Rain and Harleys don’t mix
It started out okay. Me and Woody met up with three other guys at Scotty’s (Gary, Hippy George and his friend Mike) at around 10 am. We figured we’d ride up to Ft. Pierce and stop at a place called Archies for a beer. Then the plan was to ride out to the lake and hit a place called J&S Fish Camp.
We got on the road and headed north. The skies were blue, the breeze was cool and the sound of five Harleys was making me a happy camper. Woody was in the lead and he got us lost in an area he likes to call “Confusion Corner” in Stuart, FL. All we needed to do was find the bridge to get over to Hutchinson Island and Confusion Corner just got in the way. Woody finally got us headed in the right direction after seemingly running us in a few circles, and we headed over the causeway to take the beach road up the coast. It’s a great ride up through Hutchinson Island, passed the the state beach parks, waterfront condos and nuclear plant. No really, it’s kind of cool.
We finally made it to Archies at about noon, settled down on a picnic table and ordered the first round of beer. I ordered a burger because I didn’t want to start drinking at noon on an empty stomach. Gary ordered something too, but the other three guys went hardcore and just started drinking.
The band was starting to set up and we were starting to notice some dark and nasty clouds coming in from the west. Not a problem, I thought. It’s typical for a thunderclapper to run through an area in the afternoon during the Florida summer. So we figured we’d sit the rain out and take off again when it stopped.
Well, the rain passed by Archies in an hour or so, but the skies were still pretty dark with rain clouds everywhere we looked. We figured we’d skip the ride out to the lake and just head home. We had gotten about five minutes into the ride home when the rain started coming down again and it just never stopped.
Now it’s not hard to ride in the rain, motorcycles are well balanced and have a pretty good grip on the road. The problem comes with not being able to see. You can’t get windshield wipers on your riding glasses, and you can’t keep taking hands off the handlebars every two seconds to wipe the lens. And you just get wet. Wet like a… like… well, like you jumped into a swimming pool with all your clothes on. The seat on my bike seems to collect water as it rolls down the tank, so I wind up with a puddle in my crotch. It’s not a very pleasant feeling to say the least.
Yet we plugged along at 40 mph or so, stopping every time the rain got too thick and hard to bear. Catching 10 or 15 minutes of dryness under gas station canopies, bank drive thrus, where ever we could. It was a sixty mile trip that took nearly four hours.
But we made it home, like horses rode hard and put up wet. I peeled my wet clothes off and exchanged them for some dry clothes, then headed back to the bar to get a beer and something to eat.
Boy, it’s good to be back in Florida!