SMALL TOWN MOTORCYCLE RIDE

Small town motorcycle ride
Saturday, August 30, 2008

Ok here is a little background about the ride, my original plans were to take the long Labor Day weekend and ride my bike from Hattiesburg up the Florida coast line and camp along the way. Well……thanks to hurricane Gustav my plans had to change. Dam you Gustav!!! You see, I only have had my new bike a little over a month now and I have not had a chance to put any long miles on it, don’t get me wrong I ride it most every day its just 20 are 30 miles at a time. I just had its 600 mile checkup done last week so the break end period is over…time for the open road.

I guess I should give you a little information about the bike; it’s a 2008 Yamaha v-star 1100 Silverado…why a Yamaha you ask. Truth is I just walked into the local motorcycle dealership and asked a salesman what kind of bike I could get for under 10 grand and over a 1000 cc’s the salesman pointed to my bike and it was love at first site. I have not owned a bike in the last 20 something years, and was not sure if I would like riding again, but I do. I may move up to a bigger bike in a few years but for now my Yamaha does everything I need it to do.

Ok back to the story, I was determine to go for a ride but only had a half of day to do it, so I decided to pick a few local small towns and make me a loop staying off the major highways due to Gustav. So Saturday august 30, right after lunch I headed out. Once I drove through my subdivision I rode down Monroe rd crossed interstate 59 (that was already getting busy, due to the storm) then it was on to Eatonville rd that turns into old hwy 49 (Eatonville rd is a great place to ride a motorcycle are a bicycle for that matter a buddy of mine Matt Roland rides this road often on his bicycle, the road is mostly farm land, littered with old barns and friendly folks waving as you drove by(now that I think of it they may have been shooting at me I’m not sure.ha-ha). About 20 are 30 mile later I came to hwy 590 that takes you into downtown seminary (seminary is on of those towns if you blink…well you missed it) hwy 590 runs into hwy 49 so I headed north to Collins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins,_Mississippi , Collins is a metropolis compared to seminary but still a very small town. I made a quick sidetrack to downtown to see if any of my AT&T buddy’s were working the weekend….they were not!! The central office was empty. So I got on hwy 84 and headed west passing through Lone Star until I got to the intersection of 84 and hwy 13 in Prentiss (just as a side note Prentiss is where the longleaf rails to trails bicycle trail ends, I posted a link to it on my site, great place to ride bicycle http://www.mylongleaftrace.com/ no motor vehicles allowed) so south I went down hwy 13, not many cars lots of stuff to look at… if you like old barns and trees…I do. About this time my butt was tell me it was time to take a break so I pulled into a gas station once I reached downtown Columbia at the intersection of hwy 98e. I bought a diet Dr Pepper and a small bag of peanuts then I decided I needed to find a place to sit and relax while I enjoyed my meal. I remembered a friend of mine Jimmy Touchstone use to fish at a place call Lake Columbia, so by new mission was to find it, sure enough there was a sign on hwy 98 and I drove right to it, to my surprise I was the only one there, so I picked a covered table and enjoyed my meal, while snapping a few photos with my new iphone g3 (the greatest cell phone ever!!! More on that later) after about 45 minutes I got on my bike and headed E on hwy 98, so for the traffic was not to bad (hwy 98 is a pretty major road that runs from Columbia to Hattiesburg, malls, stores, you name it, its on 98) traffic was good until I passed Brett Favre house http://www.officialbrettfavre.com/ yea he lives in Hattiesburg right on hwy 98, trust me you can’t miss his house, It’s unbelievable, I was thinking of getting one just like it, until I remembered I did not have an extra 20 million laying around.ha-ha. I’ll spare you the details of how I had to sit in bumper to bumper traffic for about an hour to finish last 20 miles of my trip, oh yea once I made it out of traffic and was on one of the back roads home…..what do I see more traffic….what can I say I forgot Southern Miss was having a football game, and I came right in the middle of everyone setting up tailgating parties, I have to admit the view became a lot better… guys you know what I’m talking about.ha-ha.

Well I made it home safe and sound, my first what I calling long bike trip (got to start somewhere), it was right around 200 miles, the bike ran like a champ…I can’t wait for my next one, I promise I will make the next story more enjoyable I’ll be taking a lot more photos, and get into more detail about the places I go. Until next time RIDE ON!!