Cracks in the Concrete: A Motorcycle Odyssey Through Modern America

Well, it happened. They say there are only 2 types of bikers - those who have crashed and those who will. As of Tuesday I’m firmly in the former category.  A bit of Florida sugar sand on an unpaved road outside of Gainesville did me in. Well, I guess it was more so the speed I hit that sand with rather than the sand itself. Kicking myself as the fall was very avoidable but thankful that it happened where it did (less than half a mile from a friend’s house) and that the damage was relatively minor. I escaped with just a broken wrist, but will need surgery. Planning to fly back to Pittsburgh for it, which will put any further progress across the south/west on hold for at least 2 months, probably longer if I get the bike repaired in Pittsburgh as I hope to. Harriet’s injuries appear to be pretty minor as well: a cracked windshield, broken turn signal cover, bent brake levers, and some minor cosmetic scratches. Perhaps more devastating was the damage done to my plans and my confidence....

After lunch at Columbia Restaurant in Tampa, I headed south for Naples. On the way, I stopped at Ave Maria as a few people had mentioned they had a pretty church worth seeing (don't worry folks, this was weeks before the measles outbreak -- I'm just that far behind on the blog). While the church was pretty in an interesting modern style kind of way, the town of Ave Maria felt extremely artificial to me -- like someone decided to randomly pick a plot of undeveloped land then build a university and ritzy golf course communities centered around a European-esque town square with a big church in the middle. And as it turns out, that's almost exactly what happened. While the campus was beautiful, it had the same artificial feel as the town, but the Mother Theresa museum on campus was pretty cool.   The big Church Inside was more modern than I expected but still pretty in its own way A little canal? Lake? River? Some body of water on campus In Naples, I gave couch surfing another ...

After Sarasota, I (counterintuitively) went back north to Tampa. I took the scenic route over the skyway bridge at April's suggestion.  Five miles of the skyway bridge provides panoramic views of Tampa Bay. To answer the question I’m sure all of you are asking, no, you are not allowed to camp at the bridge fishing piers. In Tampa, I met up with my friend, Jeremy, who I met at camp last summer.  Jeremy is finishing up his junior year at USF, where he’s double majoring in Finance and French with a minor in Insurance and Risk Management. He’s not sure what he wants to do when he graduates, but he is sure that it won’t entail insurance or risk management. He’s done enough of those to realize it ain’t for him, but the minor sponsors some awesome free trips (this summer to Germany, next winter to London), so he’s decided it’s worth keeping the minor. Outside of class, he’s in the French Club and the Risk Management & Insurance Fraternity (yes, apparently that is a thing). He als...