Tallahassee Hike

After a week at home working every night I found myself back in the Fusion with Cheyenne and the wife and the three of us set off for California, part two of the vacation chronicles of this endless time away from the keys in the summer of 2010. However before we set off I helped this poor dude get a signature for his epic ride to Prudhoe Bay from Key West.He was riding lucky devil; I was driving, happy family man. I came off shift at 6am and immediately recognized a fellow Iron Butt victim in the Police Station lobby,trying to get a witness for his ride. I asked Officer Barrios for help and he was surprised but happy to oblige.He is an experienced Iron Butt rider judging by his gongs and labels and stickers but I was happy to take his picture with his witness in this critical spot. he expected to be on the Arctic Sea in a week. All I have is a Saddle Sore under my certificated Butt. That was good deed, what I hoped was an auspicious start to our three week journey. My wife meanwhile had been emptying the piggy bank, a replica Triumph Bonneville tank and was busy sorting our change into little plastic bags. She found more than sixty reserve currency dollars in the ceramic fuel tank.

The weather promised rain much of the way north but in the event we left home at 6:45 in the morning and we didn't get deluged till Orlando seven hours later. The rest of the drive was uneventful, the Fusion purred along and returned 27mpg at a steady 80 miles per hour. We arrived at the Tallahassee La Quinta Inn at 6pm and immediately Cheyenne tucked in.

Then my wife went to the pool and Cheyenne and I went for an explore. Usually these motels are stuck in unpromising suburbs but we make do. In this case we kept going and ended up we knew not where.The strange thing about having a dog on a road trip is you end walking in horrendous places, corners of the world, you would never bother to look for if you travel without an animal that needs exercise. It is also true that walking your Labrador you get to see just how grotesque modern urban planning is. The La Quinta dog friendly motel is on the other side of I-10 under the semi circular sign on the left, in front of the truck.I am proud of Cheyenne's nature, that of a true explorer.

Pushing the envelope is her motto. And of the envelope is under a freeway overpass she doesn't mind dragging me there.I want to be back in the room is my thought.

We stumped past rows of identical suburban homes. There was nothing to attract the eye or engage the mind of a human around here.

there's a pretty lake over yonder behind the trees, this helpful pedestrian pointed. I wondered why he was walking, though my dog gave me instantly identifiable respectability. I was a dog walker in pink Crocs.A lake? Really?

We took the sidewalk along the main road back to the hotel for the final stretch of our hour long excursion. Look how they've mucked up this lovely pine tree.

For this?I fear I must seem naive but I forget how ugly they manage to make the mainland. If I peeked through the stumpy little trees on Big Pine Key and saw this I wouldn't be happy. Nor would my neighbors.This guy was headed to load up on carbs and calories and could barely make the six inch step. I watched him ponder his move before painfully raising a leg. Had I been closer I'd have stepped down to help. I wonder if he would have been grateful.

What a muck we have made of paradise.

650 miles down, 2600 left before we get to the Pacific Ocean.

Edgefield South Carolina

The thing is, when you come across a statement like this you feel compelled to slow your headlong return to Key West and take a turn around the town square.It is a pretty little town along the Highway, all trees and brick and bright blue skies:It's on the way from here to there: It has some obsession with turkey.They say this is the capital of wild turkey and if you want to hunt these birds this is the place to be. The turkey shoppe sells turkey killing accessories. I hunted turkey in my own way. You can't turn around for turkey in Edgefield.

Isn't this the archetype of southern living, an era of solid construction in classical style.

A large prosperous main square.

A sense of history permeates these towns.

A touch of the modern invading the old.

Back on the highway nasty, brutish, neon reality takes back the view.It was a good vacation, ending with a great cross country ride, dog walks in Georgia's pine forests and southern meals and sunsets.Before the next full moon we three had a date in California.Cheyenne was blissfully ignorant but she had the prospect of another three weeks riding around the United States in the car. I hope she doesn't like the foggy cool California coast too much. The Keys will be as hot as ever when we get back at the end of July.

Bean Quesadillas

Returning from our last excursion into the mountains we stopped at the American Owned Ingles store and picked up a few bits and pieces. My wife was making dinner for our last night in North Carolina.Back at the ranch brother in law Bob and sister in law Geeta were tending their crops, relieved to know they weren't responsible for dinner as dusk was falling already.
The view is one we will miss when back in the Keys, summer in the mountains of western North Carolina.My wife assembled the ingredients:She was going to make a dish a colleague had introduced into our lives at an end of the school year lunch the teachers held. She sent Michael a text and he confirmed the ingredients and technique. My wife pulled out the food processor and filled it with mole sauce. Mexicans call the savory chocolate sauce mo-lay, but I prefer to pronounce it the English way which gives diners pause. "Er, I thought this was supposed to be vegetarian...?" Thinking all the while about the cute little burrowing garden pest.Heavy skillets, beans and heat."Mushing it up" is one of my wife's favorite techniques and here it was applied full force. Add queso fresco, the mild Mexican cheese and sliced jalapeños (thank you Ingles) and you have a filling dinner, vegan despite the title, that will be a rare and unpronounceable treat for any Anglo mountain man and his wife:

You need to wash it down properly (thank you Ingles for a broad beer selection):

And a last evening of lounging and watching the sun go down and the night come up.The in law's fairy tale mountain home. Built by Bo 35 years ago, heated with wood and tucked away deep in the Celo woods.

And so ended ten splendid days in North Carolina.

Roan Rhododendrons

Our North Carolina vacation was just packed with places to go and things to see. My sister in law geeta said we had to go see the flowers of Roan Mountain, so called because of a fancied resemblance in certain lights to the horse of that color. You could have fooled me. Cheyenne too, though she didn't care.Roan Mountain confusingly enough is a town in Tennessee though the parkland is on the North carolina side of the mountain pass the separates the two states. Very lovely it is too.And interesting.

We took a stroll out to the famed overlook that spreads the valleys of Appalachia before your eyes. It was another of those fairy tale strolls in which North Carolina abounds.

Half a mile the sign said and I wondered how fearsome this place might be that they even blaze the trees with bright yellow paint. perhaops they practic arduous winter trekking in these mountains when the trail is invisible and the yellow mark appears like a urine stain at your ankles...some blizzard I thought as I trudged up the hill.

It seemed silly to keep Cheyenne on a leash but I am nothing if not law abiding and there were other people rambling in the opposite direction even though it was late afternoon. It was out here that Cheyenne took it upon herself to take a bowel movement of epic proportions, one of stupendous size that seemed to grow in volume like a science experiment gone wrong, as I frantically stuffed it into a full sized grocery bag carried in my pocket for the purpose. "Let's hope we're alone at the overlook," my wife muttered as we resumed our stroll. "She could have gone deep into the forest, like she usually does, " I grumbled. "I think she fouled the edge of the trail to get back at me." My wife has a terrible sense of smell but my malodorous grocery bag was unavoidable. "At least you'll clear the overlook in a hurry" she said stepping away from me and my leashed dog. "No one will want to be anywhere near you." It was an added burden on an otherwise splendid walk.

High danger area! We were alone happily. I put my congealed burden on the ground like the millstone it was and breathed fresh clean air.

Stay On The Platform! Especially if you are exceptionally stupid. I shouldn't even think that sort of thought out loud, considering the brainiacs I talk to who call 9-1-1. People really do stupid things and I should know all this signposting really is necessary. Ass coverage at the very least when some idiot steps over the rail.

Cheyenne may be "just a dog"but she got the message even though she is illiterate, poor thing.

We stood in silence drinking in the scenery and listneing to the wind rushing up the hill past our ears.I am cursed with an inability to imagine ever believing in the existence of a supreme being dishing out divine justice among humans; consider lately how the money changers in the temple have been making out literally like bandits, however in these sorts of place one would like to imagine the possibility that all this was laid out not by aggressive glaciers in some random act of chance but these hills and valleys appeared to fulfill some higher and myseterious purpose.I looked down the cliff face and figured that most likley not one human foot had ever trodden among the rocks and bushes I could see directly below my own pink Crocs. I was pretty sure I didn't want mine to to be the first.My wife is not fond of heights and empty spaces. I am not either but when the parks service has gone out of it's way to build a sturdy railing and equip it with all sorts of warning signs i feel quite secure enough to enjoy the view.It put me in mind of Alpine Valleys in Europe, all this twisting unevenly shaped fields, cultivated down to the last inch, flowing across the landscape. this could be Switzerland if you didn't know better.Let us not forget we were facing west and the temperature was still in the mid 80s at least.

There was a helpful notice about Roan High Bluff and it's particular ecology.

people as always are the worst threat to the ecology. Messsage received. at least it's not dogs for once. We met an unleashed local on the way back so Cheyenne got to wander at will after that, and of course she didn't go far.

It was getting on for seven o'clock in the evening but we weren't done yet, we driove back to the main road enjoying the fact this whole excusion had cost us a measly $3 and we had had a fine stroll in the woods. Besides there was a new state to add to Cheyenne's growing list of travels.The view from the comfort of the pull out was every bit as good as that off the cliff face.

The highway into Tennessee looked smooth and enticing. We turned our back and heade dfor home and dinner.I got stuck momentarily behind this character and I fell into a reverie behind the wheel thinking back to what it used to be like driving farm equipment in my youth.

I don't miss those days though I'm glad I lived them.

Soon enough the raod opened up a little and he was gone.

And we were headed to Celo on the correct side of the mountains.