RTTMS June 2, 2011

Good evening to all. I arrived safely at Mitch's house in Hollywood at about 4 pm today. The ride was problem free and considering the higher temperatures, not at all uncomfortable.

Here is a view of my "Office" while riding.

I left Tally at about 7 am to humid but comfortable temperatures as I fueled up and hit I-10 East. As I proceeded east, the ride was very nice however, the closer I got to the I-75 junction, the air became filled with dense haze and smoke from forest fires in South Georgia. When I made the turn south on to I-75, the haze and smoke quickly disappeared and the day was clear with a nice cover of scattered clouds-----starting to sound like the Weather Channel.

I breezed through Gainesville and Ocala and picked up the Florida Turnpike at Wildwood. I would have liked to stop and visited my sons and grandson that live in Wildwood but not on this part of the trip....maybe later. One note, it is really nice to have a Florida SunPass the allows automatic payment while traveling on the toll roads, especially on a bike, as you do not have to stop at each toll both to pay cash. You just keep on driving and the money is automatically paid. The only problem is that the pass only works in Florida. I believe that is the same for most of the devices. They do not work in other states. Maybe they will get that fix soon.

I met up with Mike Jernigan and his BMW GS motorcycle at the Canoe Creek Service Plaza on the Florida Turnpike at about 10:30 am. After a quick lunch break and conversation, Mike and I hit the turnpike heading south toward Broward County.

The traffic was light and we were able to maintain a very nice cruising speed.....about 77 mph and did not have any issues with Florida Highway Patrol or any other law enforcement.

As we approached Ft. Pierce, the wind picked up from the Northeast and the as we started to run parallel to the Atlantic Coast, the wind was more directly from the East. The onshore breeze keep the temperature more comfortable even though it was 90 degrees.

We made a quick fuel stop and then continued on our way. The traffic started to increase the further south we rode but it was still tolerable.

Mike split off to go to his brother-in-law's place while I continued on to Hollywood and Mitch's place. Mitch and I went to dinner....Bar-B-Que at Scruby's. Not a bad meal and it hit the spot.

Mitch and I discussed plans for our ride to Key West tomorrow and we made the arrangements with Mike to meet in the morning and ride to Key West for the "Start of Ride" stuff of my Ultimate Coast to Coast motorcycle ride.

That is about all for now.

More tomorrow.

Mike