Moonlight Through the Pines

I am really happy to be in Savannah, GA tonight! The scooter held up great. While rushing around this morning, I forgot I left the heated grips & gear on while I was booting up the GPS for programing, drained the battery. Made departing on a bad note. Thats OK. The night before the Cannonball someone messed up my side mirrors. No time to fix the morning of. I guess it's tradition.

The ECU was a pain in the ass, as usual when temp. differs from the last time you ran it. Whatever. Matt, TA & Lisa saw me off!

Rain/Snow mix until around the PA state line. Made for a really cold ride. Mainly my feet. Bill @ Eurosports hooked me up with heated gear on Wednesday. It helped alot. I've never had cold feet on the Vespa, the shield on the front blocks the wind. But the rain/snow soaked my toes. Frozen! I found a Harley Dealer around Chambersburg, PA (do these harley's break alot, cuss there was a dealer every 20 miles on my ride today, seriously) - the dealer didn't have much for my warmth issue (buncha fancy worthless logo socks, great), except some thick rain gear slip over covers. I bought those for $20... they kept the wind off, my feet dried. Mean while my brother Tim was finding a better dealer. Ended up being 135 miles down the road, by the time I got there, it was 60 degrees out. So we met up for a quick hamburger at the McDonalds! Nice surprise and was a very welcomed forced excuse for a break and stretch. I was already 350 miles into the ride at that point - which was the daily average for the Cannonball.

The scooter was running great! I've been really worried about this for over a month now. Since I did the maintenance myself.

Miles 400 - 600 were the most difficult - you look at the the miles left... they don't seem to move or matter if they do. Coming across the Appalachian's was beautiful. To help pass time, I listened to O&A, XM Country Music until I hit rush hour traffic in Charlotte, switched to the Truckin Bozo/Over Road Trucker channel. A personal favorite from the PA-MI trip days.

Once I got into South Carolina, the sun went down and the deer started to appear. No good. 5-10 of them in a bunch along the highway. That really gave me the jitters. Slowed down to around 55-60. That makes other traffic, start trying to get around you, since they want to do 80-90. I don't blame them. Up until the deer, I was dead set on making Gainsville in one ride.

I got off HWY-26 the deer highway and joined I-95. The deer problem went away but was replaced by erratic people pulling trailers with motorcycles. No big deal. Around 9 clock, the deer started to appear again. Great. I decided to find an exit with a place to eat and a quality place to stay. The Savannah/Hilton Head exit, was perfect. Lots of places to eat. Very nice, brand new hotels. Done. Even if I continued 200 miles to Gainesville, I would be spending the night in a hotel. The hotels here, beat any Holiday Inn I'd fine there. $109 a night. Have a giant room. Enjoyed 4 scotches at the bar, time to goto bed!

I will catch up on work here until check out time at noon, then continue on to Gainesville to Lisa's cousin's place. Happy to be here safe and sound.