Riding to VStrom East (5/17/2023 Wed)

So finally I leave my Oak Mountain home of the last three nights, with a targeted Ironhorse Motorcycle Lodge for my next three nights. The trip went reasonable well and found me in the normal position of plotting the most interesting corse available around the predicted storm cells. Success. I head up the state on a major highway to get above the cells moving east. Then I selected easterly road with some curves the just so happed to take me to Dawson, GA. I'm simply amoused, so riding through Dawson almost a month early made me chuckle. Better yet I found a good mexican restaurant in Dawson to spend a bit of time there.

As I neared the Ironhorse it was as I remembered. Doesn't matter what road you take they are all twisted and an amazing amount of fun on a motorcyle. I reached the Lodge just after 5pm and started talking with other bikers. When I realized the office was already closed I already knew what to do. Make myself at home and settle up with them in the morning.

After selecting a nice tent site and getting everything pitched. Including the tarp which was very wet still. I even left the tent fly drying out a bit on the tarp ridge line, before covering the tent. By then I decided there was an urgent nead for the bathroom. On the way to the bathroom I started talking with my neighbors. Fifteen minutes later a guy walked by and we recognized each other from this same event we both attended in 2021. In 2021 we had spent a few days together and he had been a great addition to our band of guys from NH. This time each of us was solo and we spent a couple days of this event together. As a long term retired guy he shared some secrets with me. He was also the guy who wanted all of us to attend Dust to Dawson with him in 2022. He didn't go last year, but we had invited him to go with us to Newfoundland. So I asked if he wanted to attend D2D in a few weeks, as I was going. He was interested but didn't think his wife would like the idea of him leaving a 3rd time so soon. He was also riding a new Moto Guzzi that he was just breaking in. But he was very encouraging about my trip and suggested a number of things I should be considering.

This D2D, then Alaska, will be the biggest trip of my life. I overplan most things, and if feels so odd to have done so little planning for this major trip. Honestly I don't know if knowing less scares or excites me? It still feels a bit surreal and clearly a propper adventure. Feeling all of the expected excitement that I started with. But my body is sore from repairs and moving in Ocala, plus bug bites, riding, and camping out so many nights. |'m tired, but a good tired.

I talked with a dozen or so very interesting ridings that evening. Most of the Strom riders had not shown up yet, so it's hard to say what most of these people rode in on. The strom community is becoming a bit diverse just do to all of the generations of VSTrom that exist. Even those arriving a day early represent most of the generations of Strom and nearly all the colors. There are at least two versions of my strom generation and coler here, so I inspect them closely to see if what they've done differently, and make notes of what to ask them about when I meet the riders.

As is my way at Ironhorse I spent a lot of time talking at the fire and stay up too late. Don't know if I left the fire at midnight or 1am, but I wasn't asleep until after 1am. Some of my sleeping issue was that I had collected together all of my laundry to wash and didn't get to it. So I didn't have my sheet and pillow case. Nor did I have the seating pad that I normally elevate my feet off the cold ground with. But I got some sleep before the roosters went off.