Road Trip to Bike Week March 2006

I had a marvelous vacations in 2006.  I took all kinds of adventures.  In the spring I took a 2 day road trip to Florida with Allen Zylstra.  I had purchased a 1980 Honda CM400T motorcycle on Ebay for $25 and I had to pick it up in Port Orange, FL.  Allen had also made a purchase in Jacksonville.  We departed at 3am.  We stopped along the way at Chik-Fil-A for breakfast.  The girl had for gotten to unlock the door and the drive thru line was very long.  We walked around to the window and asked if we could come in.  Fortunately we were 1st to order since once the doors were unlocked a long line formed. We then quickly made it to Jacksonville around 9:30 or 10am and picked up Allen's pipe bender.

From there we went to Port Orange and picked up my bike.  The owner was not in, but we found the bike.  We had to go into the shop and get a tool to loosen the front breaks since we couldn't roll the bike onto the trailer.  The bike wasn't in  too bad shape and had several accessories worth way more than $25 that would work on my bike.  

Now we proceeded to trailer this Honda on the back of my rickety farm trailer to Daytona's Bike Week.  We stopped at various vendors and it got busier and busier the longer we were there.  Soon the streets were packed and we followed a garage sale sign to a road that was closed off due to the festivities.  A girl sold us the parking spot at her apartment for $10 as she headed off to work.  The midway was packed with people. People were walking shoulder to shoulder. We walked the crowed streets and our ears were rattled by all the Harleys creeping down the busy street. We found a deal on some web bungee cords and some T-Shirts for the other riders back at the office.  Allen got his photo taken with celebrity cycle builder Russell Mitchell, founder of Exile Cycles.

Departing Bike Week was a bigger fiasco than getting there.  Traffic was jammed in and out.  It took us a while, but we traveled through the Deltona area and stopped by Blue Springs State Park were we  went swimming.  Allen had not snorkeled before and I couldn't get his mask to seal.  I swam against the strong current to the spring boil, while Allen got there by trail.  I enjoyed drifting back amongst the schools of fish to the swimming platform.  We talked to a nice lady ranger.  She was getting ready to close the park.  Since the bathroom was locked and no one was around, I changed in the parking lot.  We decided on seafood for dinner and we went to Pier 16, a delightful family restaurant in Orange City, FL.  We checked out the Honda Goldwings while we waited for our table.  I ordered the all you can eat variety plate.  All of it was yummy and we stuffed ourselves like pigs.

We left the restaurant and hit State Route 40 across the Ocala National Forest.  We passed the locked Juniper Springs recreation area and turned down a nearby Forest Service road.  We searched in the darkness and finally found an open area to pitch out tent and campout  for the night.  After a well deserved nights sleep, we hit the road in the morning and looked for a few garage sales.  We were not too successful at that in rural, FL.  We made the long ride back home just in time to clean up and head to our Sunday school picnic at Lee and Jean Sass' home.

A final note:  A few days after returning home, I broke the engine loose with Marvel Mystery Oil.  I shot some carb cleaner into the engine. and got it to run.  I bought another bike for more parts and swapped carburetors.  I got the bike running and rode it around my yard a few times.  Later, when I tried to start it again I couldn't get it to fire.  I may try to work on it again this fall.