Monday, 13 November 2006:

I had planned to depart early this morning, but amid a steady drenching rain, sometimes with me out at the bike trying to load it while taking shelter under a tarp, late afternoon found me just finishing up with packing and loading the bike. I considered getting a good night's sleep and setting off at the crack of dawn, when the weather forecasters predicted the rain would have passed. Instead, just about 18:00 I donned my rain gear, fired up the bike, and took off down the Blue Route heading for I-95 South and points beyond. If you would like to download my AAA TripTik, click on the link (the PDF file is a bit over 4 MB). Also please note: Throughout this blog I will use the 24-hour clock. Suck it up and deal. The rain had tapered off to a drizzle, so I anticipated little trouble with water - unfortunately, I set off at the worst possible time, at evening rush hour. The roads were packed, and spinning tires kicked up a relentless spray of not just water, but water mixed with oil, mud, and light particulates. Oh well... The rain gear did keep me warm and toasty, but my windshield and helmet visor were near useless.

I rode for about 4 hours, taking the I-495 bypass around Wilmington, then headed south on Delaware State Road 1 (SR-1). About 22:00 I found a motel and holed up for the night in Rehoboth Beach, DE, a whopping 113 miles from home. I need to make about 350 miles per day to get to Tampa by Thursday. I unpacked the bike, which involves disassembling a rectangular block of items tied, strapped, duct taped, cargo netted, and bungeed together and occupying a volume of about 3 X 2 X 2 feet and located just behind me on the passenger seat. I know I will not need most of this stuff, but this is my first long-distance cruise, so I figure more is better than less this time. By the way, I assembled this gear from an 80-item checklist I put together from research I did on the Web. I was supposed to get all the stuff together and then throw away about half of it before packing. I did gather everything together, but I didn't throw any of it away... When I get back I will inventory everything and note what I did and did not use, leaving the unused gear home on my next trip.

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