Every other day of my life I am wide awake at 5am. Today, when I wanted to be on the road by 6am, I did not wake until 6am when the cat told me it was tired of waiting for me to get up. I had wanted the early departure to avoid the Tampa area rush hour. Scoot (spelled correctly this year) and me blasted out of the garage around 7:45am.
We headed due north up the peninsula till abeam Land of Lakes and took a right over to US41. We would follow 41 the rest of the day.
I missed the first great photo-op as I was in the "lets get out of rush hour as quick as possible" mode. In fact, the traffic was not real bad. I pondered what I had missed for the next hour. Just south of Brooksville and I passed a female chain-gang dressed in stripped uniforms. What a picture.
The next picture I tried to get was after passing to very young deer with spots, but by the time I made the u-turn they where gone. I was lucky enough to get a shot of a wild turkey, though not a real good one.
The heat seemed to be keeping everyone inside. There where no horses being trained in horse country, there was no one in the fields, there was no one outside their houses, and there was only one construction and they where standing in the shade. There where lots of wild flowers on along road.
Lunch time came as we rolled into Lake City. Not a lot of non-fast food choices, but I found a nice pharmacy with a lunch counter. The big employer in Lake City is at the airport where there is a major aircraft overhaul facility. I visited with one of the managers at lunch. Business is "steady" he says and they have done a lot of consolidating of the last few years. I found this ironic as just last week I got an email from a friend at USAir that was ferrying an aircraft to El Salvador for the same maintenance that could have been done in Lake City. Outside of Lake City I stopped to ask directions and visit with some guys setting in the shade. We had a nice chat, they gave me directions and we where off.
Crossed into to Georgia around 2pm. We passed a really, really huge steam shovel (do they still call the "steam") Tried to get around close to it to get a picture, but was unsuccessful. We crossed into Georgia around 1:30pm
Rolled into Valdosta, Ga. and as usual encountered the long arm of the law once again.
I checked into the Fairview B & B. I was the only customer but there was a crowd in the kitchen canning squash.
Any one can ride a Harley across America, but it takes a real man to ride a Vespa.
