - interestingly enough, I easily do 600-700-800 on the LT. Go figure.) So I make it to Ormand Park - even though the GS broke the sound barrier on the way down:



Weird, huh?

So I'm still not in Key West yet. And now I'm contemplating not going. I'm gonna try not to wimp out. Why? Snow in Chicago. Very cold temps in Chicago forecasted for my return. Damn. Was supposed to be in the thirties and no snow. The better half says that there's gonna be snow and single-digit temps for my forecasted return. I wonder if I should press on to Key West, spend my two nights there, and then return home? Kind of be a shame to not finish the last 1/10 of the trip. I'd sure as hell get better pictures there too.

Key West is a blast. Got lots of pictures - will post them tonight when I have time to get online. But... lots of snow and ice at home... am gonna ride as far north as possible and then truck it. I suppose I'll pick up a truck in b'ham, huntsville, nashville, or maybe southern il - but suspect a larger city would be better. have tried avis and hertz and can't find any truck info on their sites. i'm thinking pickup truck would be best, but may just go get a one-way uhaul. shit.

So today was a pretty good day – and it’s nowhere close to being over. It’s about 2:00p here and I’m gonna have a few drinks, maybe a nap, then some dinner and partying later on. My plans are to get up at about 4:00a and be on the road by 5:00a. The locals all say I won’t see any traffic out of the Keys on a Tuesday morning, but I want to try and do six or seven hundred miles tomorrow – may as well get an early start.

So… what have I done so far? Goofed off for the most part… went over to the beach this morning. Wanted to get the GS out on the sand but, for a small town, there are a shitload of cops in Key West. Go figure. I settled for some snapshots instead.





After visiting the lighthouse I decided to go over to the other side of the island – and what did I find? “The Western Union Schooner.” It’s the big ass boat to the left. And it is a big ass boat.



Finally, my temporary home. Sure wish home home looked like this – instead of the snow that is falling there now.



Haven’t decided how I’m gonna get home – figure I’ll motor north and worry about it when I get to a point where I can’t/won’t continue.

So… a close out to my Key West journey. First, I made it home safely exactly one week after I left. I had pretty much intended this to be a short vacation - a ride to get familiar with the new GS and to get away someplace warm for a few days. I didn't mind that the weather was forecast to be in the 20s and 30s - I have the Gerbings heated gear and have traveled in such weather before. There wasn't supposed to be any snow or single-digit temperatures… but that's the science of weather forecasting for you!

My journey down was fairly uneventful - I left Chicago on Thursday and made it to Paducah, KY that evening, and carried through to Atlanta on Friday. I certainly could have gone a bit more on Friday, but stopped to visit my sister as she was having a holiday party. Truth be told, I had a pretty good time on Friday and slept in on Saturday… off to a late start Saturday morning. The GS is running fine and I've clocked about 800 miles or so and I'm debating whether I even want to continue to Key West - no inkling of bad weather, I'm just wondering if I really want to ride balls to the wall and then turn around and ride balls to the walls back in time for Christmas. I hem and haw and think about it for another few hundred miles - but, of course, I'm pointed south while I'm thinking about it. There's not really a huge reason why I selected Key West - other than it was south and warm. Well, honest, I selected Key West because I couldn't do Mexico - I just bought the motorcycle and the IL DMV hasn't provided me with a new title with my name on it (something you need to get into Mexico). Anyhow, I'm headed south and have no real reason to go other than the ride. And the ride is a blast. I think about it a bit more and then decide to continue.

I pull into Key West on Sunday afternoon and find a really nice hotel right next to Duval Street. There's a hot tub and a heated pool. Wow! I'm there for two days. My wife (back home in Illinois with the kids! (what a great wife)) tells me there is snow and bitter temperatures forecasted for the next few days… oh oh. What the hell, I can always truck it, I can always park it in a self-storage facility and fly home. If Christmas wasn't right around the corner, I'd have just stayed in Key West through the end of the year.

So… I begin to motor home on Tuesday morning. I awake early and decide to get on the road before first light - I leave at 5:00a and am making great time. It's dark and I have a tinted visor on my helmet - and sunglasses. No regular glasses. No yellow-tinted glasses. Damn - note to self, bring a pair of clear glasses next time. I make great time through the keys (over 100 miles from Key West to Miami) and jump on the Florida Turnpike northbound.



I have to stop and put on my heated jacket liner and plug in my heated gloves - no idea how cold it was, but it was chilly enough that I thought a few hundred miles of lowering my body temp wouldn't be a good idea.

So there I am hauling ass up the Turnpike and am nearing Orlando. A small car hauls ass past me doing at least 110+, weaving in and out of traffic. Not so long later there's a horrific accident - a car traveling northbound has wiped out and crossed the median and crashed into a car traveling southbound. Yep, you guessed it, the same car. Somebody has to be dead - the entire car is demolished. Southbound traffic was tied up for hours - I probably passed 25 miles of traffic that was absolutely stopped. I later checked the Orlando newspapers on the net and found that the passenger in the car was dead, the driver was critical, and the driver of the car that was traveling southbound was critical too. Damn shame. They say speed kills - they're right. This wasn't a performance car; it was some little piece of crap that completely fell apart at the accident scene. Now some young kid has killed her pal, damaged the lives of a bunch of innocent people, and has probably put herself in debt from which she'll never be able to recover.

Here's a view of the southbound traffic - little did I know at the time that it was an omen of things to come…



Despite the excitement, I make pretty good time and made it to just south of Atlanta on Tuesday - about 800 miles. I was thinking that I would get a UHaul in Nashville as I wanted to ride for as long as possible. When checking the web in Key West I saw that I would be able to get a UHaul in Nashville for about $195. The same truck in Atlanta was $400. I decided to get one in Nashville! So I'm in a hotel south of Atlanta Tuesday night and discover that neither UHaul or Budget has trucks in Nashville anymore! Ouch!! The rate from Atlanta has gone up to about $700. Double ouch!! I then pick Chattanooga and there's nothing there either; however the Budget online system tells me that I can get a truck in Rome, Georgia for $205. Deal! I make it to Rome (slightly north of Atlanta) and get settled with a 10-ft truck. I then go out and try to figure out how to get the GS in the truck… ah… there's no ramp on this truck! I go back inside and the fella behind the counter (a good ole' country boy) assures me there is a ramp on the 10' truck. I'm thinking that I'm some type of dumbass and we go back out to look. Nope, no ramp. He upgrades me to the 15' truck for no charge. At the time I thought that was pretty nice of him, but it sure cost a lot in fuel charges to get that thing home to Chicago. I also later realized how screwed I would be if I damaged/wrecked the truck as my auto insurance would cover a 10' truck, but not a 15' truck!! (note to self - try and stay away from trucks in the future!). Anyway, I get loaded up and get ready to go. I simply rode the GS up the ramp and in the truck. It was a little nerve-wracking, but, what the hell, I got a good start and was in the back of the truck before I knew it. I tied her down and off I went. The rain starts ten minutes after I left the lot - not really a big deal for me as I don't mind riding in the rain, but I figured as long as I was gonna have to haul her, it was nice that I was dry.



I hit Nashville a few hours later and run into traffic… even though I live in Chicago and have to deal with some pretty shitty traffic, I can't stand sitting in traffic in any city… Just as I leave Nashville and get on the road towards Fort Campbell I notice the first few snowflakes. It really doesn't look too bad - and I'm a big tough guy who has spent the last 15 years in Chicago - how bad can it be? Famous last words.





The snow begins to fall, and, worse, it begins to accumulate…



Wednesday night was pretty unsettling - the pictures don't even begin to do justice to how whacked the roads were. Earlier in the day, just outside of Nashville, I secured a reservation at the same hotel in Paducah where I had overnighted on the way down, although I decided fairly early in the evening that I would stop at the next hotel due to the road conditions. All were sold out. Shit. I kept going. Probably shouldn't have. I plodded on at about 10-15-20 miles an hour. It literally took me five hours to travel the last fifty miles. Hindsight is 20/20 and perhaps I should have been a bit more vigilant in trying to find a room off the interstate, but I didn't want to wander too far from the highway in case I were to get stuck…

I cannot tell you how many cars and trucks sped past me while I plodding along at a snail's pace. Many, many, many of them ended up in the ditch. I later heard that the Army was actually flying their helicopters up and down the highway that night rescuing people stranded in their vehicles. I realized that I would stand a pretty good chance of being dead if I put the truck in a ditch or flipped it - it was pretty hair-raising. Damn. Double damn.

I roll into the Drury Inn in Paducah pretty late - there were all sorts of pissed off people in the lobby because there were no rooms at the Inn… I cannot tell you how thankful I was that I had called earlier. Oh yes, did I mention that the truck had no heat? Shit.

Thursday morning I get up and it's no longer snowing, but the temp is pretty chilly - 10/15 degrees. Brrrr. I sit in the lobby and have breakfast for a while and wait for the snow to come out. I talk to an older couple in the lobby who were stuck in their car for about two hours before somebody came by and rescued them - they actually made it to the hotel in the early evening and were thankful to be alive. No kidding.

I get ready to go…



I'm thinking that the day can't possibly be as bad as the night and start to motor down the interstate. I notice that most of the cars have orange stickers on the antenna or the windshield - I can only guess that this probably means that somebody has checked the car and there's nobody inside. Ah, but not every car. I realize that some of these cars still have people in them - that some of them are trying to get their cars out of the snow. There's no freaken' way that these people spent the night in their cars. I realize that people are still driving off the damn road - speeding. Wow. Foolish.



I count over 300 cars in the ditch between Paducah and Mt Vernon, Illinois. Many of them occupied and recent - Jesus… it's amazing that people don't slow down. I'm no uptight ninny when it comes to speeding, but I just can't believe that people are still driving so fast and loosing their ass in a ditch. It reminds me that I need to be extra careful and that my insurance probably isn't going to cover an accident.

All in all, not exactly the warm sunny destination I had in mind when I set off on my journey south… but, having said all this, it was kind of a neat adventure. The new GS performed like a champ and the Key West part of the trip was really a lot of fun. The ride home was a different kind of a challenge, but still a cool opportunity to go off and bond with my GS.