Another day trip to the twilight zone......

We, meaning the wife and moi, decided a nice little picnic and window shopping in Cassadaga, the Florida Psychic camp/town would be a nice way to waste a Saturday. The kids, consisting of both the good and evil twins, along with the Son-in-law on wheels and his Sister, drove up from Tampa and met us there.

It took us about two hours to get there, but the kids ran into the bike week at Daytona traffic and were delayed for almost an hour. The biker traffic from our direction hadn't been as bad. All the way down, we would pass two or three bikes parked off the side of the road, and the wife and I disagreed as to exactly why we saw so many of them as we drove. She said it was because they were probably joining up with other bikers at specific meeting points, while I ventured it was because at least one of the bikes had broken down. To back up my theory I pointed out the fact that none of the groups of bikes parked all along the highway were jap cruisers, they were all Harley's. Why would only Harley riders be parked all down the route and not the Honda Gold Wings or the rice rockets? Then again, it may not have been strictly mechanical failures, but the fact that Harley rider butts are pounded pretty hard and need rest stops to ease the pain. Matter of fact, I am going to have the softest pillow I have available for old Buffalo's butt when he stops by to kick my ass for saying what I just did.........grin.

Of course, we also saw our share of trauma center bait riding in tight formation, no more than a foot of space between them or the cars they are tailgating at 70 miles an hour. People with more rebellion in their brains than common sense often run in packs. Now that Floridian bikers have the "freedom" to ride without helmets, the incidents of brain injury have risen back sharply to their pre-law levels when they were required to wear them. I think that along with that freedom to be stupid should come my freedom from having to foot the bill for their hospital care, which the insurance they are required to carry doesn't even come close to covering. Yes, my friends, with the kinds of injuries these people sustain, they eventually end up in long term care with Medicaid footing the bill to have nursing aids bathe, feed, and dress them. So much for being bad-ass road warriors, huh?

It was a nice little family gathering and lunch, and we all could have spent wads of cash on crystals and incense and other odd paraphernalia if we'd had any. Easy Rider's sister did go for a psychic reading, and I sincerely hope the advice she got was worth the money she paid for it. Me, I tend to have people pay ME to tell me what to do. I call it a job.


The trip back was a whole other story. Interstate 95 turned into a parking lot halfway back towards Jacksonville, so it took us twice as long to get home as it took to get to Casadaga. By the time we got home I was a bit tired, sore, and hungry, so we picked up a frozen pizza on the way. A nice hot bath to soothe the cramped muscles, listening to Prairie Home Companion on the radio, and putting out tonight's exciting episode on MM&M, then perhaps a Netflix movie afterwards, ah, isn't this the life?

It's been a quiet week at Pendragon Hold, our little sandy acre on the edge of the big city............