The morning found me less than 200 km from Daytona Beach, a distance I pulled off in less than 90 minutes. I was headed to the DB Triumph dealership to see a feller named Hewel. I had previously spoken to him regarding storing my bike for a few days while I go to Philadelphia, and also selling me a new rear tire that I knew I would need by now.



Daytona Beach is NASCAR country and the way we have arenas and stadiums in the hearts of our cities, DB has a 2.5 mile high banked oval in the centre of its downtown area. All the streets and roads are named with racing references.

Five minutes short of the Triumph dealership I found a small strip mall (aptly named!) off a side street backed up against a small stand of trees. I used the wooded area to change out of my riding clothes and to pack a small bag. I am sure if I showed up at the airport in my riding tack they'd ask me to ride outside on the wing!

I left my Rocket in the care of Hewel and took a cab to the Mayan Inn which was right on the beach.



I spent the afternoon at the beach, the water is bathtub warm. The sand is more like flour, and really gets everywhere, I mean everywhere!. The beach is hard packed and while I was in a vehicle free area, most places you can drive right onto the beach. Until the late 50's they used to race right on the beach.

There was an old biplane flying up and down the beach towing an advertisement, looks like an awesome way to make a living. There are squadrons of Pelicans flying sorties above the water and diving in amongst the people playing in the water, sometimes landing right next to them.



The Daytona Beach Boardwalk pier you see in the Pelican video was built in the late 1800's and is very famous, it used to be over 1000' long and has undergone numerous changes over its life span.

I had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack (who can stay away from a place called a Crab Shack?). I went for the Cold Seafood Tower, and a couple of Boston Lagers.



I was lamenting to myself how I had intentionally positioned myself in Tornado Alley to see some extreme weather and did not, other than riding in it! I was also, currently, in the area of the US famous for lightning and had seen very little of it. There were some amazing cloud formations though.



My room at the Mayan Inn is a corner suite (Ha!) it is easy to upgrade yourself when you stay at kinda crummy hotels, with windows facing the eastern and southern horizons. I was sitting at the desk, pecking away at my laptop and thinking what a great view I would have if a boomer came to town, but it wasn't to be the case. I turned in about 1230.

I awoke at 0300 for no apparent reason, I'd like to think it was my lightning spidey senses, to find the eastern horizon covered with lightning flashes on the order of 2 or 3 a second. I shot some video of it with both my iPhone and HD camcorder, but sadly neither does the spectacle any justice.

I will do my best to paint a rich textual tapestry of Mother Natures Pageant and ask you, the reader, to imagine it in your mind's eye.

A impossibly white sand beach fills the bottom of the foreground, while the waves crashing the shore fills the bottom third. Breakers start to curl with their white edges, then crash ashore creating a line of foam. The sea stretches off to the middle of the frame. Towering dark clouds fill the middle third stretching from the sea to half of the way up the sky, they are back lit by brilliant flashes of golden lightning, both fork and cloud to cloud. Occasionally flashes repeat, once, twice, thrice, strobing so intensely they momentarily hurt the eyes.

Above the clouds, stretching as high as you can see is the star field, showing 50 times the specks of light you see in an area with light pollution like a city. The sky is literally packed with stars of varying intensities and colors. Orion, The Hunter lays on his side, dominating and protecting the sky. Below him the cloud base glows orange gold as a waning crescent moon rises through the clouds, reclined back in a lazy manner, the cheese won't fall out tonight! The final act is the reflection of the moon upon the sea tying all of the elements together.

I wish I were a poet so I could have done a better job, or that I had the right video/photography equipment to take a good picture of it, but it was a scene definitely worth the ride! I would classify this experience right alongside the time Eryn and I were on the Mayan Riveria and a Sea Turtle came ashore, dug a hole, laid her eggs, and trundled back off the sea. We were so close to her we were splashed with sand from her flippers!