We left the house about 7 a.m. and headed north. The trip up I-65 was mostly uneventful. There were 2 moments that stand out. As we were passing through Prattville, Mr. H thinks he saw one of his heros: BamaRider. The man we saw was not on a bike, but the face through the driver's side window looked a lot like Mr. Boutin. There are some tasks that require even the most avid rider to take alternate transportation.
The 2nd stand-out event was memorable for different reasons. We were solid traffic somewhere between Jemison and Calera, I think. Mr. H was in the left lane because we were coming up on some slower moving cars. A red car came up on the right side behind the slower car and acted like he was going to pull in front of us. He wasn't quite quick enough and lost his opportunity. We moved on past the car at the back of the line and the next thing you know, that red car is passing us on the left WITH 2 WHEELS IN THE GRASS AND THE OTHER 2 IN OUR LANE!!! WHAT AN IDIOT!!! I couldn't believe what he was doing. Someone with less experience (translate that 'me', if I'd been riding my bike) might have lost control and been seriously, if not fatally, injured! It still makes my blood boil. What was he thinking?!Well, it took a bit for my blood pressure to go back down, but eventually I calmed down. We made it to Birmingham without further incident or celebrity sighting and headed to the BMW dealership. Bogart's Motorsports sells BMW, Ducati, Triumph, and KTM motorcycles as well as Vespa scooters. They had 2 BMW bikes with the lowered seat position and lowered suspension: a 2010 F650GS and a 2009 G650GS, both of which allowed me to put both feet on the ground (just toes, however.) The salesman tried really hard to get us to take one home that day, but I KNOW I'm not ready for that yet. Our objective was to see if it fit, and both of those did. My objective now is to get ready for the day I CAN take one of those (or something similar) home.
After a quick lunch, we headed to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. What a cool place!
The approach to the museum itself is a twisty driveway about 3/4 of a mile long. As we drove in, we passed 3 red Corvettes, as well as one black one, going out. There was a Corvette club meeting there that day. As it turned out, they had the 5th floor reserved for a banquet, so we didn't get to look at the displays up there. But the other 4 floors were enough to keep us occupied for the rest of the afternoon.I found a bike I absolutely love. It's a 1969 BMW R60 U.S. Beautiful...
Hey! If we'd been outfitted like the bike below, the guy in the red car would have thought twice before trying to cut us off in traffic!
My favorite display was the 'round world bike record set by Jim Rogers (Investment Biker) and Tabitha Estabrook. This is Tabitha's bike. You can see the headlight and windscreen of Jim's right behind hers.
This case has a copy of Jim's book, "Investment Biker", their international driver's licenses and a post card with a map of the route.
As I was looking, Mr. H came up beside me and said, "You know, it's crazy, but if I asked you to do something like that with me, I believe you'd do it." He's right.
I want a Vespa!
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