Panama Beach to Biloxi, Mississippi

We had another beautiful day of perfect weather and after a nice breakfast in Panama Beach hit the road. We wanted to do 300 miles today but settled for less when we saw the Naval Air Museum, home of the Blue Angles, in Pensacola, FL. http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/ We could have spent the whole afternoon checking out all the static display aircraft but they had a very cool IMAX movie that virtually put us in the cockpit of a Blue Angles, FA-18 Hornet! I'm pleased to say Theresa handled the show without loosing her lunch! Some of the scenes were quite realistic.

We wanted to get a room for the night since we were traveling late and noticed that Biloxi, MI was within range. We stopped at the first super large Casino/Spa/Hotel we saw and found that the Grand Biloxi could be had for $59.! We checked in, explored, showered and now we are off to bed. I had already checked in when I asked about Internet connectivity. I was very unhappily surprised that it is an $11 a day option! Blackberry Storm to the rescue. I plugged the notebook PC into my trusty smartphone and voila! We are surfing, emailing, and blog editing at high speed from our room. Charging for Internet has become an unusual practice lately so be careful to ask before you select a hotel. In spite of their lousy Internet charges, the room is beautiful with king bed, flat screen TV, nice furnishings, etc. Much more comfortable that our tent/trailer. I have secretly punished them for the Internet charge by not gambling in the casino! Take that Grand Biloxi!

Panama Beach

We had a beautiful ride today of around 250 miles. The weather was perfect, the bike ran well, no drama. Now we are settled into a hotel called Sandpiper Beacon and I'm editing the blog poolside, listening to a very good live rock and roll band on the beach about 100 feet away. Life is good.

The picture on the left is of a road that went straight as an arrow for maybe 20 miles! Nothing but forrests on each side. It was facinating to see the effect of past brush fires on the trees. You could tell the beneficial effect of fires that cleared the underbrush. Where it grew too thick the trees burn, but if well managed the brush burns without harming the trees. some of it looked almost like the black forest in Germany.

It's time to go look for some dinner so I'll add to the blog the next time we stay in a hotel with Internet.

Blast Off!

We planned to depart our home in Naples at 9 AM and go to the Leesburg Bike Fest, but as Robert Burns said about the best laid plans... We hit the road at 4 PM but had a very pleasent ride to Davenport Florida where my brother Bob and his wife Marcia live in their motorhome. On the way we stopped for one last, (for a while), blue crab meal at our favorite place, Peace River Seafood.

Bob and Marcia just bought an RV lot equipped with large garden shed we call the "Suite". Actually it is very nice with a/c, a full bath, laundry, and a comfortable futon for sleeping or tv watching. We slept like rocks there for the first two nights, while enjoying their hospitality for meals, rides to the rally, and evening movie.

We did make it to the motorcycle rally on Saturday and Sunday, now we have just set up the camper in the Ginny Springs Outoors Campground. Unless you are a scuba diver, snorkler, or tubber, don't bother. The camping is very rustic and because it is an inner tubbing and dive attraction, rather expensive; $43.99. tomorrow we will push off toward Texas but will probably only move 300 miles westward.

To help me keep track, our departing mileage on the Goldwing was 47,355. Tonight it is 47,757.

If we stay in a hotel with Internet soon, we will update the blog there. Having fun so far!

Heated Grips!

It felt like my birthday! Wally DePuy called me Saturday morning saying he had a present for me. I rode over and found he had bought a beautiful set of heated grips for the Gold Wing! He said we might need it in Alaska, so we spent much of the rest of the day installing them and the XM Radio I have been using in the car. Great success!

A few months ago I bought and installed the Aux Audio Input Kit from Kennedy Electronics so I could connect the GPS's MP3 player to the audio system. Now the old, (1993), Wing has most of the modern accessories of a new bike! The list includes: AM/FM radio, cassette player, Garmin 660 GPS with MP3 payer and bluetooth, XM Radio, and a Blackberry Storm which connects via bluetooth. The whole thing plays through the four loudspeakers or the stereo headphones inside the helmets. The helmets have microphones for the intercom system so Theresa and I can chat comfortably while riding. The only thing I couldn't fix was the the flaky CB radio. When I key the mic it puts out a carrier but no sound. I was hoping it was in the handlebar mic key so I took it apart and cleaned it but no joy. I guess a 16 year old circuit in the radio has finally died. It looks like radios might age in dog years. The rest of the bike, on the other hand, feels like it is in it's prime! The motor purrs like an electric motor, starts fast, never misses, and pulls like a locomotive. I've checked the oil, tires, brakes, nuts and bolts; I think the bike is ready for the trip!

I needed a smaller notebook computer for the trip, so I bought a new 14" HP from Sam's Club, http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=421105 , that should fill the need. It has a DVD R/W drive so we can watch movies on a rainy day. I loaded Microsoft Office and the new Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 program which lets us map our route. It's great for locating campgrounds and attractions along the way. It also includes a small GPS if needed. There's a very cool feature of the Blackberry Storm that allows us to tether to the notebook for pretty fast Internet whenever we have 3G service from Verizon. That should allow us to update the blog, get email, and consult Google Maps as needed. The final luxury item is a tiny Hauppauge USB TV Tuner. This will let us watch TV through the computer if we are close enough to a city to get a signal. It may not be as comfortable as home, but our camper/tent will rock! Electronically speaking.

The new waterproof Panasonic camera, (DMC-TS1S), has been ordered. I've got my fingers crossed that it will arrive before we leave. I found some large 16 and 32 Gig memory cards which make the video recording feature practical to use. Maybe I'll try my hand at a YouTube video production along the way.

The official blast off date is April 24th. We plan to ride with friends to the Leesburg Bike Fest, http://leesburgbikefest.com/ , then westward from there. The trailer is packed with everything but our clothes and we won't take many. We plan to buy new clothes as we need them since it is much easier to get cold weather riding gear in Canada than Florida.

Yesterday I added a gizmo to the blog for people who are following us on the trip. Sign up and I think it will send you an email when the blog is updated.