Day 8 – Marathon, FL (on Marathon Key)
The mojo is back !! - yes this was my first motorcycle riding day for 2011, and I was not shoveling snow to ride either.
We left our overnight stop in Melbourne, FL around 9:30, after reteaching the trailer, we headed south on I-95, which is 4 or 5 lanes in each direction with lots of traffic. Our only stop was at Oakland Park, which is a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. We are stopping a the famous “screwdriver”, (ie. Bells CB) the master of all things CB Radio, I had sent my Midland CB in for a tune up a few days back. The store is a store front + garage, about 20ft wide by 100ft long – except piled from floor to ceiling with CB radios and every item you can imagine to tune, repair and customize. Did I mention “customize”, will when I told the guys that I had a motorcycle and needed a way to mount an antenna, that was it, two guy in the back of the trailer and underneath the rear of the bike, 20 minutes later, a custom made mount for my trunk box plus the ground strap in copper (also custom made), the bracket in stainless steel, and the 3ft whip antenna. Also add an SWR meter and a very quick lesson on how to tune an antenna. Price – priceless!!
If you need anything CB for your car, truck or motorcycle, then Bells CB is the place and they do ship by post office to Canada. I can't say enough for these guys, the “screwdriver” is ex-navy submarine radio tech. http://www.bellscb.com/
After a brief stop for lunch in Homestead, FL we headed down US# 1 to Key Largo, in Key Largo we stopped and unloaded the motorcycle from the trailer. Len a local on a Harley stopped by to ask if we needed assistance, and we talked about life in the Keys, he has been here since 1971, I guess if I had 4 or 5 hours I would have a book of stories and would never get to Marathon.
Anyway with no time to spare, I am off with Karen bring up the rear in the SUV+Trailer, nice to have your own rolling road block behind one. We also tested out some new radio units for the first time. We are using Motorola FRS/GMRS radios with the IMC headset interface, the range is is miles++ and no interference, no sound quality issue. Only thing is I need to finish my secret project to connect these units together I call this “Contnext”, more on project “Connext” when I get back, I made seek out a patent as well, as this has the potential of being big in the motorcycle world, as it appears that no one has done this before. This trip is a bit of a test bed for new communications equipment for the August 2011 ride on the Natchez Trace.
I covered the first 80km, from Key Largo to Marathon, in about 1 ¾ hours which was not bad, and still arrive just minutes before the sun set in the West, tomorrow, we will be crossing the famous 7 mile bridge, so the video camera will be rolling.
Tonight we are in Marathon, FL (MM# 54) staying at a brand new Holiday Inn Express, that opened on January 20th. We walked across the street to a restaurant called The Island Fish Co (http://www.islandfishco.com/), the meal was excellent, as was the coffee and Key Lime pie (forks for two).
So day 1 (or 4 hours) in the Keys are great, motorcycling is different, but outstanding, as are the views from the bridges linking the keys, remember these were built in the 1930 to bring the FEC (Florida East Coast RR) to Key West, worked until a hurricane in 1939 took out a number of the bridges, and the cost to repair was too much. Anyway more on local history in another posting, remember, we are in Key West for two weeks.
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