Barber Motorcycle Festival Alabama

We had a good run from Florida into Georgia, avoiding the inter state and taking a lesser road which was quite scenic and a lot less chaotic. We spent the night in the Wal - Mart car park in Thomasville and treated ourselves to Subway for tea. Not very exciting I know but after a very long day it was just fine. We studied the map that night and Marty ran over the next day’s route with me to be doubly sure I knew where we were going. All seemed very straight forward.
The Georgia countryside was beautiful, so beautiful in fact that I forgot all about map reading and before I knew what was happening we were crossing into Alabama about 4 inches too far south on the map. (I have no idea how many miles but it mattered to Marty I can assure you). It was an easy fix and again the countryside and small towns we passed through were wonderful. Was easy to forget so many extra miles and time had been added to the days traveling. About 5pm we pulled into Wind Creek State Park about 70 miles south east of Birmingham. The camp was nearly empty as was the lake. The lake was 13.5 feet below its normal level. They are in dire need of some rain.

Next morning we had a ring from Gary who told us that according to the Barber web site all the camping for the weekend was booked. A mild panic set in as we had spoken to someone the previous day who said we would be able to get camping tickets on Thursday afternoon. Marty got onto the phone pronto and after a couple of calls to various people he got hold of the booking agents and yes all the camping was full so Marty did a Burt Munroe and said we’d come all the way from NZ and were told we could get tickets at the venue on Thursday. It worked. The woman suddenly remembered she had had a cancellation and there was one spot left on the Hilltop. Would we like that? What a silly question and after parting with $168 we had our three day camping and festival pass. What a relief.
We spent the night at a State Park just South of Birmingham and early Thursday morning we headed out to the Barber Museum and Raceway.

This complex is just amazing. It has to be seen to be believed. The photos don’t really do it justice. Nothing has been skimped on. All the roads within the circuit are sealed, there is parking everywhere and special areas all around the facility for bikes. During the weekends activities there were trams traveling the perimeter roads so there was no need for spectators to drive their cars and cause congestion. All the lanes between the swap meet stalls were sealed as last year it had rained and turned into a mud bath. The loud speaker system was great and could be heard no matter where you were around the track. It makes the Pukekohe circuit look very antiquated.

But first the museum. We bought tickets for the weekend as that gave us entry to the Friday night meet and greet the stars plus Saturday night’s auction and unlimited access to the museum itself. The first person we saw as we were getting our tickets was Kerry Sleeth, a motorcyclist acquaintance from NZ. He was hoping to pick up some gems at the swap meet. We spent all day in the museum. It was hard to believe 6hrs could go so fast. And no I wasn’t bored, I enjoyed every minute of it. Check the photos out. I think it has to be a motorcyclist’s idea of heaven. There are 700 bikes on display at one time with as many in the basement waiting their turn. My favourite was the Morbidelli. It was a work of art.
At 5pm we joined the queue to pick up our camping pass. It turned out that our hilltop park was the VIP area. What a view we had. It was awesome. How lucky could we be?
We did a quick flick through the swap meet but came away empty handed. I did fancya late model 650 Yamaha that had 703 original miles on it but didn't have the $4500 the guy wanted. Had an early night so we would be bright eyed and bushy tailed - ready for a busy weekend.

I slept terribly and felt like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards (Marty said I looked like it) so I let him go off to the swap meet alone. What harm could he possibly do to the budget with just a shoddy plastic Wal Mart bag to carry stuff in? I spent the morning sitting in the sun reading my book and watching the racing from my hilltop position. It was great. Marty arrived back about lunchtime looking very pleased with himself, and with the top box on the bike loaded with goodies. He just wanted a quick bite to eat then he and Gary were going straight back. A couple more small gems found there way back to the camper in the afternoon so his under seat space is now nearly full.

We went to the meet, greet and nibbles at the museum and got to have a look at the bikes that were to be in the Saturday night auction. Marty was particularly interested in a 1949 Vincent Rapide. One of the bikes in the museum display was the bike that set the world land speed record for a motorcycle and the guest speaker was the bikes designer, Denis Manning. His streamliner reached a world record speed of 350.884 MPH.
At 9pm the museum people were trying to close up but the threat of being locked in for the night had little or no effect on the stragglers. It was something they were all hoping for.

Racing starts bright and early here. 8am and the first practice is underway. We went to the swap meet in the morning and then to the trials in the afternoon. That was a bit of a mission to find. No one seemed to know where it was, except that it was in the woods somewhere. We found it just before the first bikes started arriving. There were all sorts competing from Tiger Cubs, to AJ’s to classic Japanese machines. Not many had clear rounds in the section we were watching.

The auction got under way at 6pm and as the Vincent was number 19 on the list we got there early. It was passed in at $26,000. It had a $40,000 reserve on it. A new Harley Factory Dragster sold for $17,000 while a brand new (never used) 1988 850 Ducati went for $30,000. A LE Velocette was passed in at $3700. The owner wanted $4800. A 1960 Triumph Thunderbird sold for $10,500. And so it went. There was no telling what things would go for.

We went back to the camper and were having a quiet game of cards when all of a sudden we could here very loud music. I thought it was our neighbours but Marty went to investigate and discovered there was a band playing in the amphitheatre just down the road so we went to listen. Got there in time to hear the last two songs. There were only about 30 people there. It wasn’t advertised in the program and if the wind hadn’t blown our way we would never have known. Pity really as they weren’t too bad. Don’t remember the name of the band but one of (or their only) big hit was Hot Rod Lincoln so maybe you know who I’m talking about.

Sunday morning was quite busy. We were on our way to the swap meet when we got a call from a friend of a friend who wanted to meet us at the museum so we detoured there. While talking to him George Barber walked past so I got talking to him about coming back out to NZ and different stuff which lead onto a photo shoot and George (I don’t think he’d mind me calling him George) telling us that if we wanted anything at all just get someone to get hold of him at it would be done. We thanked him but said we were doing fine, but if he could just get exhibit #1023 (a Yamaha ? 600 that had won an IOM TT) changed to read that Bruce Anstey was a Kiwi not a Brit we’d be much obliged. He assured us it would be done. He is such a lovely man.
Back at the swap meet I bought another bike jacket. I just couldn’t help myself. I just fell in love with the colour and the price was right. Well according to me it was but Marty said I should have bartered more. Marty didn’t find anything more bits so we went to watch the motocross only to find it was over and done with so we went back to the hilltop and watched some more of the road racing.

About 3.30 we decided to pack up and head off before the rush. We made a detour to see a local motorcyclist’ collection before heading back to the state park for the night. Actually we never made it to the state park as Marty couldn’t get out of the shed. To say he spent 4 hours in there poking in all the nooks and crannies is no exaggeration. My patience and understanding has earnt me a few brownie points and I look forward to redeeming them at some stage along the journey. Thank you Charles for your hospitality. It was fun and topped of a wonderful weekend for Marty.

Florida

We had an easy drive down to Florida and got ourselves settled in at Anastasia State Park which was a couple of miles south east of St Augustine, the oldest city in the USA. We hopped on the bike and went and had a look around. They have built a new bridge across Matanzas Bay and are taking down the beautiful old Bridge of Lions. Such a shame as it was much nicer on the eye than the modern replacement. We arrived too late to get into the old Spanish Fort (Castillo de San Marcos) but had a wander around the outside for a while before heading off in search of Flagler College. This was originally an up market hotel but is now used as a college. It is an impressive building. The old section of the city had lots of beautiful old homes, some that were loved and others that were much neglected. We followed a tour tram for a short while and listened to the commentary before turning off and meandering our way around the city.
The Park encompasses part St Augustine Beach so after tea we went for a stroll along the beach. A few people were swimming but most of them were attached to surfboards. There had been a few days of rough weather so I scoured the beach for washed up treasure from sunken Spanish galleons but the only things I found were plastic and of no value.

I like looking at lighthouses and the St Augustine lighthouse was also located just outside the park. Marty has put lighthouse viewing in the same category as castles in Europe and he longer wants to climb every staircase!! He humored me by taking me there and patiently waiting for me in the car park while I climbed the 219 steps to the top. I nearly chickened out as it was an open type spiral staircase and I did not like being able to see the floor below one little bit. I hugged the inside of the stairwell and moved over for no one. The view from the top was spectacular. The climb down wasn’t as scary but I still stuck to the inside. I did a quick tour through the light keeper’s house and saw amongst other things a working Fresnel lens. I could have spent quite a bit of time in this house but as Marty was waiting I thought it best that I do it at speed.
At the entrance to the State Park is an old Spanish Quarry so we decided to take a look. The Spanish mined the Coquina rock here and used it for building. The rock was soft and easy to cut when in the ground but became hard when exposed to air. It was used to build the walls of the Castillo. The fort was never captured in battle because the walls simply absorbed the cannon balls. We were a little disappointed with what we saw as it didn’t look like a quarry at all – just looked like a swamp.

We headed on south taking the A1A along the coast and didn’t stop till we got to Daytona. This is one big shopping mall, and despite it being the off season was still pretty busy. We headed straight for the raceway which was very easy to find. Nothing on but we were able to go and have a look at the track. They have a gift shop and numerous other attractions to bring the tourists in all year round but it is geared almost exclusively to NASCAR racing which doesn’t really hold too much interest for us.
We had planned to camp around Cape Canaveral and watch a satellite launch but it didn’t work out as planned. We did go out to the space centre but arrived too late to do a tour and the launch we had hoped to see had been postponed for another day and we didn’t have the time to spend waiting so we continued on our way south.
Next stop was Cocoa Beach. Extremely built up and very hard to find a park but the beach was nice and yes you could swim. We spent the night at Sebastian Inlet having driven 250 odd miles. That is a long day in our old RV.
The next day was a long driving day again as we drove straight down to Key Largo. Somehow I managed to take us through Miami instead of around it. It took us over 2 hrs to do about 30 miles. Thankfully it wasn’t during rush hour traffic!
It was a relief to pull into John Pennekamp St Park; we were both tired and beginning to get cranky.

It was nice to get on the bike the next day and head off to Key West. A trip of 200 odd miles return, from the top of the keys to the bottom. It was a nice straight ride. I don’t think we went around any real corners the whole trip. I got to see sea turtles and dolphins, but Marty just got to see the road and other cars. He did get to see the Iguana I spotted when we stopped for a leg stretch.
Key West was alive with tourists on hired scoters and push bikes. Some looked like they would have been much safer on foot. We drove around taking in the sights, stopping at the monument marking the southernmost point and closest point to Cuba for a photo. Of course we had to stop at a local eatery and sample the famous Key Lime Pie. This is really yummy.
Having seen enough we headed back to Key Largo and a swim. We planned to go snorkeling before we left to see the remnants of an early Spanish shipwreck 100 yards off shore but it didn’t happen. I worked out the cost to hire the gear from the pamphlets we had and we set off. Discovered the prices had changed and we could only afford the masks and snorkels. No problem we would do that. The nice young lady started filling out the hire forms (knowing we only had $20 with us) and then said she would need another $30 as a deposit. What part of “We only have $20 with us didn’t she understand?” We gave up and decided to head towards the Everglades instead. Arrived back at our campsite to find a rather large Iguana munching on some berries in the site across from us. Cool. I had a disaster with my camera and lost all the photos I took of the Keys. I was gutted.

We took a nice quiet road across to the Everglades, and as per Gary’s instructions we took the loop road off the 41 so that we would see lots of alligators. This road takes you through a cypress swamp. What the Beidler Forest in Sth Carolina would have looked like had there been water. It would have been great on the bike but the poor old camper took a bit of a pounding. It was a narrow dirt road with lots of potholes and overhanging trees. If one didn’t get us the other did. But we did get to see one alligator from a distance and a huge Grey Crane that when it saw us and realized it was wanted for a photo shoot took to the air making so much noise that it sounded like half the forest around it was being knocked down so it wasn’t an entirely wasted two hour drive.
We stayed at another State Park and while I went for a bike ride Marty went fishing. He was closely watched the whole time by an alligator. Guess he had designs on any fish Marty might catch. The alligator was still there when I went down to the lake to watch the sunset.

Ever since watching Gentle Ben on T.V. when I was a kid I have wanted to have a ride on an airboat so next morning we headed off to Everglades City and did just that. It was great fun. We saw a couple of alligators, bald eagles, osprey and even a raccoon.

We left the Everglades and headed towards Tampa. We met up with our friend Kay here. She is working on a cruise ship and we were lucky enough to time our arrival in Tampa with the ships and her day off. We didn’t do anything exciting just spent the time yakking. It was great to see someone from home.
I excelled at navigating our way out of downtown Tampa and onto the toll road and before we knew it we were in Spring Hill and meeting Pete and Cathy, who were kindly putting up with us for the next couple of days. Marty and Pete had met on the internet. No not like that, by exchanging motorcycle parts and information!
They took us to Tarpon Springs and a cruise out into the Gulf. This was great. Saw a couple of dolphins but no Manatees. It was a little early in the season for them apparently.
On the way to Tarpon springs we passed a Doggy Day Care. We saw a Doggy Day Care bus a few years ago when we were in Seattle and I don’t really think people believed us, so for all you non believers here is the proof. They really do exist.

We had a lovely time with Pete and Cathy but with the Barber Motorbike Festival weekend looming in Alabama we had to move on. The Google directions said it was about 500 odd miles and an 8 hour drive. Well Mr. Google obviously doesn’t own a 1981 350 Chevy or have me as a navigational advisor……………..