Tuesday
The metal bird dropped us in Tallahassee airport via a short stop in Atlanta airport. The stupid o’clock start out of Chicago crushed the spirit and walking through possibly the tiniest aerodrome I’ve been I heard someone call out my name. Al is not an uncommon name on the side of the pond where the cars are large and the humour of customs officials is small so we wandered on. When it was repeated again Sarah clicked before I did and I turned round to see Juancho walking up to us. A firm handshake for me and a friendly hug for the wife later we were sat down in the canteen, Juancho writing down numbers for us so we would have friendly voices no more than a call away. All parties involved absolutely gutted to be parting ways, we headed out to collect the bikes, bags and a rental car.
Keys collected we left the artificially cool building to the furnace of the Florida afternoon. We found our vehicle by squinting under the clearest blue sky I have seen outside of the Mediterranean region. Both of us had to giggle at the oxymoronic description of our mini-van. Loaded up, cooled down, Sarah the Brave drove us to the hotel our home for the next four nights. I tried to radio in to John to organise the evening meet up but the international nature of the connection failed and I fell back to e-mail to give up the hotel number. We got to Barnacle Bills a little early and grabbed a beer inside chatting to the bar staff about where we’d been and the tipping etiquette differences of the shores. After John joined us we headed outside to enjoy the warm evening and some fired seafood. Later Terry joined us and we spent the night talking trails, bikes and the usual rubbish, drinking beer and after making some tenuous plans we all retired for the night to meet up the next day for my first taste of north Florida’s finest trails…
Fat Lad
2 Comments