We left Panama City FL this morning sort of late. It was already humid and hot when we left the flea ridden hotel. Our destination for today is Orlando Florida! One thing about riding the major highways you miss out in some excellent riding roads. This is the reason why I purposely missed a major turn on my GPS and ended up in some hickville country roads. As it turned out, this was one of those great mistakes. The roads we ended up riding were huge sweeping curves filled with rolling dips on the straight shots. One thing I noticed is the maximum speed is posted on the roads but suggested maximum speed is not. This means you can come to curve hot and have to counter aggressively or find it’s a long sweeping bend as you make the turn, now that’s fun shit.
We seemed to be making more stops then usual either for gas, water or smokes. I think the humidity is a big factor when riding the Southern states. I can ride deserts with 110+ temps make it through fine as long as I’m keeping myself hydrated. The Southern states have a certain type of heat exhaustion that wears you down and causes you to sweat (lose water) more than you think you really are. Since you’re on the bike moving it’s evaporating before you realize you’ve been sweating for the past 30 miles.
That being said about the humid heat… as soon as we entered Orlando city limits we hit a thunderstorm that made me have to pull over and get the rain gear on Lorraine. Even though she didn’t want to stop I needed to make sure she was geared up to protect her from the rain and any other mishap due to the bad weather conditions. Once we pulled over to the side she put my jacket on and we headed for the next exit which was a gas station. Lorraine did a full upper gear change out so that her body was warm. It turned out the worse had passed through and the rain we rode through for the remainder of the trip was nothing compared to the winds and thunderstorm.
Note: if you’re heading towards a rainbow and still see the dark clouds ahead of you, pull over and get your rain gear on! Lesson learned.
Lorraine is still smiling after riding through the thunder storm!
I forgot about the toll roads in Orlando and after the 2nd time kept a couple bucks handy so I didn’t have to fish around for my wallet wearing rain gear. We rolled into the International Drive area to look for a place to stay for a couple of nights. This area is super congested due to Universal Studios theme park and other tourist attractions.
After cruising about 1.5 miles down the road I saw an Embassy Suite sign and pulled in. It turned out there was a room available and it was heck of inexpensive! We got a $400 per night room for only $109 each night! They even let us park the Goldwing under the entrance overhang to protect the bike from the weather and keep it safe.