"Life is the great adventure ride. Twist the throttle hard."

We picked up the bikes as the Harley shop with fresh oil, new tires on my bike, and the switch replaced.  Headed east along the golf coast.  To make good time, we took the Interstate East toward Orland where the boys want to go to Harry Potter Land.  Riding over the giant bridges that go over the rivers and bays of the coast was nice.  In Mobile, we stopped at the USS Alabama museum/memorial to tour the ship and a submarine. 

At the same location as the USS Alabama is a WWII submarine that we could walk through.   The boys had a good time climbing around inside the sub.  And no, no one climbed into the torpedo tube.

They also had a lot of aircraft on display, including an A-12 the predecessor to the SR-71.  We rode till dark, and took a break at sunset on a beach along the golf coast. 

July – 21  Florida Pan Handle

Florida is one very long state.  We entered it on the West end and Orlando was 300 miles away, and the Key West 800 miles.  We’ll hit key west next time…  We rode most of the day, taking a break for me to make a business call. 

Near Ocala, I saw a sign for a huge Antique mall, and decided it was time for a break so I turned into it.  Across its driveway was a 4″ deep sand burm.  I wobbled and almost layed it down, but made it through.  Anyone who ride bikes in sand knows, when the first bike wobbles a little, the next guy will do worse.  Chris hit it and over went the bike.  Nothing broken.  Chris said it’s OK to post this pic.

Tonight, the Florida sunset was awesome, and Sam’s got a great picture of it on his iPhone.

We made it into Orlando with storms looming.  We took a 15 minute break to let a lightning storm pass.  That radar-weather app is really nice.  Its remarkable that we made it all the way from Denver to Orlando without getting wet.  As the news is showing, its record hot out here, but while we ride, it’s not too bad.  We all desert and Baja ride and are used to the heat.  We take a break every 45-60 minutes, and when we get back on the bike, its refreshing to have the breeze again.  

Mom isn’t here so in the hotel, so tonight we watched the Dirty Harry DVD I brought.

July 22 – Universal Studios / Harry Potter Land

The boys spend the day at Universal Studio’s Harry Potter Land.  The got the day away from dad and I got to troll the antiqu shops.  The boys thought Harry Potter Land was great.  You’ll like the picture of their new Tee shirts comming up in a couple days.

Tonight, we’re all seeing an IMAX Harry Potter movie at midnight, and then after a late start tomorrow morning, we head north for the 1000 mile / three-day ride to Washington DC.

July 23 – Orlando riding north

After getting home from the Harry Potter 3D IMAX movie at 2:30am, we slept in and hit the road around 11:00am.  We rode all afternoon and didn’t play tourist at all.  We stopped in Daytona beach for lunch.  We’re in Savannah Georgia tonight getting a good night sleep for a long-day of riding north tomorrow.