Farewell Florida Motorcycle Tour

I did not exactly plan to spend 22 hours on a motorcycle this weekend. My spouse and his brother have thought of an overnight trip since they first got their motorcycles as men in their 50s (as opposed to the motorcycles they had as men in their teens).  My spouse's brother is part of a motorcycle club, and they organized a trip over to Reddington Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida near St Pete.

My spouse wanted me to come, and I said I would only come if he rented a 3 wheel motorcycle, a trike not a slingshot.  This was back in late March; I had not yet broken my wrist. Much of the trip was planned and nonrefundable, so we asked my hand surgeon if I could go.  He said I could as long as I didn't operate the motorcycle--no chance of that.

So off we went early on Saturday morning. The group of 20 motorcycles made its way north on US 27, stopping for lunch at a great barbecue place that I will never be able to find again. In the afternoon we took a winding tour of Florida mines--I was never able to determine what was being mined aside from “minerals.”  Then we made our way, our long way, west towards Tampa.  After making our way through some traffic, we continued on towards Clearwater and Reddington Beach.

We stayed at a resort (I use that word loosely0 that had once been a motor lodge kind of place. They had done their best to update it--it was comfortable enough for one night, and while I was shocked at the price, it's clearly compatible with other similar places. It had the advantage of a pizza kitchen restaurant in the front of the property, where we got a good meal outside, with fairly cheap beer and wine. 

We left very early the next morning, and in a way that was good. When 20 to 22 people descend on a restaurant, it takes a while to get service, and we stopped for both breakfast and lunch.  On our way back on Sunday, we did a loop that is called the Tail of the Gecko because it winds and twists, although it was less twisty than I was afraid it would be.

As we made our way across the state and back again, I thought about the fact that this is likely my last trip on a motorcycle in Florida.  The heat shimmered up from the pavement and blazed down from the sun in the sky, and I remembered that I don't really like motorcycle trips in the summer, and much of Florida has summer weather year round. For much of the trip I felt a bit heat sick.  Having a broken wrist and a cast made the trip less optimal as well.

It was a great way to say farewell. I will be headed off to DC in August to live at seminary, so the trip felt like one last hurrah. We saw Florida in all its shapes:  urban skylines, vast fields of crops,  all sorts of livestock, undeveloped fields, land literally staked out for development, forests and rivers and beaches.  People hear about Florida and they think orange groves, but Florida has always had a very diverse agriculture industry. Much of the beef you are likely to eat comes from Florida, as does much of the sugar. 

This is not the kind of trip I would want to take a lot:  too many hours on the bike.  But I'm glad we had a chance to do what my spouse and his brother have been dreaming about for almost a decade.  It's not the kind of trip that will make me wish that it was a week ago when I could experience it all again. It's not my dream vacation. But I'm glad I had a chance to do it.