Reliable riders...

The past few days Jake and I have been taking it easy and relaxing. I went to Katelin and Anthony's wedding and worked on my sailboat while Jake enjoyed mini season. The wedding was beautiful and fun. It was a three day eating and fun fest. I will post pictures when I get some. Jake got lots of lobster reaching his limit very easily. The scooters are still running strong, I am riding mine everyday, everywhere. I actually went to get in my car today to run some errands and it wouldn't start. The battery must be dead. So I jumped on the "more reliable than my car" scooter and buzzed around town running my errands. Is it worth getting rid of my car and fully devoting my gas money to my scooter? Seems like a good enough reason. My car is just a stagnant piece of metal right now. For the time being, Jake and I are just being overly anxious to hear back from Kymco. Jake said he is actually going to start to apply for real jobs.

Home sweet home...

After scooting from Gainsville to Orlando, we stayed at our friends house, Sara Jo and Jess. They took us out to The House of Blues in downtown Disney to eat. The food was amazing and filling. We came back and crashed in order to get an early start the next day. We left Orlando towards home at around 9am, not so early. We made it to Melbourne in good time. The scoot was long, straight, and flat. We split up for the first time in two weeks, Jake took US1 home and I took A1A to get lunch with Laurel. It was a sad moment taking separate ways, but I held back the tears. Now it's time to relax for a few days and enjoy Katelin and Anthony's wedding. It's nice being home again. I missed everyone here and the ease of sailboat living. The journey doesn't end where it began, we may be leaving for the Keys after the wedding.

Gainsviille!?

Seriously?! Gainsville!? The past two days have been all scootering. Yesterday we were in Columbia, South Carolina. We stayed with another buddy of Jake's. It seems like he has a buddy in every city. We arrived after dark in the rain. It was a cold and wet drive. Columbia has a bunch of history and the brick buildings are really old. We went out for pizza then came back and crashed. The next morning we got a not so early start and headed towards Georgia. After driving for a little and stopping for breakfast, we came up with the crazy idea of scooting all day and night towards Gainsville. That's what we did. The ride was super long, hard on the butt, and hot. There is nothing but crops and nothingness on 301. We made the best of the ride and made it in at around 11:30. We figured out that we scooted for 12 hours and over 350 miles. I am so amazed how the bikes are riding for these past few days. They haven't missed a beat. So today we plan to ride into Orlando and stay there for the night. I don't know if any small roads go into Orlando but we will figure it out.

Uh oh....

The party was awesome and so was the food. Of course, as usual, I over ate and over slip n' slided. I am pretty bruised up and sore but it was worth it. Unfortunately my "waterproof" camera is not really waterproof. I took some good photos but I cant upload them due to the fact that it has water inside. I opened the battery case and water poured out. Bummer! Other than that we had lots of fun. Jake gave his buddy Dave some I love Fl Catchin' a Buzz stickers and the next morning we saw that every car on the street had several on them. We left the party feeling really tired and just scooted all day. Arriving in North Carolina for the second time this trip we took a different way and ended up camping at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park. The trip was hotter than heck and sleeping last night wasn't any better, especially with two grown almost manly boys sharing a tent. Today we got an early start and have already got within 70 miles of our end destination for the day. It's nice getting an early start. The heat is still sleeping in but I'm sure he will be up soon. Now that my camera is kaput we will have to use Jake's pink camera.

Virginia Beach

Well we have been in Virginia for the last few days just hanging out with Jake's buddy Ben. The beaches here are really crowded with umbrellas and people as far as the eye can see. I bought a sweet tank top that was way too small, so I guess Laurel gets a new shirt. While in the Bahamas, Jake met some people from Virginia Beach. Yesterday we went over to their house and had a cookout. Today they are having an annual party called "Kegs and Crabs". We were going to turn around towards home today but we decided we couldn't miss something like that. The house is on the water with a pool and huge back yard. They set up a 75 foot slip n' slide, they are cooking crabs, and also roasting a pig. Oh man! I will post some photos of the event tomorrow.

Kitty Hawk

We did another scooter marathon yesterday, ending up in Kitty Hawk. The Out Banks is one of the nicest drives around with endless sand dunes. We swam at some beaches along the way and also took our 3rd ferry of the trip. We were going to stay at Oregon Inlet Campground but we decided not to because of it's unappealing setup. So we continued on to Kitty Hawk taking another ferry then ate some icecream while waiting for our "connection" to call us back. He eventually called us up and gave us his address. Baily's cousin Ben lives in a really nice family neighborhood with his wife, Val, and their three children, Ashley, Eli, and Matthew. Jake and I had a good time playing with the kids. I think I still have red welts from the all the nerf darts fired at me. They cooked tuna and chicken burritos for dinner and let us shower. We left our overly gracious hosts this morning towards Virginia Beach. Right now we are a few miles from Virginia Beach and just used Laurel's Panera gift cards she gave us. This may be the furthest north we go because of low funds and Katelin's wedding I need to be back home for on August 1st. I got a call from the Marketing Director, Rick, from Kymco USA and he was interested in using our story and tracking links. Who knows, maybe Kymco will help keep this epic trip going. You can click here to follow us via GPS.

Chad is MVP of the trip (so far)

We stayed at Ocracoke Campground last night after getting off the ferry. We set up camp and started getting killed my mosquitoes so we decided to go into town to explore. When I went to start my scooter, nothing happened. I tried for a half hour or so and I still couldn't get it started. We took a tandem trip into town and left the scooter for the morning because of the mosquitoes. I woke up this morning and got to work. After taking the air filter off, the carburetor, and the fuel filter, I still couldn't get it going. Eventually we started drawing some attention around the camp and a gentleman named Chad came over to help. He pretty much asked if I had done everything I had already tried. He said "Let me show you a little trick" and held his hand on the intake. I turned the key and BAM!!! She fired right up. I thanked Chad at least 10,000 times then Jake and I set off again. I was up alot last night thinking how bad it would suck to end our trip on my account. The problem was a clogged fuel line.