Micanopy

Yesterday I rode my Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 from Deland, FL to Micanopy, FL. Micanopy is Florida's oldest inland settlement. St. Augustine being the oldest, but it is on the coast.

It was pretty hot outside, getting up to 91 degrees according to the temp readout on my bike. Micanopy was not much to write home about, a real small town made up of antique shops mostly, but it was a fun ride. On my way there I stopped to see my friend/co-worker Steve at the Motocross track. He rides a pretty neat Kawasaki 450. It was about 180 miles round trip and my rump was sore when I got home. Need to get used to riding longer distances on the new bike I guess.

The ride itself was mostly uneventful...however, on highway 40, which cuts through the Ocala National forest, it is mostly a double-yellow line no passing road. In a couple spots however, there is a 2 mile or so long extra passing lane. Well, as luck would have it I was stuck behind a semi-trailer and several cars, putting along at 50 mph or thereabouts. So, I see a sign for "passing zone-2 miles" and get geared up to blow past as many as possible when my opportunity presents itself. I eye up the traffic ahead of me as the passing zone approaches and then behind me and suddenly what appears to be two rather large cruisers rapidly appear in my rear views. They seem to be in a hurry. Looks like white half helmets...hmmm, could be police? No, these guys both just have t-shirts on.

Okay, good to go, the passing lane appears and I scoot into it and blast on the throttle and before I know it I have attained about 90 mph and am well past traffic and having left the big cruisers way back in my rear-view.....so I drop my speed to about 70 mph and these big cruisers come barreling up behind me very rapidly then get to the right of me to pass me on the right(we are back down to one lane now) so being courteous, I get into the leftmost part of the lane and allow then to get by me....WELLLL.......as they are passing me the first one turns his head left and stares me down for a second or two...then scoots zooms ahead of me with his riding buddy. Both t-shirts said "Volusia County Sheriff"!!! Yup, these were police Harleys. I thought for sure I was going to get pulled over, but either they were off duty or had something better to do or maybe did not have jurisdiction (I was in a different county by this time).

Anyway, I had myself a good, relieved laugh after that....got lucky this time!