2009 May 7th: Today started out very slow and laid back. I got things packed up and ready to go easily. I took the bike down to the dock and took some pictures of Perdido Bay. The weather looked clear and sunny. I took off to meet up with my route that got interrupted. I drove through numerous small towns with 25 to 35 mph being the norm. I followed the beach for many miles.
I was having a difficult time smelling the salt sea air from all of the sweet smelling Jasmine plants and Magnolia trees, but every now and then I could smell the sea. My sense of smell was given a sharp stench when I rode by a paper mill. YUCK!
One of the things that struck me hard today was, there were so many properties for sale. At a guess, I would have to say that more than 80% of the beach front houses in Panama City, FL and Destin, FL were up for sale. This is just another sign of the economy. People try to get rid of excess inventory in hard times. It is definitely a buyers market if you have the resources.
I saw a lot of scenic stuff today. The rows of beach houses and the beaches themselves were very scenic with the beautiful white sand and blue water. There were people everywhere, walking dogs, riding bicycles and scooters. Some people were walking and others were running. There was just a lot of activity all along the beach areas.
My GPS stopped giving me commands for turns altogether today. I actually had to break out a map and figure out where to go. And to think, I was told that I wouldn’t need to take any maps with a GPS. The mapping program that I used to create the routes is terribly flawed and it has a lot of problems. Before I go to sleep tonight, I need to figure out what went wrong.
The bike got exceptional mileage today driving at those slow speeds. I got 232 miles before switching over to reserve today. It still only took 4 gallons of gas to fill it.
I stopped for the night in Perry, FL. I had a little laundry to do. I made a few calls while I was waiting for the clothes. I got a slight discount tonight as the pool is being worked on and was not available. That was nice, although I would have liked to have gone swimming.
Today is my brother in law, Larry’s birthday and also my good friend Shawn. Happy Birthday guys, I hope that you have a good one.
I was informed by a guy in the park tonight that there is a shuttle launch scheduled for Monday afternoon. I just might be able to put that into my agenda.