cold weather trip with dale

The high on Saturday was 57. I know allot of people are saying " I wish it was 57 so i could get my bike out" add 65 mph and an ocean breeze and it made gloves and leather a welcomed addition. The sun was shining and really it was a perfect day for riding. C still wasn't up for riding and our friend Dale had been after me to take her so we made plans to ride to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States.




Dale was at another friend Dayan's house. Dayan has a slight interest in riding but also knows the dangers and makes her apprehensive about getting on a bike.She did take a short ride a few blocks in her neighborhood just to get a feel for it.










Dale and I were off down US1. In Bayard we cut over to A1A to take the beach route to St. Augustine. People throughout this country look at this blog and some have never been to Florida or even seen the ocean so we stopped to snap a few pics. We took pictures of the Atlantic ocean and then walked 150 yards across the road to get pictures of the Atlantic intercoastal waterway. This is a calmer channel referred to by commercial fisherman as "the ditch", it provides easy travel up and down the state to boaters who don't have ocean going boats but still want to travel by boat.


Dale once went to the beach with our family and when we went in the water we found ourselves in a rip current. Being raised in Florida we have all been told if you ever find yourself in a rip current don't fight it but let the current take you and try to swim parallel to the shore while angling in toward the shore. Dale got a little panicked and i tried to help her but she couldn't calm herself enough to do what I told her and I couldn't pull her in the direction we needed to be going so finally I called a surfer over and he took her in on the surfboard and i was able to come in the proper way. While it wasn't funny at the time she has earned a lifetime of ribbing because of it and I took this picture as a constant reminder to her as well as a little information to anyone who might find themselves caught in a rip current on a visit without knowing what to do. BUT MOSTLY TO RIB DALE.















Next stop "St Augustine". There is a street there called Magnolia street that is on the list of the prettiest streets in the US. It is only 1 block off the main street and worth the trip just to look down it. The trees are hundreds of years old and the view is unforgettable.














It's after lunchtime now so we stop to get a burger. This guy comes up to us and tells us he has a sportster with an enclosed trailer for sale. It needs a transmission and its a 78 but it's 800 bucks and that's negotiable. C wants her own ride so I become really interested. The guy tells me that the guy who owns it is in New York in the VA hospital and lost the titles, doesn't have family blah, blah,blah. That's the way things go for me, if i bump into a steal it is either gone or has some kind of issue.

We head into the town to walk historic St. George street where all the oldest sights are. Being raised here there aren't to many things I haven't seen but the candy shops and old bakeries are always a treat for the belly. We grabbed some candy for the walk. St. George street is the kind of place you can walk down with 1000 dollars in your pocket, come home broke and have a blast or walk down with empty pockets and have just as much fun.

St. Augustine has a fort that was used to defend the city from French invasion.It has been rebuilt as closely as possible to its original condition being made entirely from coquina a stone like material made from seashells and ocean sediment. When cannonballs would hit the fort the coquina would close the hole and return to a similar state to what it was before it was shot.

When we passed the fort I saw something in the road. I told Dale that looks like someones slip ons in the road, sure enough a guy with a helmet runs out in the road and grabs it. We went to check on him and he said it was the 3rd time it had happened today, he had ridden down from Georgia and was trying to make do until he got back home to fix it properly.

We took off north on US1 again making a stop that Ben and I refer to "the stop". No matter where we go south of Jacksonville this is where we usually stop at the end of the day as Ben splits off from me close to there. I had told Dale many times about the best 10 dollar steak you can buy being served there on Friday nights. This is a pic of Reni's Rooster Saloon on a slow Saturday afternoon, on a Friday night there is hardly enough room to squeeze a bike in. They have great local bands on Sunday afternoons and worth a stop in to visit.















I took Dale back to Dayan's and headed home. C is feeling a lite better and I am gonna drag her out in the saddle today. Ben is coming over and maybe we will introduce you to some other friends too.

Total trip mileage 102