Fantasy Fest - Key West

We really rain tested the camper last week. 7 inches of rain in 5 hours! Wow, we thought it would never end. We camped for 5 days at Boyd's Campground on Stock Island about 6 miles from Duvall Street. We dodged the rain most of the time and had great fun. If you've never been to Fantasy Fest, take your camera! Think of a Duvall Street costume party for 70,000 where artfully applied body paint is the general rule. The way I heard it, the first Fantasy Fest parade was led by a lady "dressed" as a Rolls Royce hood ornament! This apparently ment she was spray painted silver and she rode on the hood of the lead vechicle in the nude. The city fathers were aghast, but Key West is a pretty liberal town so they proposed a rule that requires a G-string with your body paint. This rule is generally followed, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, although some adventurous ladies paint on the G-string. Viva l'art!

Whatever you think of the art, I have never had a bad day there and don't know anyone who has. Fantasy Fest is much more fun, sexier, and much, much, much better behaved than the once fun Marti Gras which has degenerated into a pretty ... ah... degenerate affair. If you appreciate art like me, or just like crazy costume parties that last a week, Fantasy Fest is not to be missed.

Again, no drama in our 800 or so miles of towing and riding. the camper was 99% dry, which in a 7" deluge says a lot. I never figured out where the quart or so of water came from, but it puddled safely on the floor and the bedding stayed dry. With 100% humidity, it may have simply condensed out of the air on the wrong side of the canvas. In any event, it was very easy to deal with but will cause me to re-seal the seams before the next big trip.

We camped one more night after Fantasy Fest at a local campground and enjoyed it. We saw deer, aligators, peacocks, and hawks within 80' of our campsite. Ahhh, back to nature; nice.

Theresa will visit her mom in Maryland the week before Christmas and we have a week of Jamaican fun planned for January. In Feburary we take a carribean cruise and end the month with 9 days at Daytona Bike Week. I'll give another camping report then.

Biketober Fest - Daytona, Florida

The camper was loaded with anything we thought we needed for a few days of camping and we set off for Sunny Sands, about 40 miles from the center of action at Daytona. Biketober Fest is a smaller version of the big Daytona Bike Week http://www.daytonabikeweek.com/pictures.cfm where thousands of bikers converge for a week of riding, beer, sexy ladies, good food, 20 oz. pork chops, (yum), incredable motorcycles, racing, coleslaw wrestling, and wet t-shirt contests. What's not to like?
The camping trailer kept us comfortable and dry and we found we didn't need to pack quite as much as we took. We had a great time, rode about 1800 miles and the trailer pulled beautifully. You hardly know it's back there until you need to stop fast. It increses the stopping distance a lot, so I give the vehicle in front of me 3 or 4 seconds of space rather than my normal 2. No drama so far...

Picked up the trailer

I picked up the trailer on October 9th, 2008 at the Southeastern Freight Terminal in ft. Myers. I now understand why Trailmaster charges $120 to wrap it up an put it on a palette. The job was very well done and might have been shipped around the world without damage. Anything that could have been scratched was wrapped in saran wrap. I'm glad I took a tool kit to unwrap it. You need a couple of wrenches, sockets help, a knife and some muscle to get it off of the palette. I towed it to Outdoor World where I bought a flat four conductor trailer plug, to get the lights working. My Swiss Army knife and some duct dape allowed me to fix it in the parking lot. The trailer comes with a round 6 pole connector that won't fit my 5 pin round motorcycle socket, or the flat four pin on the car. Northern Tool stocked a round 5 pole that may work, yet to be installed.

We stocked up on some missing camping gear and will field test it at Biketoberfest in Daytona from , Oct. 15 to 19, then Fantasy Fest in Key WestOct. 22 to 26. I'll post my impressions then.

Adventures of Harry & Theresa Hanbury

Theresa and Harry have decided to embark on a big adventure, an ambitious motorcycle/camping trip from Florida to Alaska. We have been thinking about doing this for several years and decided last week to actually take the first step. The focus of this blog will be this trip.

In July 08, we rode our Honda Gold Wing, (a 1993 GL 1500), to the Wing Ding in Greenville, SC. A Wing Ding is a huge rally for Gold Wing owners and while there, we went shopping for a small, camping trailer to pull behind the motorcycle. We looked at many, but the Aspen Classic appeared to fill our wants best. See http://www.trailmasterinc.com/aspclassic/aspclassic.html

On September 24th we ordered a loaded Classic with almost all the options. Expensive. There are cheaper ways to go but if we actually make it to Alaska, I think the extra money will have been well spent.

Peggy, at Trail Master says they can make about 6 a day and ours should ship around October 6th. If we get it 4 days later we can test it out at Biketober Fest in Daytona. http://www.biketoberfest.org/

If all goes well there, we repack our Halloween costumes for Fantasy Fest in Key West, later in the month. http://www.fantasyfest.net/ . We may try a few more "shake down" trips to learn how and what to pack for the big ride.

Sometime around mid May 2009, we expect to head to Alaska via: Myrtle Beach Bike Week, Rolling Thunder in D.C., Pike's Peak, CO, the Grand Teatons, Yellowstone, the Calgary Stampede, Alaska. On the way home we expect to do Sturgis, SD for the big motorcycle rally.

Past experience predicts that we will have an adventure every day and make many new friends allong the way. Beyond this rough outline, our plans are chiseled in Jello. We like to make it up as we go along.

We will report again when the trailer arrives.