Chrome and Pearls

Last weekend Pearl had her first trip on a trailer. (We don’t count the time she had a completely flat tire and couldn’t make it home on her own two wheels.) Sullen after driving the short distance up onto the trailer, her mood brightened a little when she learned that we were headed north to pick up my daughter and Moto at college. “Ah well… I guess I can be a passenger for once,” she sighed as I tightened the straps.

I was going to be driving this trip anyway to move my daughter’s stuff back home for the summer. At first my daughter was going to follow me on Moto. Then I asked if we could make a mother-daughter weekend of it – do some riding together and visit family at the same time. I would bring Pearl on the trailer, we could go riding together, and then bring both bikes home on the trailer. In the end, it was serendipity that we had the trailer because the volume of my daughter’s stuff had increased and the small refrigerator we took to college in the SUV would no longer fit inside on the way back.

With all of my daughter’s belongings finally moved from dorm to SUV and Pearl, Moto, and the mini fridge secured to the trailer, we headed to my mom’s house. I did feel a bit like the Clampetts tooling down the highway. Some of the second looks we got though, made up for it. I guess some people were surprised to see mother and daughter in the SUV pulling the motorcycles.  But that was just the start of the swivel heads.

Silly girls that we are, we decided to wear our matching pink T-shirts from her Sorority Mother-Daughter weekend. We also happened to have the same gloves, so we wore those too and took off for our day ride on Saturday morning. Just a couple of girls out having fun.

My Mom lives in central Florida and we headed north taking back roads to visit my brother in Inverness. About 10 miles into the ride, I noticed that my daughter was starting to hang back a bit and then pulled off into a parking lot. I swung around to go back to her. At first she thought she was out of gas, but there was still gas in the tank and she hadn’t switched to reserve. She started looking around the bike and found a wire that had come loose. We plugged it back in and the bike started right up and ran beautifully the rest of the trip. After spending the afternoon with my brother, sister-in-law and new nephew, we headed south by a different route to visit my sister in Lakeland.

All of South Florida where we live is flat and straight and I knew that northern Florida was quite different with geography more like Georgia. So I was surprised by the rolling hills and curvy roads in central Florida along our route to Lakeland. My daughter remarked later that it was the first time she had been riding on hills and curves. The scenery was beautiful and the riding  much more fun than the straight shot we usually get. After a short visit with my sister, we headed back to my mom’s.

All along the way we got a lot of waves, smiles and thumbs-up. We were sitting at a traffic light when the door of the van next to us opened up with a young girl beaming ear to ear who just wanted to say hi. When we stopped at the grocery store on the way back to my mom’s house, the clerk asked us if we in some sort of club. With a straight face, my daughter told her that we were starting a motorcycle gang. I’m sure we looked quite menacing in our matching pink T-shirts.

Pearl and Moto were happy to spend the night in the garage and go out for a short ride the next morning. I took my daughter in a big circle around some of the area where I grew up, but usually don’t travel in the car. It made me think about how much more we experience on the bike.

Finally, we had to head back and load the bikes on the trailer. After watching my daughter drive Moto up onto the trailer, my mom suggested that she should consider loading transfer trucks for her summer job. With both bikes secure, we checked the straps once more and headed home. It was a fun weekend and we’re looking forward to more adventures this summer. We may even do another weekend when she goes back to college in August.