I was not ready for the alarm at 5.30am on Monday morning. Admittedly, it was 6.30am where we’d come from the day before, but it didn’t feel like enough sleep! I move s-l-o-w-l-y in the mornings, and it required food and coffee in the hotel before I was even slightly ready to get back on the bike.
We’d had a discussion before bed about which bonuses we could fit into the day. Aside from some bonuses on our route directly between stadiums, there was a big value bonus (470 points) just outside Birmingham, AL which was time limited (only available during museum opening hours) and was going to add about an hour to the trip. All up the day would be 11-12 hours of riding, plus stops for fuel for the bike and for us!
Our first bonus was at Mississippi State University – a bulldog statue followed by additional caffeination.
Then it was into Tuscaloosa, AL for another stadium. After coffee we agreed we’d go for the Birmingham bonus and the Kiwi was drooling when we got there. I suspect we’ll be back to Alabama one day – if only to visit the motorcycle museum!!
I think between the air conditioning and the motorcycles we could have been there a while but we were on the clock! And apparently there are so many motorcycles that even if you only spent 30 seconds looking at each one, you’d be there for a full 13 hours!!!! We didn’t have that kind of time!
Again, the day was getting hot as we headed into the early afternoon. We cruised on into Georgia and saw some pretty interesting sights on the interstate!!!
The most disturbing by far was the ‘mobile cigar lounge’ – I was kind of grossed out when I thought it was actually just a place to smoke cigars on wheels… but I suspect that may not be all it is… Anyway, the dude with the ladders was a novelty! Not sure where he was going or what for, but he was prepared!!
We hit Auburn University for another stadium and then managed to navigate the Atlanta traffic with the help of Google Maps and Waze! Thank goodness for technology because there was a 20 minute pile up on one of the orbitals that we managed to miss. We did go close to three other bonuses we could have collected, but as neither of us is very comfortable with the volume of traffic on main roads here, and it was basically rush hour when we hit Atlanta, we felt discretion was the better part of valour. We were going for fun and conservative, rather than daring and divorce-inducing with our route planing!
We cruised on into Athens, GA in the late evening and agreed to head on towards the next point for Tuesday morning before we stopped for the night. We’d collected our rest bonus the previous night so we could afford to relax a little and not worry too much about receipts and things.
Unfortunately the University of Georgia had decided to do some roadworks where we were supposed to take the photo from – but Rule 13C came in handy and we got our alternative photo showing we were there and showing the roadwork then headed into a beautiful sunset on our way to Thomson.
It was a big day – I think 960kms and 14-ish hours on the road. We grabbed a sandwich at Arby’s and called it a night! No problems with getting to sleep, or staying that way!
The Adventures of Pillion Piglet 