Last year my wife and I had the opportunity to leave Florida behind for a week and head to the mountains of North Georgia. There were a few things that made this trip really enticing:

A) Leaving Florida
B) Staying in the mountains in a very nice "cabin". (more of a log house really)
C) The cost of above mentioned cabin being practically zero (best friend's in-laws own it)
D) It was going to be a bike trip.

My best friend and his wife just had a little one so they were going to trailer their bike and my wife and I were going to ride. Well, the real deal was my wife said she would ride on our bike until she was tired and then she'd jump in the car for awhile. For me however there was going to be no respite from riding; it was all or nothing and quite frankly I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Now my personal bike was (and is) a 2005 Yamaha FJR1300 so the bike was at least made for this. My buddie's wife was secretly pleased that they had to drive because he rode a first gen FZ1.

The time of departure arrives and just as quickly passes without a departure actually taking place. Yes, you all know what I am talking about. About 30 minutes later all is packed and we are ready to hit the road. First snag; my buddy, who we'll call Shawn because that's his name, did not miss his departure time from his house so was 30+ minutes ahead of me. Hmmm....this may call for drastic speed measures to catch back up in case my wife needed a break.

Due to time constraints we had planned to take the not so scenic route known as the interstate. Not my first choice of travel, but when it positively has to be there on time..well you get the idea.

Knowing that we were going to be droning along at pretty steady speeds I went out and bought a $10.00 throttle lock and modified it to fit the feejer. Let me tell you, if you are planning a road trip that involves any sort of interstate run, you need to get one on your bike. It was a wrist saver.

So here we are blasting down the road at warp 9 trying to avoid cops (hello little radar detector), tourists, semi's, and slow drivers in the left lane while trying to make up time on Shawn. I'll save you the suspense; I never saw him until we got to the Walmart in Ellijay. He said that they got there about 15 minutes before we did. I accused him of bending time and space to do it because a Saturn View towing a trailer was not capable of outrunning an FJR.

So my wife and I (yep she rode the entire trip on the bike) pull into the aforementioned Super Wally-world parking lot after 3 gas stops, 1 lunch break, a little help from my GPS, and 8 hours on the road. Since this was the longest trip either one of us had done we expected to be drained, tired, and just plain tuckered out but we weren't. I figured out that it was because we were sipping on a Camelback that was filled (and refilled) with ice and water for the trip. Apparently hydration is a good thing and will keep you from feeling tired; go figure.