Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Almost Deadly Thunderstorm

July 10, 2012
Key West

OMG!  I will never travel through Ft. Myers again…or anywhere on FL’s west coast.

I was caught in two horrendous thunderstorms.  The first one was pretty bad and I was able to make it to an exit and take cover in a gas stations.

The second one almost did me in.  What started as a medium rain instantly changed to a lightning, thundering zero visibility downpour with horrendous gusting cross winds.


I immediately lost sight of the car in front of me which I was trailing by about 4 car lengths.  I had to let off the throttle, apply the flashers, ease on the brake and hope the guy behind me doesn’t make me into a Harley sandwich.

And then the gust hit…..HARD!  The rear end of the bike started slipping out as the wind hit the load.  I remember saying out loud “Oh Shit, this is not good!”  Maybe I was screaming it.

And at that moment the white line on the shoulder veered to the right for an off ramp and I eased down it finally reaching the end where a gas station was only 50 feet away. 

Whew!  I don’t ever want to do that again!

My 2nd dumbest move of the day was committing to reach Key West today.  I ended up riding the Keys in the dark.  Which was a good thing because of my newly developed bridge phobia.  I couldn’t see the water and had no clue how high I was so I wasn’t affected at all.  I did however know whenever I was on a bridge because of the connecting metal plates.

Finally rolled into NAS at 11:30pm and got a room on the 5th floor.  This is a very nice place for military at about a fourth of the prices out in town.  Did my laundry (no, Ft. Myers didn’t mess up my trou).

Tomorrow I see the Caribbean…and I hope it isn’t raining!
C ya mañana,
Gonzo
Twitter: @GonzoCrossUSA
Email: GonzoCrossUSA@gmail.com
Cell: 949-433-0761

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