This is just "train of thought" writing, so forgive me.
Left at about 7am Eastern time, stopped every 120 miles along the way to fill up my tank, with downtime at the stop it was about every two hours.
Got to New Orleans at about 315EST, ate a crawfish platter at Don's Seafood Hut in Metairie, LA. Took about an hour total there.
We continued East through Biloxi, MS and Mobile, AL, then headed North on I-65 to Birmingham, then the home stretch back to our homes in TN.
After about mile 600-700, I started to get pretty tired and weak, had problems remembering to do stuff at stops, etc.
Before I left in the morning I ate a bowl of oatmeal. Along the trip (in this order) I ate: stick of jerky, special K bar, gummi apple rings, gummi sour worms, reese's fastbreak bar, crawfish platter at Don's, and a chicken taquito from a gas station in Steele, AL.
I drank 5 liters of water from my camelback while riding throughout the trip, about 3-4 glassess of water at Don's, drank two 8.3oz redbulls (one mid-morning, one late evening) and a 5hr energy (late afternoon) throughout the whole trip.
I wore earplugs during the whole trip save for two stretches; one with music and headphones, and one with nothing at all in my ears. During the second half of the trip my ears started to hurt from having the plugs in all day. When I got home I had some pretty intense ringing despite having protection in for the whole trip. They still feel a little weird as I type this. That wind gets loud no matter what after 19 hours.
Having the "Satan666" highway pegs on my bike really made this a lot better. It would have been a lot worse without them. They don't just offer one more sitting position, they offer many.
You can sit upright with both legs forward, rest on the tank with both forward, you can rest your ankles on them instead of your soles to have more leg extension. I even frequently used a position with one foot on the highway peg, and the other way back behind me on the passenger peg.
Was uncomfortably cold when we first left, and I was freezing when I got home. Approaching NOLA on I-10 before Lake Pontchartrain It started to get REAL hot, even at highway speeds. Lots of sweating until dark pretty much.
At some point on I-10 between NOLA and Biloxi, MS, I smelled burning rubber, panicked, looked ahead and saw a puff from under a pickup truck, then chunks of rubber bouncing off the pavement. Was no threat, but scared the crap out of me. Again after dark, don't know where, I smelled hot rubber, ran over some steel tire belts, then saw a semi pulling over. Again no harm done.
The trip was far easier than I thought it was going to be, and we finished in under 19 hours. I thought I would struggle to keep going and that my will would be tested, but there was never a time where I thought we wouldn't be able to make it.
It felt as if I hadn't been home in a few days. Weird to be home, in New Orleans, then home again in 19 hours.
That's all I can think of for now. Here is a very small album of photos. We didn't take many....
No comments:
Post a Comment