The "Open Road" Report - Daytona Bike Week 2020 - Special Coronavirus Edition
Praise be to God for another fantastic ride with my wife. Neither of us could remember a Daytona Bike Week or Octoberfest ride as warm as this. Most temps were in the 60 in the morning, usually in the 70's and we even saw 82 degrees once! All the heated gear, winter gloves, under armor base layers and even our favorite three season Killian jackets were left at home! It made packing much easier and enjoyable.
With work being very busy, the recent losses on the 401k and of course Coronavirus it would have been easy to cancel this trip. And if we had we would have lost the opportunity for many new discoveries and memories. For what ever reason we always seem to attend Daytona at the end of the week. We were going to ride down Thursday, spend Friday and Saturday doing what we like to do and come home on Sunday. Well I was able to get off at 3pm on Wednesday and my wife was already off. We loaded up and decided to try and get through Charlotte before 5pm rush hour and I have decided that is not possible. It was brutal traffic wise all the way to Rockhill, SC. Going through Columbia was very easy and we arrived at our hotel in Orangeburg, SC before dark. We like to stop at Exit 145 on I-26. Many nice hotels clustered together, gas and restaurants within walking distance. This time we stayed at the new Tru by Hilton. Second time we have stayed at a Tru. Really unique place. The rooms are small but for one night no problem. It saved us almost $40.00 bucks over the Hampton and Fairfield Inn. I ran into a customer of mine in the parking lot and visited with him a few minutes. There was some construction still going on that actually gave us a good place to park. It was an easy 194 mile evening cruise and nice to know we do not have to deal with Charlotte traffic in the morning! The rest area stop in SC was not necessary except I made a big mistake and added new 45mm JBL speakers to my helmet. Thought they would be okay and was wrong. They were killing my ears! I pulled them out and we got back on the road. Once in the hotel I got the pocket knife out and began wittling on the foam to enlarge the speaker pockets. After about 30 minutes the speakers fit in flush, felt great and no other problems on the trip. We walked over to the Cracker Barrel for dinner and turned in for the night.
After a good nice rest we get ready, enjoy breakfast and watch the sunrise over the hotel behind us. It 57 degrees out and the Open Road is calling. Like day one we have jeans on with long sleeve t-shirt and our Jamin Leather shirt jackets and are very comfortable temp wise. I have to say I wish not we had switched from Sena to Cardo many years ago. WOW the packtalk bold is amazing. If my wife likes it it much work well and be easy to use. I have never seen her happier about any electronic device. She was streaming her own music from her phone, I would ocassionaly hear her say "Hey Cardo, Radio On" and she was happy! Our communications with each other were flawless.
One reason for both leaving early and stopping in Orangeburg was to once again ride Highway 301. If you have not been on it you are missing something special. I think it starts in Delaware and goes all the way into Florida. We fell in love with this route two years ago and have been looking forward to riding it again. I would compare it to Route 66. If you want a nice long distance route through SC, GA and into Florida it is the highway of choice. There is a lot of history. If parallels I-95 and before the interstate was the main route for the snowbirds north to south. It is dotted with at least a 100 old run down motor inns that had to be able to tell a lot of stories. A few small towns that were victums of the interstate highway and even a big old truck stop that is nothing but a memory. However there are still a few of these motor inns that survived and a few nice little towns that seem to be triving along the route.
Musch of 301 is a divided 4 lane, and even the two lane sections are nice and traffic is extremely low. We could go for a few miles and not see another vehicle. Much of the route has a 60 mph speed limit and we could cruise at 70 mph with no worries of a speed trap. The best part of the ride was stopping at the Georgia Rest Area / Welcome Center on 301. It is a blast from the past. It was the second welcome center ever built in the US and the oldest to still exist and be in continuous operation. The young lady that manages it was on duty and she has a real love and passion for this place. She was proud to share the history as we enjoyed free complimentary peanuts and coke products all from Georgia.
After longer than we had planned to stay we were back on the road and watching the mercury in the temp-o-meter rise. It was such a nice leisurely cruise that we just got lost in the music and the rumble of the exhaust and I was in heaven. This to me is the "Open Road" and what I live for. Well as lunch drew near we had visions and a local place we had discovered on the last trip. And even though we could not remember the name or town we found it! It was every bit as good as we remembered it. Just a little run down county dinner next to one of the closed motor inns. The people there are so friendly and the fried chicken is to die for. No question the BEST I have ever put in my mouth. The place is called "Gold House Restaurant" and it is located on Hwy 301 just north of the Florida border in a small town named Nahunta, Ga.
Well after that great lunch we dropped the leather shirts and it was feeling like summer out. We quickly crossed over into Florida and were loving life. The decision was made to head over to A1A, ride the ferry across the St. Johns River and cruise on in to St. Augustine. We got into the Hampton Inn right before dark. Unloaded, showered and walked across the street to one of our favorite places the "Sunset Grill" for a wonderful dinner before calling it a day.
One of the many old motor inns that dotted Hwy 301 along our route.
Well I had planned on riding four bikes on this trip. The FatBoy, Live Wire, Indian Challenger and Honda Goldwing DCT. My wife is always very supportive of bike demo's. So we wake up and are ready to go. The problem is the Indians are out of the dealership and Honda is out of a dealership in Deland. So the Honda was the one i really wanted to ride. We roll out at 9am and soon are on Route 11 toward Deland. That is a must ride highway. Beautiful smooth 60 mph ride that was just perfect. Much to our surprise Deland is a cool town. We rode by the nice Stetson University campus and quickly arrived at RC Hill Honda Powersports. The guy in the parking lot turned his nose up at us when we rode in on a Harley. I asked him about the demo's and he said they have nothing to do with that. I need to go to the tent around back, but added there is a waiting list. What a real jerk he was. However the lady that greeted us at the Honda tent was a really sweet pleasent person. I told her i wanted to demo a Goldwing DCT and she smiled and said we have just the one for you, the air bag edition. I'm thinking cool and then she said how does 3:15pm sound? WHAT, it is 10:30am. Really I went online and you could not make reservations. She said true, we do not let you book them online but when you arrive here you have to get your name on the list. I thanked her and told her we have many other bikes to ride at the Speedway and we'll pass. She gave me instructions to go online and schedule a demo ride with a local NC dealer and said she was sorry. Oh well the ride was enjoyable through country and no big deal. Next we wanted to go to Ponce Inlet to see the lighthouse and have lunch. Another great leg in our adventure through Hwy 44. We stopped at Hidden Treasure for lunch. It is located right next to the lighthouse. After a short 15 minute wait we were seated on the outside deck right next to the water and under one of Florida's beautiful Live Oaks. The food was excellent and the wait staff made it even more enjoyable.
Last edited by Cosmic Razorback; 03-15-2020 at 08:46 PM.
Well after lunch we cruised across the street to the Light House. The Ponce Inlet Lighhouse is the second tallest on the east coast behind Cape Hatterus.
Okay our next stop was one the wife and I had both been looking forward to. A little NASCAR history that was pretty special to see. I actually took a short 100 yard spin on the original pavement that still exists. There is a restaurant called "North Turn". It marks the place where the oroginal north turn was on the beach. Then thry ran down a strip of pavement and at the south turn ran back onto the sand.
Our next stop was at the Speedway. We rolled in there around 2:30pm and there were not a lot of bikes like years past. We stopped at the HD section and walked around. I had pretty much lost interest in doing any demo rides. Just enjoying the day. However the wife got to try out the Livewire! She thought is was way cool! It ran up to 80 MPH instantly and she was shocked. The guy watching over it cautioned her to keep it under 60 mph.
I enjoyed looking at the new 975 and the adventure bike. Spoke with an engineer from HD for a while and he said there are several things in the works they cannot discuss that will be impressive!
We picked up a special edition Willie G Bike Week 2020 t-shirt.
03-15-2020 | 07:07 PM
