Cracks in the Concrete: A Motorcycle Odyssey Through Modern America

When I hit the road in Jacksonville, I immediately noticed that my speedometer was not behaving as expected. It'd randomly and rapidly spike then fall back to zero, typically lagging seconds behind on acceleration before catching up when I hit the brakes. Restarting the bike didn't fix it, and the bike seemed to be riding fine so I ended up ignoring the issue for about 150 miles until I needed gas. Stepping off the bike, the root cause quickly became apparent.  The speed sensor cord had been split and one of the three wires in it was frayed and completely separated. I was able to get by without the speedometer for 500+ miles by gaging speed from my tachometer (based on what gear I'm in and what RPMs the engine is at, I can get a pretty decent estimate of speed) and by navigating using GoogleMaps (they have a your speed box calculated with GPS). What I didn't realize until a few hundred miles later though, was that this wire also affected my odometer (don't worry, I ...

In Jacksonville, I stayed with April, John, 6 of their 8 children (oldest 2 are off at college), and John's mother Debbie, who leads multiple pilgrimages to Medjugorje every year. John’s originally from Seattle, while April grew up in Louisville. They met in college at Franciscan University of Steubenville in southeast Ohio. John was pre-med undergrad, while April studied theology. After college there were stops in Seattle (where John dabbled in pharmaceutical sales) then South Bend (where April worked for the diocese while John went to law school) before they landed in Orlando around 20 years ago (where John began clerking for a judge).  Initially they they thought Florida would be a pit stop before a move out to Denver and the mountains, but they ended up falling in love with Florida and have found a home they can’t imagine leaving in on the banks of the St John River in Jacksonville.   Sunset on the St. John's River April and John have built a beautiful house on the th...

In Savannah, I was hoping to meet up with Jack, a friend from college who I haven't seen in a number of years. Unfortunately, he was out of town on a business trip - doubly a shame cause he’s done some pretty cool/unique stuff that I think y’all would have enjoyed reading about. Hopefully he’s in town when I’m back on the East Coast later this year. Though he was out of town, Jack was kind enough to let me crash at his place, which was a  great location to explore Savannah from.   I had heard that Savannah was nice and worth a stop, but admittedly hadn’t heard much beyond that, so I didn’t really arrive with many expectations. Still, Savannah managed to blow the picture I had in my mind out of the water. It just might be the prettiest US city I’ve ever been to: Spanish moss covered oaks & palm trees, colorful colonial architecture and stunning churches, parks galore, fountains and statues. It seemed like a third of intersections had been turned into squares with small...

Ok, back to the present. My goal this year is to keep up with the blog, so I’m planning to write my post for a place soon after I finish up there. As I still have a long backlog of posts to get through from October and November, I’ll sprinkle those in when I have time to write them during longer stops. So it’ll be a kinda random mix of the past and present going forward, because just being 3 months behind wasn’t confusing enough.  So I’m currently in a Waffle House in Waynesboro, GA. I started riding again last Sunday (1/18), from Black Mountain, NC. And on Sunday, I set a new record for the coldest weather I’ve ridden in: 30 with a real feel of 21ish. Within 20 minutes I was pretty miserable. Fortunately, it warmed up a bit when the sun came out in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten much warmer. Last night it dropped to 28 at my campsite, and right now it’s 48 with a real feel of 38. Even in Savannah, my target destination for the evening, the high today is 55. At leas...