Canada to Key West by Scooter
First day on the road was successful. Made it to Canada and all the way through Michigan and about half way through Ohio. 204 Total miles for the day on a half day ride on some half baked scooters. It was fun and we got some interesting looks along the way. Even had a few people ask us what we were doing.
Windsor, Detroit, Toledo, Findlay, Kenton, Urbana are just some of the cities we scooted through today plus lots of smaller ones.
A few more pictures from day 1- day 2 pictures coming shortly- the bridge pictures are taken coming in from Canada back into the United States via Detroit-
Windsor, Detroit, Toledo, Findlay, Kenton, Urbana are just some of the cities we scooted through today plus lots of smaller ones.
A few more pictures from day 1- day 2 pictures coming shortly- the bridge pictures are taken coming in from Canada back into the United States via Detroit-
Day 2- Late in the ride today we caught our first rain- luckily we hit cover before the monsoon. We finished Michigan today and made it to Kentucky. Some of the towns we traveled through Yellow Springs, Springfield, Milford, Indian Hills, Blanchester, Xenia, and Cincinnati to name a few. We had breakfast at Yellow Springs and a dairy that has been converted into a destination. Those familiar with Michigan will most likely know of Young's Dairy. Very cool place with good food. It is still a working dairy that produces their own ice cream among other dairy products. Yellow Springs is a very cool looking town I would love to visit again. Xenia is a home to a pretty cool vintage motorcycle shop and Blanchester has lined their streets with portraits of men and women who have served and gave their life in the armed forces. Cincinnati served up Skyline Chili and a little trip to Jungle Jim's (a unique and fun grocery experience) Kelly and Henry joined us for dinner and shopping. Thank you to Vicki for letting us crash on her floor last night and thanks to Kelly for letting two stinky guys stay the night at her home- She even recognized her husband- Chris-
Day 3- We left Fort Wright about 6:45am and traveled 373 miles- It was pretty foggy. We traveled through some incredible rolling hills engulfed in fog. In fact Chris said it reminded him of Middle Earth from the Lord of the Rings. Our first major town was Falmouth which was flooded out in the 1997 and the home of a series of visions of the Virgin Mary during the year of 1992. We then traveled through more rolling hills on our way to Cynthiana. This is the town Robert Kirkman the creator of the "Walking Dead" is from. We went through some beautiful horse country. The fields and fencing was amazing. Our next major city was Lexington the home of the University of Kentucky. One of the highlights was a stop in Corbin the home of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken. Of course we had a lunch stop here. Colonel Sanders has an interesting story and it was highlighted here in his original building. We hit the road again and made it deep into Tennessee and the city of Kingston a major point of the TVA. We ended up in Sweet Water for the night. A long day on the scooters. The views through Cumberland were amazing and the campus of the University of Cumberland was beautiful.
Day 4- The most common statement I have gotten from people on this trip when we are discussing what we are doing is..."Be sure and be safe." ---which is then always followed by..."because there are some crazy people out there."---- food for thought I think it is pretty clear that the craziness might just reside in the two that are riding motor scooters from Canada to Key West. On a more serious note (although the above statement is true) today was another big travel and experience day. We covered 333 miles today through late afternoon heat of 97. Luckily we started in the morning when it was nice and cool. We left Sweet Water, TN early and drove through some amazing rolling hills with just a hint of rain. We had thirty miles of curving forested roads that were beyond description. The Cherokee National Forest was a joy as we passed through an area known as Coal Creek- beautiful. We crossed into Georgia in the Blue Ridge area. We actually traveled to the starting point of the Appalachian Trail head. We had stopped at a roadside stand for boiled peanuts. They were actually pretty good. A week ago I did not know that this cuisine even existed. I day I was leaving Lawrence our local radio station's saturday morning show did a cooking segment in which they sampled this staple of the South. They most not of had as good a batch as I did. The cook and his wife chatted with us for a while and directed us to the trail head. They even introduced us to their cat "digger". The next leg of the journey took us to Athens, Georgia. We checked out the University, had a great lunch and Chris found the place where the B-52s played their college party. At this point it started to get very hot so we had to get moving and are now holed up in Dublin, Georgia. One thing I forgot to mention about Sweet Water last night is that they have a local brewery and make some darn good beer.
Day 5 Notes- We crossed the Florida / Georgia line today and officially over 1.370 miles as we covered 363 miles today. The roads were much flatter and more straight and we had very little traffic until the last 100 miles in Florida. Georgia is rich in farmland and forest as we drove through what seemed to be endless trees. The landscapes changed as we got further south. The land became more sandy, and we crossed into the edges of wetlands and perhaps some swamp land. We were in the heart of hunting and fishing Georgia. One of the towns we passed through was Jacksonville, GA. It is known for holding two world records- the worlds largest bass and the world's largest buck. The bass was caught back in the 1930s and weighed in at 22lbs and 4oz. , the deer if I heard right had 38 points. We stopped near the border for a genuine southern lunch along the Suwannee river. When we stopped at Lake City, Florida we had great conversations about our trip with a number of people including one family whose grandson and family who had stayed at a RMH located at Wake Forest. Another young man told us of his future plans to ride his bike across the state. Today I also finally tried some delicious Georgia peaches from a road side stand. Again we hit a few patches of rain but we missed a couple of massive showers just to our east. Today we struck up the most conversations with the greatest variety of people. We also learned that blue berries are a major crop in Georgia. I am tired so I am headed to bed.
Day6- Notes- "You build it they will come." This was the line from the Field of Dreams that doesn't always come true although many times is does. (more on this later in the notes) The magic number is now 1,693. That number is the number of miles we have traveled since we left Canada. Today our magic number was 319 for the amount of miles we traveled to get us half way through the Keys. Haines City is where we stayed last night and left this morning.We left early and went through some great landscapes through central Florida. We passed many orange grooves along the way. (acres and acres) Oranges were my favorite fruit as a kid and in Florida the bears must like them as well for whenever we were deep in the orange trees there were bear crossing signs posted on the highways. We also passed through swamp and wetland territories so of course there were gator crossing signs as well. As the landscapes changed so did the crops- oranges changed to sugar cane fields. We even went through the everglades sections of Florida. One city (Lake Placid- not the Betty White movie) we passed through had a huge tower built to draw the tourists in- it didn't so the restaurant and the tower were now closed. But this trip on the other hand has built and drawn in new and old friends alike so as it comes to a close it is coming time to reflect on those things learned and gained. I will include those with my final post on Sunday. "You build it and they will come" is certainly true for the memories and the relationships built on this trip although it didn't work out so well for the people in Lake Placid. We ended today making it into the Florida Keys. We are about fifty miles from our final destination and took some time to go out to sea late in the afternoon- enjoy the pics- oh did I mention that someone ran out of gas today--lol
Day 7- notes and pictures
1746 is the amount of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie roll lollipop- wait- sorry - wrong endurance activity that is painfully slow- These are the number of miles it takes by scooter to get to Key West from Windsor, Canada. It was painful but it was fun, enriching and for a good cause (RMHC)- We got up early this morning to a fantastic a sunrise and a nice cool start to the day to log in our final fifty-two miles of the trip down to Key West. (did I mention we have to get back home-- only partly by scooter though we do return to four wheel vehicles shortly) You will see a couple of pictures of the beautiful sunrise down below. We arrived early to the furtherest southern part of the mainland for the continental United States which is only 90 miles from Cuba. It is marked by something that looks like a giant jug of some sort. There were a group of boy scouts who were taking photos here at about 8:05 on a Sunday morning. There is a scouting camp on the keys called Sea Base and that is indeed what this group had been doing. They were on a field trip for the morning. Chris and I took our pictures there with the bikes and then literally headed to the end of the road. Before we got to mile marker 0 we passed the former home of Ernest Hemingway. It was not open for business yet but we could see a few of his six toed cats prowling the grounds. Ernest died in 1961 but his home as remained a museum since them. For some reason he kept cats of the 6 toed variety here and their offspring still maintain themselves here today. We drove to the end of the road took a few pictures and decided to turn around and head back toward the Hemingway house for breakfast- We had our fill at a place called the six toed cat---it was purr-fect. From here we made our way over to the tourist section of town and saw the a collection of famous heads (busts) that had once called Key West home. I learned that the modern tourist era started with Truman's visits here. I guess he played a lot of poker so it was in the cards for others to want to visit as well. Chris and I then went to a scooter shop to meet the owner about purchasing the bikes. He was late and told Chris it would be at the least an hour before he could get there. Here is where Chris made the make it or break it call to get going as we would have a huge ride in front of us and we needed to get started and not take the chance that we might be here for hours and not even make complete the sale. This was a great choice for three reasons- first, I got to have key lime pie for lunch, second I got to see more iguanas and finally we ran into a strange in the middle of nowhere bikers rally cookout for dinner (Complete with a live rock cover band). We were out of place with our scooters but they let us eat anyway- I am not sure why I didn't take pictures of that- Final thoughts coming on Monday or Tuesday- Please remember the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Thanks
1746 is the amount of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie roll lollipop- wait- sorry - wrong endurance activity that is painfully slow- These are the number of miles it takes by scooter to get to Key West from Windsor, Canada. It was painful but it was fun, enriching and for a good cause (RMHC)- We got up early this morning to a fantastic a sunrise and a nice cool start to the day to log in our final fifty-two miles of the trip down to Key West. (did I mention we have to get back home-- only partly by scooter though we do return to four wheel vehicles shortly) You will see a couple of pictures of the beautiful sunrise down below. We arrived early to the furtherest southern part of the mainland for the continental United States which is only 90 miles from Cuba. It is marked by something that looks like a giant jug of some sort. There were a group of boy scouts who were taking photos here at about 8:05 on a Sunday morning. There is a scouting camp on the keys called Sea Base and that is indeed what this group had been doing. They were on a field trip for the morning. Chris and I took our pictures there with the bikes and then literally headed to the end of the road. Before we got to mile marker 0 we passed the former home of Ernest Hemingway. It was not open for business yet but we could see a few of his six toed cats prowling the grounds. Ernest died in 1961 but his home as remained a museum since them. For some reason he kept cats of the 6 toed variety here and their offspring still maintain themselves here today. We drove to the end of the road took a few pictures and decided to turn around and head back toward the Hemingway house for breakfast- We had our fill at a place called the six toed cat---it was purr-fect. From here we made our way over to the tourist section of town and saw the a collection of famous heads (busts) that had once called Key West home. I learned that the modern tourist era started with Truman's visits here. I guess he played a lot of poker so it was in the cards for others to want to visit as well. Chris and I then went to a scooter shop to meet the owner about purchasing the bikes. He was late and told Chris it would be at the least an hour before he could get there. Here is where Chris made the make it or break it call to get going as we would have a huge ride in front of us and we needed to get started and not take the chance that we might be here for hours and not even make complete the sale. This was a great choice for three reasons- first, I got to have key lime pie for lunch, second I got to see more iguanas and finally we ran into a strange in the middle of nowhere bikers rally cookout for dinner (Complete with a live rock cover band). We were out of place with our scooters but they let us eat anyway- I am not sure why I didn't take pictures of that- Final thoughts coming on Monday or Tuesday- Please remember the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Thanks
Final Notes-
Time for thank you(s) for the many things that happened during, prior and post Canada to Key West by Scooter. I have been home for just over a week and it is time to recognize all those who made this event possible. First and foremost I would like to thank Chris Katzer (my cousin) who planned and put this event together and let me go along for the ride. The efforts he put into getting the scooters and preparing them for the 2,000 mile was amazing. The scooters survived with very little tweaking along the route. Chris also put together the plan to use this journey as a method to raise funds and awareness for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The thank you to Chris is of course extended to his family who put up with him being gone and absorbed in this task. Thank you Kelly and Henry. Kelly helped to fuel us for the long journey with a fantastic pre departure dinner. This brings me to my second thank you: all of you that donated to the RMHC. I had a chance to visit the three houses in Kansas City and the work that is done there by the staff and volunteers is amazing. Thanks again for all of those you who donated. I will share the link again because it is never to late to donate. Another thanks goes to Jim Katzer, my uncle, who helped to arrange transport from Florida back to the midwest. Finally thanks to all the people I met along the way that reached out and shared their stories. I was amazed by the number of people that have been impacted by RMHC.
Time for thank you(s) for the many things that happened during, prior and post Canada to Key West by Scooter. I have been home for just over a week and it is time to recognize all those who made this event possible. First and foremost I would like to thank Chris Katzer (my cousin) who planned and put this event together and let me go along for the ride. The efforts he put into getting the scooters and preparing them for the 2,000 mile was amazing. The scooters survived with very little tweaking along the route. Chris also put together the plan to use this journey as a method to raise funds and awareness for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The thank you to Chris is of course extended to his family who put up with him being gone and absorbed in this task. Thank you Kelly and Henry. Kelly helped to fuel us for the long journey with a fantastic pre departure dinner. This brings me to my second thank you: all of you that donated to the RMHC. I had a chance to visit the three houses in Kansas City and the work that is done there by the staff and volunteers is amazing. Thanks again for all of those you who donated. I will share the link again because it is never to late to donate. Another thanks goes to Jim Katzer, my uncle, who helped to arrange transport from Florida back to the midwest. Finally thanks to all the people I met along the way that reached out and shared their stories. I was amazed by the number of people that have been impacted by RMHC.
