I have one more trip to my car to be completely moved out of my office. With a month left I realized that I still have a lot of work to do. Cleaning out my office has been a big step. I’m almost ready to spend some serious time on the road. Now I have to go through everything I own and decide what to keep. One step at a time I guess.
Tonight’s Fresh Air had one of the best interviews with one of my favorite Public Radio hosts, Ira Glass (nephew of Phillip Glass). Terry Gross is one of the best interviewers I’ve ever heard. Her interviews are very detailed and well researched. Her show is always interesting with thought leaders from every imaginable field. Tonight’s show highlights her abilities when she interviews a man who’s often on the other side of the questions.
“This American Life” Showtime premiere March 22nd.
The weather doesn’t get much better than it was today. The sky was clear, the temperarture was mild, the wind was bearable. I had a fantastic ride with what has become my Jacksonville motorcycle family.
This is a picture of the Southern Most Point in the continental US. It’s on the tip of Key West. It’s only 90 miles to Cuba from here. Rett and I stopped here on the way up US 1, which also begins in Key West. The weather all weekend was beautiful, with the only rain falling on my day of rest.
We left in perfect time on Monday to catch rush hour traffic in Miami. My GPS took me right through downtown, which would have been very fast had about 10,000 other people taken another route. Passing the skyline reminded me of a regular big city except here there are palm trees. After spending an hour in bumper to bumper traffic nearly melting because I had enough layers on for highway speeds, I felt a lot more connected to the bike. I figured if we can fight 10 lanes of angry drivers on a major highway, the open road should be a pleasure.
Yesterday my friend Michelle and I went for a ride up to Fernindina. The goal was to make a big loop, going out Heckshire Drive and returning via A1A through Yulee. Unfortunately, Heckshire Drive was closed, so the loop became simple there and back ride. The ride up US17 is certainly interesting. Starting in downtown Jacksonville, it quickly leaves the dense high-rise (and high rent) neighborhood and crosses into Springfield. There was evidence of Springfield making progress near downtown, but as 17 travels north, there is evidence of urban decay along the way; closed stores, run down buildings, cars without wheels. Crossing the Trout River the sides of the road went from urban to rural with the occasional industrial complex. Hooking a right onto A1A we quickly rode out to Amelia Island and into downtown Fernindina. Laid out on a grid, the downtown has the feeling of an old prosperous port town with mostly single story brick and stone buildings. We found an Irish restaurant where I enjoyed fish and chips with enough batter for two servings. Our server, Kyle, was a guy from my class at Bolles. It certainly is a small world. The picture here is me with a pirate that I took to say thanks to Benji (of thescruffypirate.org), who’s hosting my website.
Here’s the route that I’m considering today.
Potential route with stops
On another note, there are 333 days left in the year.
