Monday – Daytona Beach, Florida
Well, I was not sure what today would bring as I had to check on my mail and the main unit was the shock absorber from Canada. So after a bit of breakfast I headed down to the UPS store and introduced myself and great news, everything was there.
So, I had two sets of Aussie flags from home, one brand new tyre watch sensor from France and the repaired Elka shock from Canada. So, I loaded everything on the bike and headed back up to the house.
Then I was lucky in a way, because the bin men were doing their stuff and I managed to get a hand with the bike up onto the centre stand 🙂 Because the bike is lowered, it makes it very hard to get up by myself, I have heard of people cutting bits out and re-welding, so there is a thought. So, out with the old shock with the help of a handy brick, so the back end did not collapse on me.
And in with the new one, it only took an hour but it was very steamy hot and I was a bit affected by last nights bundy even though I was in the shade.
So, rather than pay the high prices of UPS I went down to the local post office and sent the shock to Salt Lake, care of Ken and I also sent the faulty Tyre Watch stuff back to France. I even installed my new flag, thanks mum 🙂
Over the next few hours I wandered back and forth looking for a tyre shop that was open, to install the new sensor, but Mondays they mostly seemed to be closed, because they open on Sunday. The ones that were open wanted way too much, like $75. I would try something else, it is not an urgent thing, but nice to have working.
I also bought some DVDs and burnt photos to be sent home and got them away as well. By now, I had been across these bridges quite a few times and knew a few of the streets.
I eventually, in the late afternoon, headed down to the beach to check out for sharks, you know, white pointers and bronze whalers. I did not see any though. 😦
They have this cleared area along the beach for the emergency vehicles, there seems to be a lot of rips along this beach from the signs I saw.
After a while I headed back up to the Mai Tai bar where lo and behold, the beer is on special, a jug(pitcher) for $5, so I bought one although he poured me 3 individual pints of Yeungling beer over a few hours I was there. The big fella in this photo spent most of the time I was there talking into a phone that was on speaker, very annoying, but he seemed to be doing business, lucky the music from the bar got louder over time and drowned him out.
I was checking out these birds, you know the ones in the sky, they sort of looked like Pelicans, but I was not sure, but they were riding the air currents rushing up the high rises.
Now, this bird was selling stuff at the stall on the left of shot, there seemed to be a lot of lookers, but no takers, I do not think any money changed hands all arvo, poor girl, lucky she had a book with her.
They even have two wheeled coppers down here 🙂
By now I was getting a bit hungry and fancied wings, so I bought some ‘take away’, or as they say over here, ‘to go’ and headed back to the house over the pedestrian bridge and also saw a neat omnibus type bus.
I hoed into those wings, honey bbq flavour, they were delicious 🙂
Then I had a few more quiet rums, and caught up on the blog and I also managed to sort out the tyre sensor issue. A friend of Jims will help me do it on his machine when I come back up from the south coast later in the week. There was no use trying to rush up north to Buffalo, New York as it was a fair run, so I would try and catch up with Jim and Lesley at a later date.
As an aside, I spoke to those coppers while they were getting wings in the same shop. I asked about the speeding laws as every time I was on the speed limit I was passed at a rate of knots by just about everyone. He told me it is an unwritten law that up to 10mph over the limit is not really bad, he does it himself even, but he can also get booked for speeding. There you have it, but he did say, if I stuck to the limit, I should not get into any strife, so fair enough.
I was planning on getting away early to hit the Kennedy Space Centre down the coast about an hour away and spend most of tomorrow there before heading south. Well, tomorrow is yesterday by my books, so here is a sneak preview of the fantastic moment I had, talk about being in the right place at the right time. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Day – 22 miles and 35 km
Trip – 15,434 miles and 24,39 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 