On the road

I am typing this entry on Gary Galloway's computer in the home he shares with his wife Paula Ellis in Coconut Grove, Florida. Coconut Grove is part of Miami, but has a funkier, Venice Beach feel to it when compared to the popular latin influenced image of Miami. As soon as I can figure out why I can't get a photo downloaded from my camera to the site, I'll show you the second photo I took of Paula and Gary. The first photo I took was years ago, shortly after I had performed their wedding beside their Harley outside the American Legion hut in Columbia. For those of you wondering how I was able to perform the ceremony, notaries public can perform marriages in South Carolina.

The weather and road condition forecast was bleak at 5:00 a.m. Saturday. Fog in South Carolina and Georgia and fog and smoke in Florida. Indeed there was fog leaving Columbia, but it lifted by the time I got to I-95 to head south. At my first gas stop of the day I met a trio of bicycle riders from Columbia who were heading to Key West to bike the length of the keys (about 100 miles). I promise that if I run into them Sunday I will get their names and maybe a photo to share. We started talking when one of the group commented that I had more stuff on the bike than they had in their mini-van. I must have been feeling testy because my reply was, "I'm probably going farther." I will attribute my snideness to lack of sleep. It was after midnight before I got my stuff packed and got to sleep. Anne was up even longer baking chocolate chip cookies for me -- a travel tradition going back almost 25 years.

I listened to Bo Diddley sing "I'm a Roadrunner," and began to wonder what it is that makes some of us roadrunners. I had thought of taking a long bicycle ride several times over the years, but I think I like the speed of motorcycle travel as much as I like the travel itself. I'll ask the next long distance bicyclist I see what motivates them to grind it out a speeds below 20 miles per hour.

There may be a statistical analysis of the accuracy of weather forecasts, but for once I was glad that the Weather Channel didn't have everything about the forecast right. The forecast rain was about four raindrops south of Daytona, and the smoke didn't become noticable until West Palm Beach. If there hadn't been an aroma of burning vegatation in the air, the haze could have been a typical July afternoon humidity haze.

Paula was managing editor of The State newspaper in Columbia, then publisher of The Sun News in Myrtle Beach before becoming a vice president with Knight-Ridder. In that last role Paula was involved in the sale of the K-R newspapers. A sale brought on because some of the shareholders thought they should be getting a better return on their investment. Paula has gone from running newspapers to giving away money in her role as a vice president of the Knight Foundation.

I asked Paula if she missed the newspaper business, and she replied that it was hard not to be in the daily business of deciding what is news, covering it and financing the coverage of it. While the deadline and fiscal pressures are gone, Paula is having to make adjustments. "Giving away money would be easy if you didn't expect anything to be accomplished by the people you give the money to, but if you expect results, it takes work," she said.

Gary and I swapped some motorcycle stories and some Civil War battlefield stories over a thoroughly south Florida dinner of black beans and rice and Cuban pig. Paula's mango crisp dessert topped off the meal and the evening.

Gary's back is troubling him so he may not be able to join me on the run out to Key West Sunday. If the forecast rain shows up I might accuse him of having a strategic ailment.

I will work on the photo problem tomorrow because there are a couple of other photos that need to be in the collection: my dawn departure and a Love Bug splattered windshield.