Freelance Writing

      

This travelogue was originally published in Motorcycle Tour and Cruiser magazine (now Roadbike) in June 2001.  It is about a ride down the east coast from the Outer Bank Islands on the coast of North Carolina to Beaufort, South Carolina during the week following the Memorial Day holiday of that same year. There were a few harrowing experiences and "life lessons" on this vacation, which were edited out of the final published piece.  Here's the piece pretty much as originally written. The North Carolina Outer Bank Islands and Carolina Coast           Standing at the top of Kill Devil Hill at the site of Wright Brothers first historic flight, what first strikes you is the seemingly insignificant span traveled by Wilber in the brother's first outing. At 120 feet, most people could throw a rock farther. It's fascinating to think that this humble beginning of powered flight less than 100 years ago led the way to the technological advances that allow today's aircraft to fly from New York to Los Angeles in less than 3 hours.           It had taken me four days to arrive here, after spending the Memorial Day Weekend in the small town of Newland, North Carolina where family members had gathered for the holiday. I had picked the holiday week to do my yearly motorcycle vacation, and since I would already be in North Carolina, a trip to the Outer Bank Islands seemed both an accessible and interesting choice.           Departing Newland early Monday afternoon, I rode the Blue Ridge Parkway north before heading east on Highway 421 near Boone. My first overnight stop would be at Apex, a suburb of Raleigh-Durham, where a friend from my Air Force days lived. The plan was to meet for dinner that evening to catch up, but that meant a solid day's ride to cross a major portion of the state. Although I had a lot of distance to cover, there was ample time for taking the scenic route. Highway 421 eventually led to Highway 64. With stops along the way, I would remain on 64 for the next day and a half, making my way toward the coast.           In contrast to mountainous western North Carolina, the terrain going east changes from gently rolling foothills and easy curves, to flat and straight as you approach the eastern seaboard. The unchallenging ride is balanced however, by the area's interesting scenery. Typical of the rural south, one might see anything from old farms, grain silos and long-deserted shacks to historic areas complete with grand antebellum mansions practically unchanged since the Civil War.           That evening I enjoyed dinner and some reminiscing with a good friend, and morning found me once again on Highway 64 heading east. The highway became increasingly less populated as I headed toward the coast, with the ride interesting but not overly exciting. This changed however, as I caught sight of the blue waters of Albemarle Sound and crossed the Intracoastal Waterway. Having been raised in south Florida, any chance to get back to the ocean is a pleasure for me. Crossing the bridges over Croatan and Roanoke Sound to the Outer Banks landed me at my first destination.           Heading north on Highway 158 on Roanoke Island, I was disappointed to see that much of the coastal area is given to typical "tourist trap" attractions such as tee-shirt shops and garishly lit amusement parks. I was hoping for a little more "pristine unspoiled" out here. A nice surprise, however, is Jockey's Ridge State Park, a large state-protected sand dune park that covers 400 acres on the western side of the island. If you walk a 50 yards into the park, the glitzy attractions are hidden by the dunes and you get the feeling of what this area looked like a hundred years ago. In the distance, the people walking the sand resembled ants covering anthills. Good for a few worthwhile photos. By now, it had been a long day and the sun was setting. Time to find a room for the night.           For the week, I had planned to travel south on the Outer Bank Islands, take ferries to Okracoke Island then back to the mainland, then head south through Charleston and the Hilton Head Island areas before heading back to Atlanta the following weekend. When I vacation on the bike, I usually make traveling "the thing" and try to cover a fair amount of ground. I avoid making reservations if possible, which allows for improvising where necessary, adjusting my itinerary as situations and weather changes warrant. This approach occasionally has its drawbacks however, as summertime is "the season" in this area, and most of the hotels were priced at a premium and booked solid. I did find an average room at a higher than average price, but after a long day in the saddle, I was glad to find it. Later that evening, I rode to a local seafood restaurant for dinner then returned to the room and got to bed early. I had planned some exploring and a lot of travel for the next day.           In keeping with the week's ambitious agenda, the bike was packed and I was out of the hotel by 8 AM Wednesday morning in anticipation of a full day's ride. I planned first to head north to see Corrola Island before riding south through the Outer Banks islands, and back on the mainland by day's end.           State Road 12 runs the 100-plus miles of Outer Bank Islands from Corolla Island to Okracoke, but the islands are never more than a few miles at their widest. The ride up to Corrola Island is a two-lane ribbon of road with small seaside communities all along the way. Boat Docks and small harbors dot the waterfront along Currituck Sound on the bay side, and small grocery stores, houses and condos line the ocean shore. This area has more of a year-round living feel than Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills further south. The town of Corrolla and the north side of the peninsula is famous for the wild horses that live in the area, and they can be seen grazing on the side of the road at any time. As you might imagine, speed limits are slow in this area - a good thing, as it gives you time to enjoy the ride and take it all in. When you can find a place to park, a few minutes walk will bring you to either the ocean or the bay on either of the island - this is a thin strip of land. Stops for photos of a small harbor and the lighthouse at Currituck Beach, and a walk out to the ocean at the end of State Road 12, and I was again riding south.           Next stop, Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk to view the Wright Brother's museum. This area is really quite interesting. The museum building houses copies of letters written by the brothers, a reproduction of their first "flying machine", and some of the first engines and prototype machinery that chronicles their progress toward powered flight. Outside the museum building, the surrounding grounds show locations of the first flights, and restored structures where the brothers and associates ate, slept and worked. Built on a hill overlooking the entire area is the Write Brothers Memorial, a concrete and stone structure which features bronze busts of Orville and Wilber, and a memorial inscription in granite commemorating the events of December 17th 1903. A few well-spent hours taking it all in and I am back on the road.           It was the beginning of summer and approaching 1 PM, the hottest part of the day. I was wearing protective riding gear, but on thin coastal islands you benefit from the cooler breezes that blow off the ocean and moderate temperatures a bit. As long as you're moving, you remain comfortable. I would spend the next few hours traveling the approximate 65 miles to Hatteras to catch a ferry to Okracoke Island. The ferry runs at approximate thirty-minute intervals, and getting back and forth between Hatteras and Okracoke is relatively easy. Traveling Okracoke to the contiguous forty-eight however, is a different story. The travel time from Okracoke to either Swan Quarter or Cedar Island (on the mainland) is over two hours. Ferry scheduling can be affected by sea and weather conditions and if you miss the last one, you can be stuck at the end of the island chain where lodging can be scarce during the summer months. The ferry from Ocracoke to the mainland also requires reservations, and I had made them from my hotel room that morning. As such, I had to be mindful of the travel and stop times on the way down to make sure that I was ready to board at Ocracoke Island by 6 PM.           The ride down to Hatteras Island on State Road 12 is a straight two-lane road with stops to view the ocean. Surfer's cars, jeeps, and vans are parked near long sandy paths that lead to the ocean at selected spots along the road, as this is one of the better known surfing areas on the east coast. The ride would be unremarkable if not for the seaside surroundings and the novelty of riding on a long thin strip of island. At Oregon Inlet, an abandoned Coast Guard station still stands on the northern side of Hatteras Island. Its doors and windows are boarded, and pure white sand resembling snow has been blown up like drifts against the seaward side of the building. The concrete block building was built to withstand strong sea storms, wind and sand. It is still in relatively good shape, and it seems a shame that a building this perfectly placed and picturesque would be left without a reason to be. The location is so good, it could easily be converted to the perfect seaside restaurant or lodge. This is one of my longer stops of the day as I walked the grounds with camera in hand to explore and photograph the structure and the area. Farther down the road, I stopped again where the beach view south afforded me a nice shot of the coast with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse off in the distance.           Ocracoke Island is the last "developed" island in the Outer Banks chain. It is fairly well inhabited, has hotels and restaurants, and is a quaint little spot. The town of Ocracoke is at the southern end of the island, and sailboats and other watercraft crowd the harbor and dock here to take advantage of the seaside merchants. All contribute to a general "nautical" atmosphere. Arriving an hour before my scheduled ferry departure, I parked the bike and walked a bit, shooting photographs and talking with the locals. The sun was beginning it's decent toward the horizon and it would be closing on nightfall when the ferry arrived at Cedar Island.           At about 5:45, the line begins forming to board the ferry. A father and son also traveling by motorcycle were making the crossing the same time I was. On the ferry, motorcycles were last on and first off, so while the cars boarded we compared notes on motorcycle touring. The father rode a late-eighties vintage white Yamaha Venture and his son a Honda Shadow. I have to admit I envied the father's choice of transportation. His bike looked as if it could have just rolled off the showroom floor. While I have always found my bike to be fine on a long haul, the storage space and amenities of a touring bike showed the clear advantage of having a motorcycle made for the task.           Once on the ferry, another advantage of his bike became quite clear; the centerstand. Like most "cruiser" motorcycles, my bike has only a side stand, and can be subject to problems of instability in certain circumstances - like while parked on a moving ferry. The seas were calm and the ferry's pitch and roll was not severe, but I was concerned that the bike would fall over if I weren't there to give it additional support. So, although there was a lounge on the ferry to relax and enjoy the ride, I would be staying with bike for the next two-plus hours. I had the Walkman to listen to, and with the sun going down slowly over the water, it wasn't a chore.           As the ferry came into port at Cedar Island at about 8:00 PM, I had the good fortune of being treated to an extraordinary sunset, and I rolled the bike off the ferry in time to get some great shots at day's end. A photographic cliché maybe, but not when you're watching it. The sunset was gorgeous, and one of the better ones in this week's travel.           State road 12 to Highway 70 is the only road leading out of the Cedar Island area. The sun had set and it was rapidly becoming nightfall. This is an unpopulated area, and the road a two-lane blacktop with a steep drop off to marshland on either side. Not to worry though - the road was in excellent shape and a great ride, even after sunset. With the marsh scenery that was all around, this would be a fine ride during the day, but at night, with an oversized yellow full moon low on the horizon, a slight marsh mist and my bright headlight on, the scenery took on mystical qualities. I could easily make out the landscape, and although I was moving at 60 plus miles an hour, the denim shirt and jeans I wore were the perfect riding garb for the warm summer night's temperature. I rode in comfort with no hint of heat or chill. It was one of life's rare transcendental experiences that remain in your memory, where every element joins together and you know you're in the perfect place at the perfect time, doing the perfect thing. If you know motorcycling, you wouldn't want to be here with any other type of transportation. I rode in a combination of a near perfect state of mind, spirit, body and environment until reaching Morehead City at about 10 PM. I felt like I could have ridden till sun up, but it was another two hours to the next large town and I had been traveling all day. I felt great, but knew I was physically tired and that it was best to stop for the night.           The following day was spent on Highway 17 south with a few detours out to see the ocean at Atlantic and Wrightsville Beach. The evening's stop would be in South Carolina, so the plan was to ride this highway all day. The ride south of Wrightsville is mostly unremarkable, as Highway 17 is a fairly run-of-the-mill divided highway. I passed Myrtle Beach in early afternoon and thought about staying there overnight, but wasn't yet ready to get off the bike, so I pushed on. I eventually rode through the Francis Marion National Forest and its largely undeveloped landscape made it a much nicer ride than this highway is further north.           In the seventies while in the Air Force, I spent most of my tour-of-duty stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. I hadn't been back since then, so I thought I might take the next day to visit and explore some of the old haunts from my service days. In those days, Charleston was a bit of a "backwater" town, and I had heard it had changed quite a bit in the years that had passed. As I rode on, roadside hotels and signs indicated that I was approaching the port city. North of Charleston I exited on Highway 517 east toward the beach. This road wasn't here the last time I visited, and although I hadn't looked at a map, my sense of direction told me that it should put me on the beach somewhere near the town of Isle of Palms, an often visited locale in summer season while stationed here.           One of my old "hangouts" back then was a beach bar called The Windjammer. At the time, the bar was located in Isle of Palm's north end, next to a small group of low-key retail establishments that were little more than flea-market style wood-framed garages with hinged doors facing the street. As I remember, the businesses were mostly shut down during the week and open only on weekends. The back of the Windjammer opened up to the beach near an old fishing pier, and the during the summer months the front and back doors were left open to allow sea breezes to blow through for climate control. It had sandy wood slat floors and a couple of pool tables. Occasionally, a local band would play on a Saturday night. Definitely a "laid back" atmosphere.           The smell of salt air told me I had reached the ocean, so I stopped for gas and to take a break and get my bearings. I didn't recognize the area, but I figured that things would start to look more familiar as I continued south. The area had a very inviting look to it though - very new, the buildings painted "tropical" pastel colors, neon lights, and nicely maintained. By then it was approaching 5 PM, and I thought it might be a fun place to stay for the night. There was a hotel across the street and I walked over to inquire about room availability and price, but at 150 bucks a night, it was a bit steep for the vacation's budget. Walking back to the bike, I stopped for a moment to check out the cool look of the area. As I looked up toward the skyline, immediately to the right of the hotel on the building next store was a sign that read The Windjammer! Quite by accident, I had found my old haunt of 25 years before, but I would have never recognized it if I hadn't seen the name. Gone completely was the undeveloped "laid back" wind-blown sandy beach feel, replaced by something that looked like it could have been transplanted from Miami's "South Beach" area. Not necessarily a bad thing really, just a bit of a shock. It is interesting how things can remain timelessly frozen in your memory. From what I was able to gather from a few short conversations, hurricane Hugo had pretty well wiped out this area in 1989 - the businesses, the original Windjammer, the fishing pier, all of it - and in it's place had grown the new Isle of Palms. Newer, trendier, and more tourist conscious. Funny, 25 years ago I would probably have been more impressed by the look of the place as it is today, but now I think I would more appreciate the rustic, timeless quality of the old building and the "laid-back" feel. I guess that's getting older for you.           I still had the task of finding a place for the night. Deciding that lodging would be less expensive in town, I headed toward Charleston on SR 703. Residential communities populated the remainder of the Isle of Palms area, but over the bridge in Mt. Pleasant I found a room in an older but very well maintained hotel called the Shem Creek Inn. I remembered the place from my weekend drives to the beach back then. The hotel sits on a lowland marsh canal leading to the ocean, and the canal serves as a harboring area for older fishing and shrimp boats that tie off bow-to-stern on each side of the waterway. Very picturesque. The street name where the hotel resides is Shrimp Boat Lane. As you might have guessed, the waterway is Shem Creek, and it, along with much of Mt. Pleasant, hasn't changed much since I was stationed here. One of my favorite photographs is one I had taken of fishing boats docked along this creek some 25 years before. After checking in, showering and changing to suitable "dinner attire" I enjoyed some great seafood at a restaurant named Ronnie's, next door to the hotel. It had been a long day of riding, and after dinner I relaxed for the evening, sitting out on a dock by the water.           Friday morning and afternoon were spent touring the streets of Charleston and checking out some of the changes that had occurred since I had lived here 25 years before. Charleston of the mid-seventies had a rural unsophisticated feel to the place. Most businesses and entertainment - mostly used car lots and dive bars - catered to the military element that dominated this area. Besides the Air Force base, there was also the Naval Base as well as the Citadel, the well-known military college. The downtown King and Queen street areas were somewhat run down, with buildings dating back to the Civil War long abandoned and in disrepair.           All that has changed. The entire downtown area has undergone substantial renewal, and the old buildings rehabbed and re-inhabited. Some have become brightly painted restaurants and bistros; others house law firms, architectural firms, art shops or brew pubs. Most contain antique furnishings and historical memorabilia. The place has undergone phenomenal change. It's great to see, and no doubt a wonderful place to live. As usual, I walked the streets with camera at the ready - seeing the sights, shooting the worthwhile photograph, and taking it all in. I had lunch in a great bistro called 82 Queen. As late afternoon approached, I debated staying another day, but it was Friday and I had a fair amount of territory I wanted to cover before returning home by the end of the weekend. By four that afternoon I was back on Highway 17 heading south out of town.           Up until today, the weather had been very cooperative. Although humid and hot, I had avoided rain the entire week. A light drizzling rain moved in early on Friday morning, but cleared when the sun rose high enough for the heat to dry the air. Now however, dark gray saturated storm clouds began to move over the highway just ahead of me. I stopped for gas, and as a precautionary measure donned my rainsuit, but surprisingly managed to ride between raindrops and avoid what I know were strong thunderstorms in the area that afternoon. By the time I was an hour south of Charleston, partly cloudy skies were overhead once again. Good luck so far.           My next destination was Beaufort, South Carolina. Normally, I suppose this wouldn't be considered a likely vacation spot for most, but my father's resting place is there and I hadn't been back to visit since his funeral over 10 years before. I had made a return visit one of my objectives for the week.           The ride from Charleston to Beaufort is only about 90 minutes at highway speed, and once I hit town, finding the cemetery was easy. Finding my father's burial location was not. Trying to get my bearings, I searched the cemetery for well over an hour with no luck. At times like these, I have a tendency to become a bit "single-minded" about accomplishing an objective, sometimes to the exclusion of all else, and had worked myself into just that state of mind. As is often the case, my single-mindedness was ill advised, as the storm clouds that I had left behind just south of Charleston had now caught up with me. A light rain had begun falling.           Now, after over an hour of searching, it occurred to me that there might be a plot location guide of some sort near the front of the churchyard, so I walked the 100 yards toward the entrance. There, in an old wooden enclosure with double doors, was a notebook with names, locations, maps, et al. Within minutes, I found the listing of the location of my father's grave. It was then that the light rain became a downpour.           It happened in seconds. My motorcycle was parked on an asphalt drive inside the cemetery and about 50 yards from me. I started toward it with the intention of moving it to a shelter in the middle of the churchyard, but I hadn't gone twenty feet when the downpour assumed mythical proportions and was now accompanied by extreme and continuous thunder and lightning. Within moments, all hell was breaking loose and I was caught in the middle of it, completely alone, standing unprotected - in a cemetery of all places - in a town where I knew no one and no one knew me. To make matters worse, other than the few trees that sparsely populated the grounds, I was the tallest object in the vicinity, and the prime target for a lightning strike. Leaving the bike where it was, I hunched down and ran - maybe for my life - toward the only protection I could see, a shelter where cemetery services took place. By the time I reached it, I was drenched to the bone. Surveying the shelter, I realized that what I was now standing under was a four-post metal framed structure on a wet concrete slab. Within minutes of the storm starting, the sky had become so dark it truly looked like night, and the concussions of thunder were continuous and ear-splitting. As I watched and helplessly waited out the storm, intense violent lightning struck everywhere around the cemetery. On the street, a power transformer was hit, causing a tremendous explosion and a shower of sparks and shrapnel; another strike caused a building to literally catch fire just outside the cemetery wall. I could hear the sizzle of heat as lightning cooked the air over my head. Had it hit anywhere near the shelter, it probably would have been fatal. I was struck by the irony of the very real possibility of dying in the cemetery where my father was buried. I truly feared for my life, and in the cacophony of the pounding rain, deafening thunder and screaming sirens on the streets outside the cemetery, I made my peace with God and left my fate in His hands.           The storm lasted at full intensity for the better part of two hours. All I could do was wait it out, knowing the extreme danger I was in, and knowing - without exaggeration - that any moment could be my last on this earth. Eventually the storm began to subside. I was amazed when I realized that the danger was passing, and that I had avoided any serious injury. As unbelievable as it seems, the sun peaked back through the clouds just as it began to set. When the rain subsided, I stepped out from under the shelter and found my father's grave less than 100 feet from where I had been huddling against the storm.           This was one of the worse thunderstorms I had ever seen, let alone being caught outside in. I thought about all the foolish things I had done to get myself in this situation: spending the afternoon searching without looking for a map of the grounds, allowing my frustration to get the best of me and ignoring the oncoming ominous storm clouds, getting caught in the middle of the cemetery when the lightning storm hit. It was one of those rare watershed events in life when one learns a great deal in a very short time. In this case, the lesson was about foolish arrogance, stubbornness and hubris. It's one I won't forget.           I got back to the bike, and much to my surprise, I thumbed the starter and it fired immediately. Thank God. Due to power loss from the storm, most of the town was dark. Desperate to find a dry place and change clothes, I stopped at the first hotel that had a lit vacancy sign and got a room for the night. It was a bit of a "flea bag", but by this time, it was a case of any port in a storm... or, in this case, the aftermath of one. Once in the room, I emptied my waterproof traveling bag and with the exception (thankfully) of dirty laundry in a plastic bag, every piece of clothing was soaked. Donning the previously worn, I walked up the street to a fried chicken fast food place, the only choice within walking distance of the hotel. Considering the events of the day, I thought it appropriate to unwind a bit with an "adult beverage". On the way back to the room, I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall bar across the street from the hotel. This was my second mistake of the day.           It was one of those places where every stereotypical comment about the rural south you ever heard slaps you in the face like someone swung a day-old muddy bottom catfish. The bar featured an atmosphere of nearly pure cigarette smoke, punctuated by the worst band I have ever heard playing a nearly unrecognizable version of Proud Mary, way too loud. The clientele consisted of mostly inebriated locals dancing on the floor, almost all with the perennial Marlboro hanging from the corners of their mouths. The place smacked of cut-short educations and no options, of diseases borne from too many years of smoking and bad diet, of wife beating, and girls who were married at sixteen, mothers at seventeen, and old women by thirty. It was my feeling that before the end of the evening, someone in this room would either hit a tree on the way home or kill somebody in the oncoming lane. For someone far away from home, it was instantly depressing and further contributed to the bad vibe of day's earlier experiences. I wanted to turn and walk out immediately, but thought if I did someone might make a thing out of it, so I figured I'd keep to myself, have a quick drink and get out of there in a hurry. I walked up to the bar and ordered a drink from sallow-complexioned overweight bleach blonde barmaid in a knit halter top with no bra, stuffed into a pair of too-small jeans that did little more than show off flabby muscle tone and midriff bulge. A woman on the other side of the bar greeted me with a checkerboard smile. I nodded politely, knowing it was the kind of place where if you looked a second too long at another man's woman, you'd be stomped half to death by four "bubbas" for the entertainment value it would bring. A million miles from home in a redneck bar in Beaufort, South Carolina would probably be my last choice of places for an altercation, so I finished my drink and beat a hasty retreat. The lingering feeling of the entire experience was of having dodged my second bullet in one day. Back at the room, I spent some time cleaning up the bike and hung some wet clothes over the room heater. All I wanted to do was to ride out of town and never look back again. I locked the door and hit the rack, knowing that when I awoke in the morning I would do just that.           At 7 AM the next morning, the sun was shining brightly once again. The sky was clear and blue with no hint - save for a scattering of leaves and debris on the street - of the previous day's insanity. Almost like it all never happened. I took another quick ride over to the cemetery to pay parting respects to Dad, and started the approximate 40-mile trip down to Hilton Head Island. It was now Saturday, and depending on the 'vibe' of the day, I would decide whether to stay there for my last night, or take the six-hour ride home and use Sunday to "wind down" before the start of the work week.           I couldn't fault the weather now. It was once again perfect, with low temperatures for summer, probably due to the cooling effects of the ocean and the previous day's storm. Arriving at Hilton Head Island, I thought I'd look around a bit for any locations to stay the night. Pulling up to a guard shack on the southern portion of the island, I was informed by the guard that motorcycles were not allowed into certain areas of the island, due to what he called the "noise problem". My bike is stock, with stock pipes, and doesn't have a "noise problem". As you might imagine, I found this a bit irritating. It seems unreasonable to me that the motorcycle riders - who also pay taxes for the upkeep of these roads - should be arbitrarily excluded from their use. I opted to ride to a few spots at the north end of the island and walk out to the beach for a quick look and a few pics. I have to admit, the previous day's ordeals and the bag full of still wet clothing on the back of the bike had caused me to yearn for the familiar surroundings of home. With the greeting from the guard giving me that "We don't want your kind 'round here" attitude, it felt like the 'final straw'. I took it as an omen that the vacation was over.           My father, a lifelong New Yorker, spent the winter months in Beaufort, and on previous visits I had learned the rural routes to-and-from Atlanta. State Highway 68 makes a beeline to Augusta, and from there it's a "straight shot" back to Atlanta on I-20. I took US 321 north out of the Hilton Head area, connecting to Highway 68 at the small town of Fairfax. Highway 68 runs through the US Government protected Savannah River Nuclear site. Just to be safe, I held my breath for the 18-mile trip through the area. Much of Hwy 68 is actually a nice ride, with older small towns to break up the monotony of the straight highway, reasonably low levels of traffic, and undeveloped sections where only trees line the road, courtesy of the protected areas "owned" by the federal government. Reaching Augusta still early in the day, I decided to take some time with the remainder of the trip home. Exiting I-20 at Thomson, Georgia, I took US 78 northwest toward Athens, and this route was also a good ride, with low traffic and decent stretches of highway and rolling hills. I stopped for a break at a bistro in the college town of Athens, and then picked up US 29 to GA Highway 120, which led me back to Alpharetta, and my apartment. It had been another eight-hour riding day. I was tired, and glad to be home.           An interesting week; most of it good and all of it enlightening, and with a few experiences I'llnever forget. It's the reason I like to tour by motorcycle - this vacation wouldn't have been half the experience traveling any other way. Although there were very harrowing moments, having come through them unscathed added confidence to both my touring and life's experience. Gained was the knowledge that at times the least desirable circumstances can teach you the most - about yourself, about what you can overcome in times of adversity, and about having faith. All things considered, I really should do this more often... just as long as I steer clear of Beaufort, South Carolina. (c) Philip A. Buonpastore, October, 2000.