The Heritage 441 Run to the Great Smoky Mountains
The (Best Laid Plans) Florida Route Home via US441
"That extra hour on the road the second day puts us at around Leesburg to Mt. Dora. Hummm... that could work."
The (Actual) Florida Route Home via I-4
Yeah. Right. The best laid plans. We ran into more rain bands from Hurricane Fay the rest of the way down I-95 to Daytona AND down I-4 from Daytona to Orlando, except this time it was sun, rain, sun, rain, etc. It was nice to know we would be home just after lunch though. Again, not what we planned, but at least we are home and in record time!
As we pull in the driveway we realize just how long Fay lingered and how lucky we were NOT to be on the bikes. Well, maybe not lucky, more like glad? Looking back with that famous 20/20 hindsight, we could have left for home Saturday afternoon from Bryson City and made it to Dublin the first day, just missing the rain bands. Then setting out for home on Sunday missed most, if not all, of them.
Ann agrees had we been on the bikes, we probably would have played it that way and she would have taken Monday off! Now she tells me! Again, I can't be upset since our plans were flexible enough to allow the give and take we needed. I learned so many things about so many places and pretty much where they all are. It came in handy when we would have needed to pull over to consult a map but I already knew which way to go.
I have to agree with Ann, it would have been too much for us on our first overnight bike trip. For now the plan is to review some of the Florida On A Tankfull trips featured on the local cable news channel to get our 'legs under us' first. Then once we know we can handle an overnight trip around Florida, we'll know we're ready for something bigger, like I originally planned. We wish we were still back there. And maybe someday soon we will be.
One thing I've learned from all of this is to allow for a change in plan. More than one even. Everything happens for a reason. Another thing is there is only so much research that can be done online. Sometimes nothing short of a visit there is enough to know what to expect. I have a hunch we'll be visiting and re-visiting this trip plan over the years, so I'll document the oops and aw schmidts each time to avoid them next time.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Although my Super Magna sat in the garage with the blown head gasket, I'm 'back in the saddle' so to speak. After driving the truck to work all last week and seeing everyone else ride their bike every, sunny day, I decided to get busy and FINALLY fixed the carburetors on the V65 Magna once and for all! It took me all of last weekend (13 - 14 September 2008) to get her running, but she runs, and a LOT stronger than the Super.
For now, we're back to trying to get Ann more weekends off so we can proceed with Plan B... B as is BIKE everywhere we can!
Bulletin...
(14 November 2008)
Well, Ann's job is (hopefully) going to be a bit less hectic here in the near
future. Their group is getting more help to cover weekends at least, but with
Ann leaving the house before I get out of bed and getting home after Nick and I
have already eaten, I'm wondering if buying the new kitchen cabinets was such a
good idea... That's right, we're finally moving on to phase two of the kitchen.
Phase one was to get the 'drop' ceiling taken out and levelled with the rest of the kitchen. It's not the metal lattice work and ceiling tile drop ceiling, but more of a drywall and stud style soffet, or rather was... It's long gone now. The wall cabinets have been sitting on the floor since we had it done, before we left on our trip. We ordered the new cabinets for Ann's birthday and they should be here around Thanksgiving time.
Then my work begins... inspecting the new cabinets, tearing out the old cabinets, and installing the new cabinets. Sometime in between we got the old floor tile removed too. Unfortunately it looked like we waited too long to order the Medira Spanish tile from Home Depot, as they could no longer get it, but the good news is they did give us some contacts that may still be able to order it for us.
(3 December 2008)
Once the new cabinets are in, the Corian installers come measure and make a
template for the countertop. They used the template to make the countertop
at their shop and install it before Christmas. I actually finished installing
the new floor tile over Christmas break. I may put up another series of pages
covering the remodel (in my 'spare' time 8^)
Well, I still need to stain and install the new trim we got to match the cabinets