All packed and ready for anything!
Day one! Off to a late start, obsessively checking lists, luggage, and the Ulysses for anything we may have forgotten. We make one last trip to Bass Pro Shops and Walgreens, browsing around for anything useful, as if we're heading off into the wilds for a month. Afternoon starts creeping in and we remind ourselves that we're traveling across the United States, not around the world, and for better or worse, will never be more than a day from a big-box store. By 2pm we're on the road at last.
Braving Route 27 ("Bloody 27") up through the middle of the state, we see that, like so many things people tell horror stories about, there was nothing to fear. It's a well-paved road through vast uninterrupted wetlands, where the most frightening occurrence was a flock of small birds flying low across the road.
We make a stop at Clewiston for gas and a stretch, realize that there isn't much to see and continue to our next stop near Bartow. The bike gets a full tank of gas and we get full faces of corn nuts, peanut butter cookies, and sassafras candy. Inside the gas station a small plastic table for kids serves as an amazingly comfortable picnic bench.
Really testing our BlueAnt Interphones for the first time, we find them to be marginally successful. Jamie can't hear most of what I'm saying, and mine, turned all the way up is just barely audible. They're much effective below 60mph or so. I think we may just have to learn to speak more like we're on walkie-talkies than get the full chatty communication we were expecting. A nice realization was that we could still use earplugs at the same time as the headsets, since the speakers had to be louder than the wind noise to be audible anyway. When the batteries ran low on the headsets and they were charging under the seat, we listened to music with in-ear headphones, which cut most of the wind noise and sounded great as well.
The day's sketch sums it up pretty well.
Around 7pm we got to my mother's cousin (I think that makes him my first cousin, once-removed) James's house in San Antonio. We had a little difficulty finding it, realizing that if you add a waypoint to zumo from the computer it doesn't necessarily save the address, just the location. James took us over to downtown Dade City, where a classic car show was just wrapping up, then over to his parents' house.
Grand-uncle (thanks, family chart!) Frank gave us some helpful tips and told some fantastic stories about Yosemite, drew us a truly wonderful weird map of the park, and informed us the name of the park means 'land of killers' (I had no idea then how many times that would go through my head over the course of the trip). It was great catching up with Frank and Janet, Lisa, and her sons James and Matthew, and made me realize how rare it is that I see this side of my family, and how it's more important to me as I get older to see them more often. I also decide that I'm going to turn out quite a bit like Frank when I get older, with tales and advice for the younger generations on their own travels.
Off to dinner at Pancho's Villa, which was a little weird - Jamie thought my chili rellenos tasted like dog food, and I thought it tasted like Chinese food. Old oil perhaps? The margaritas were strong though, and eased the last of the day's travel out of our muscles and concerns from my mind.
As we settled for the night I realize I've been a bit edgy all day, worrying about the bike, the new K&N air filter, the 2007 airbox cover, miscellaneous vibrations, and feeling so much responsibility for everything being perfect. But it's fading continuously, and just writing about it makes me feel much more relaxed, knowing this will be an amazing, unforgettable experience no matter what. I can't believe it's finally happening after months of preparation, practice, and research, and that I have someone like Jamie to do it with.
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