Day 13 - Out of Key West

First off, Lori's OK

Morg, Cris, Me, Lori

That being said, we left Key west at O"dark thirty this morning and headed north through the keys. It is great to watch the sun come up when you are down there. We stopped in Florida City for breakfast and topped of the gas and headed NW through Homestead to cut across the everglades. Right in the center of town there is a decorated section with cobblestone crosswalks for the shops and as we were driving through we stopped for a pedestrian, just a normal stop. The car behind us stopped about 12 feet back from Lori and the Toyota truck behind his car never even touched the brakes. He slammed in the car and shoved it all the way forward and into Lori. I heard the crunch and jumped the bike forward, but it got to Lori before she could move. I looked in the mirror and her bike was all the way over with the tires in the air.

The car that hit Lori's bike.

Fortunately she has the insight to just let it go when she got hit. She just stepped off and let the bike take the damage. It ended up laying on the saddlebag, fairing, and engine bar. It split the left saddlebag apart on the bottom and some minor scuffs and such. When we got it upright and off the side of the road, I noticed the rear license plate was missing. I looked all over for it for few moments before I realized it was still attached. The impact had driven everything from the taillight down up under the fender and curled it all up. It took a bit of force to get it back out so it wasn't rubbing on the tire.

That took about an hour and a half to get all the reports done and the insurance contacted. I put a bungee cord on the bag to hold it together and we moved things around in the bags, then I took her bike for a quick ride to make sure it was OK. It felt fine, So we headed north to the everglades.

Reminds me of the song Swamp With by Jim Stafford

The everglades is quite something to see. You look out at a big grass field that covers acres and it it all water under the grass. It was about 80 miles to cross across there and the are crossing signs for all kinds of wildlife including Panther's.

We cut over to the water and followed it up through Naples and into Ft.Meyers and then up to Sarasota before stopping at Bradenton for the evening. A long day and extremely hot. We ate at a Cracker Barrel and between Lori and I we went through 9 glasses of water.

Tomorrow we continue following the coast around and start west towards NOLA!

From Lori;
Hi All,    Yes I'm really okay.....Just a little stiff and achy this evening.  All I remember is hearing the crash and looking in my mirror and seeing him coming at me and I couldn't react fast enough and decided to protect myself and let the bike take the hit.  The guy back a few cars said he had seen that move before and knew there was a bike involved.  All he saw was a body go flying and he was pretty sure there was a bike down.  Anyway, it felt like I was 4 wheeling, didn't quite roll, but the tires were definitely in the air. I know I promised to write on this trip and it took a fender bender to get me on the computer.  Hears my shout out to everyone at work, I hope all is going well and I'll see you all in  a week and a half.  I hope you're enjoying the great job Gary is doing on the blog, we're having a blast.  My bum is actually holding up pretty good, who knew.  The sun is a killer, but we're trying to keep sun block on.  I'll try to write again soon, see ya later.    Lori