We decided that one of us would head on down to Florida to visit Roar and interview Kathy for the website. We weren't sure Christine could get the time off from work so we decided I'd head down.
As the trip neared, we found that Chris would be able to get some time off. Additionally, we had a little extra money come in that we hadn't planned on, so we chose to make this our 20th anniversary weekend.
We arrived in Orlando on a sunny Saturday afternoon and immediately headed to the Harley Davidson dealer on Route 192 in Kissimmee to pick up the two bike's we rented.
Upon arriving at the dealership, we were greeted by a wise guy at the front counter (he truly was funny) who directed us to the rental counter. There, Cliff assisted us in getting our rental paperwork taken care of. He took the time to chat us up a bit and to explain how the whole process worked. He also took the time to introduce us to the two bikes we'd rented.
Chris was on a 2008 Softail Deluxe and I was on the 2009 Heritage Softail Classic. Both bikes were beautiful, and fit us quite well. Being Yamaha owners, we were really interested in putting some miles on these American classics.
We headed over to our Villa located in the Emerald Island Resort in Kissimmee. The actual villa was provided by GLPS and is called Emerald Island Rendezvous. What a wonderful place to stay. It's a 7 bedroom villa with a screened in private pool and hot tub. If you're ever heading down that way, this is a wonderful place to stay. If it's too big, they also have a 3 bedroom condo just up the road a few miles!
After a bit of shuffling vehicles (two bikes and a rental car for two people), we met an old friend for dinner and a couple of drinks at the local Outback Steakhouse. It's always nice to share good food and good company but we wrapped up early so we could get on the road at a decent hour the following day.
We woke up reasonably early, or so we thought, and headed on out for breakfast on the bikes. We were geared up so we could hit the road as soon as we finished. Turns out, the clocks in the villa we'd rented hadn't been changed the prior weekend when the time change occurred! Lost an hour of riding...
We headed on out on route 192 East bound towards downtown Kissimmee looking for 441 south. We were planning on meeting Sheila, another old friend, for lunch about 100 miles south of where we were staying. Though there were several lights along the way, 192 actually proved to be an OK road for riding. In fact, the lights were timed pretty well. If you caught one green, you were apt to catch the next several green. This was especially nice when we got outside of the city.
We picked up signs for 441 as we headed through downtown just as expected. 441 and 192 ran together for a while. Unfortunately, 441 split off later and we missed the signs for it all together. We realized this was the case about 25 miles after missing the turn. OOPS!
Due to the time constraints on the rentals, we had to cancel plans with Shiela and decided to finish riding out to the coast. We were only 8-10 miles from the ocean...
We followed 192 right out to the Atlantic ocean in Melbourne. We crossed over a beautiful bridge that carried us over an intercoastal waterway and on out to the ocean. We turned south on route 1A and followed this for several miles. What a beautiful area.
We stopped at a nice little place called the Surfin' Turtle Bar and Grill for lunch. Our waitress was a wonderful woman named Pat who happens to own a condo here in MA. What a coincidence. We also met her granddaughter, another waitress at the Surfin' Turtle. Turns our her husband's going through a bit of a rough patch. He's having issues with Cancer and has just finished up a round of chemo. As a result, he's not able to spend much time in the sun so they haven't been riding at all recently. Pat had indicated that she's really missing it. If you're reading this Pat, our prayers go out to you and your husband. We hope to run into you on the road one of these days!
After lunch, we turned around and started heading back. We had to have the bikes back to the dealer by 5:30 at the latest and we were starting to run out of day.
We arrived back at the dealer with a few minutes to spare. We met Matt, the fellow working the rental counter that afternoon. Another great guy! He had a great sense of humor and really knows how to hold a conversation.
Turns out we put on about 180 miles that day. What a great ride! The weather was perfect, roughly 85 and sunny all day long. My winter white was gradually turning tan, except for the nose which skipped right to red.
Once we wrapped up, we headed back on over to the villa for a little R&R. We jumped into the hot tub and relaxed for a while before running out for dinner at the Red Lobster.
When we were driving out to dinner, Chris spotted a strange "cloud" in the sky. It looked like the trail left behind an airplane, but it just ended abruptly. We stopped to take some photos and noticed several other folks out looking at the same cloud. We were disapointed to discover that we'd just missed a Space Shuttle launch! It had literally just gone up and we missed it!!!!!!! What an amazing day it had been...