August 2009 Bill and I headed from KC to Key West on the bikes.

It was not a direct trip, I flew Shannon and Korbin down to Orlando for a 1 week vacation and met up with Bill back on the bike after Shannon and Korbin got back on the flight.  Then Bill and I headed out to Key West.

Crossing Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida in August on air cooled bikes is one thing, making the mistake of wearing all leather water proof boots is a mistake I will never make again.  It was a very neat trip and logged another 3,885 miles on the bike in just a couple of weeks.

Here is a picture of the bikes at the southern most point in Florida.

Of course Key West was the exciting part of the trip - I ate a Sloppy Joe at Sloppy Joes

On the way back we went through the Tail of The Dragon.  Here is the thing about the Dragon, once you work yourself all the way to where it is, and do the full loop you set down at a restaurant to figure out how to get home.  Damn if you are not tired and worn out when you learn the only way out is to go back through the Dragon.  318 more turns in 11 miles.

This is the end of the dragon (a place where all the race bikes flip U-Turns and go back through it again).

A quick stop and a place to get the I was there I did that T-shirt

Once through the Dragon it made a lot of sense to do the big loop and continue through the Cherohala Skyway this picture was taken right about cloud level.  through the skyway you will go above the clouds and back below them again.  I must have changed gear 7 times with all the temperature changes.

Coming back home we went through Metropolis (home of superman of course).

Near the end of the ride I got the feeling that Bill wanted to just keep riding and not go back home and because of that we ended up in Chester - the home of Popeye the sailorman.  The park was under construction so this is as close as I could get the bike to the Popeye statue.