The Best Road Trip Ever

Every biker has one. Every biker alive at some point in his/her life has taken a road trip that they fondly recall as The Best Road Trip Ever. No, I’m not talking about a favorite route to ride, or a favorite day trip – we all have those, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about a road trip, a trip that takes you at least a day to get to where you’re going, you stay for a few days, and then it takes you at least a day to get back. THAT is a road trip, and THAT is what I’m talking about here.

My Best Road Trip Ever was the trip my wife Gina and I took from our home in Wantage, New Jersey to Daytona Beach, Florida for Biketoberfest 2003. This trip was special in a lot of ways, but the most important one was because this was the very first motorcycle road trip Gina had ever taken, and she had only been riding for four years. (Wanna know a secret? It was my first motorcycle road trip too, although I don’t think I ever told her that.)

We had talked about making a road trip ever since we got our Harleys in January and April of 2003. I got my Heritage Softail Classic in January, and Gina got her Low Rider in April. Almost immediately we started talking about taking a road trip; I suggested Virginia Beach, and she suggested Daytona Beach. It was too late for Bike Week (we ruled that out right away anyhow because we’d heard the crowds were incredible), so we set our sights on Biketoberfest. Gina was in charge of making the hotel reservations in Daytona Beach, and I was responsible for planning the route. When I asked Gina how far she wanted to go the first day she immediately replied, “I don’t wanna stop until we’re in South Carolina!” So we looked at the map and saw that the first town of any size once you crossed over into South Carolina was a town called Dillon, so we set that as our first day’s destination.

I did the math and quickly discovered that it would take us at least twelve hours to get there, and I had a feeling that Gina would be ready to stop for the night long before then. For that reason we didn’t even make a hotel reservation in Dillon; we just left it up in the air.

The day before we were supposed to leave we gassed up both bikes, packed up our clothing, and double-checked everything we needed to make the trip. Then I checked the weather and got the bad news – they were calling for severe thunderstorms all night long and into the morning, and once the storms were over they were calling for sustained winds of 25-30 MPH with gusts up to 45-50 MPH. It did not look like it was going to be a pleasant first day’s ride.

The morning of departure came, and we were ready to leave at six AM like we had planned. Only problem was, it was still raining – and raining HARD. The wind was blowing, thunder was booming, lighting was flashing, and it was raining like God had gone back on his promise. I checked Weatherbug and saw that this was the tail end of the thunderstorms that had been moving through most of the night, and that the rain should be gone in about an hour. So we made another cup of coffee and sat back, waiting for the rain to stop.

And it did. As soon as the rain moved out of the area, we put on our gear and left. It was 47 degrees outside, so we were dressed for it – chaps, insulated long sleeve shirts, insulated riding jackets, Buffs around our necks, heavy gloves and full-face helmets. We cranked the bikes, made the final adjustments, and hit the road for Daytona. The time was 7:05 AM.

Little did we know we were riding right into the most miserable six hours we were to ever spend on a motorcycle to date.

The wind was absolutely brutal. I mean, FEROCIOUS. The wind was blowing steady at 30 MPH, most of the time hitting us at a slight cross-angle, but sometimes coming at us head on or, worse yet, from a 90 degree angle. We were getting blown all over the road, and we both had to fight to keep the bikes under control and in our lanes every time the wind would gust – which was frequently. I had spent the past three months trying to talk Gina into putting a small detachable sport windshield on her Low Rider, and she had finally given in. When we stopped after the first two hours on the road, she told me right away that if she had not had that windshield on her bike, we would have turned around and gone home after the first half hour. Thank God for small favors.

The hairiest moment of that morning’s ride came as we were crossing Delaware into Maryland. There’s this great big, long, tall bridge crossing a river, and on a calm day it can surprise you with sudden wind gusts. This morning promised to be a real butt-clencher, and when we crossed the bridge we got exactly what we were expecting. Halfway across the wind gusted up on us and blew both of us clear into the next lane over. Thank God the bridge was four lanes, two in each direction, and that the lane next to us was NOT oncoming traffic. Once we got across the bridge I kinda figured that was going to be the worst of it, and I was right. The wind kept blowing us all over the place, but that was the worst of it.

The wind blew on us all the way from Wantage, NJ to Petersburg, Virginia for a total of six hours. Once we got into Petersburg the wind rapidly died away, and we both began to relax and start to enjoy the trip. We were able to get our speed up ad make some good time, which really helped.

Five hours later we were stopped at a gas station outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina where we had stopped for gas and to take a butt break. We were parked on the side of the station sharing a Diet Pepsi when I spoke up.

“Baby, we’ve had a pretty good day’s ride and have come a hell of a long way,” I said. “We have one of two things we can do: we can stop right here, check into that hotel right there (pointing to a Day’s Inn across the street), and in half an hour you can be in the tub soaking and I can be sitting on the couch with my feet up, drinking a beer. Or we can keep on going until we get to Dillon. Whichever you want to do will be just fine with me.” Her reply was immediate and to the point.

“I don’t wanna stop until we’re in Dillon, South Carolina!”

So we saddled up, got back on the road, and rode on for another two hours. It was full dark by the time we stopped, but when we stopped it was at the Hampton Inn in Dillon, South Carolina, and the time was 8:05 PM. We had been in the saddle for a whopping thirteen hours!

The next morning we got up at six, had breakfast at the Waffle House across the empty lot next to the hotel, and were on the road again by eight thirty. It was on this morning that the moment would come that would make this The Best Road Trip Ever.

It was 47 degrees again, so we dressed again the same way we had the day before. It was early in the morning, around 9:30 or so, the day was bright and clear with not a cloud in the sky, no wind (Thank God), and there was no traffic on 95 South. Gina slid over into the left lane and moved up next to me, and we rode side by side on the highway. And that was when The Moment came.

I looked over at Gina in the lane next to me and slightly behind me, and laughed at what I saw. Gina had her legs stretched out with her ankles propped on the highway pegs of her bike, her feet out in front of her, chaps flapping in the wind. Behind the face shield of her full face helmet she was wearing sunglasses, and she was grinning from ear to ear! When she saw me looking over at her she smiled even bigger, bobbing her head up and down as if “Born To Be Wild” were playing in the background! I laughed even harder at this, shot her a thumbs up, and we rode on down the highway side by side for about the next ten miles or so.

We made Daytona Beach by one in the afternoon, and by the time we got there we were wearing t-shirts, half helmets, and fingerless gloves. We stayed there for three and a half days and had a blast the whole time. Florida was beautiful, the bikes we saw were beautiful, we met up with some friends of ours and had a ball at the local bars, and all in all we had a great time. The ride back was pleasant with a stopover at my parent’s house in North Carolina for the night. The last days’ ride was good – until we got to New Jersey. As soon as we crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge into New Jersey it clouded up and threatened rain for the next four hours. We were two miles – TWO MILES – from the house when the skies opened up on us and drenched us. We pulled into the driveway tired, wet, and soggy, but happy. We had just finished our first big road trip, and I knew from that moment on the trip we had just finished would be, for me, The Best Road Trip Ever.

And it has been.