A shot of Garrett and myself - he is starting to wake up :-)
June 1, 2002
The Ride Home . . .
"Ma'am, This is the Police - we're coming in"
These are the last shots of the three of us together, and we actually took them at something like 3 o'clock in the morning. These are pictures outside of the same Holiday Inn that we stayed in on our way TO Hammond. We rode to Hammond, and crashed out early so we could leave early in the morning.
One interesting point, about 5 doors down the hotel from us, there was some 'Police Action.' We weren't exactly sure what was going on, and we weren't really in a hurry to find out either. The patrol car was out, and two officers were beating on the hotel room doors. We peeked out, waited for it to blow over (and it did - without incident) and then we got out and took these shots.
I know what you are thinking, "what is that in Tonya's lap?" I know, I thought the same thing when I saw this shot. It is her wallet, she kept it like a fanny back, except . . we'll - that's not her fanny. A shot of Tonya and Garrett - note he is standing but not particularly 'awake.'
A shot of Garrett and myself - he is starting to wake up :-)
And one of Tonya and I.
We said our tearful farewells right after that shot and went on our merry ways. I was pretty sad to see Garrett go and I could tell he wasn't too crazy about departing so soon either. Florida is great, but it sucks not being close to your only brother - I gotta figure out a way to get him to move . . .
So, we headed on. The sunrise in Louisiana was absolutely stunning. I don't know if it happens every morning, but on that morning it was a big orange ball of fire slowly lifting up through the mists of the surrounding swamp. The downside was that there wasn't really a place to pull over and take a decent picture.
The returning ride home was only eventful in a bad way - there was highway construction on I-10 and we spent probably an extra hour or so sweltering in stop and go traffic with the pungent odor of fresh blacktop wafting up from the pavement to our left.
This was our last meal before heading south on FL-19. We
stopped and got gas and went to the attached Burger-Hell.
What
a dump. Note the broken door on the cabinet behind Tonya? The floor
was filthy, as were the tables. On the TV immediately behind me was a
non-stop Home Shopping Network loop. We gulped down the soda, knawed on
the beef jerky, and hit the road.
The ride itself was fairly non-descript. There was little traffic on 19 so I took the opportunity to test the laws of physics on the BMW. I believe that motorcycle is actually capable of 140mph if you take the bags off, tuck hard and wear smoother clothes.
Here
it is, the last shot from the ride. Tonya's stretch-and-arch at its
finest. There may be pictures of what happened after I took this shot -
but we don't have that kind of relationship so you won't be seeing them.
Live Free, Ride Hard
Scott