Heading to Panama City Beach for a long weekend!

[burkbuilds]

I'm leaving this afternoon from the Atlanta area to head down to Panama City Beach, Florida. I'm riding my Vulcan 500 and my son in law is on a Honda Shadow 750. My daughter decided not to ride behind him on that little seat so she's driving her Mini Cooper down. We plan to arrive about dark tonight and come back on Sunday. This will be my first road trip of any distance over about 250 miles in a day. I'm both eager to get going and honestly, a little apprehensive about spending a total of 6 hours in the saddle each way over the next 4 days. Looks like we will have great weather going down, mid 80's and clear, but a 40% chance of rain coming home Sunday afternoon and considerably cooler so I'm packing accordingly. Probably won't post while I'm gone but I'll try to take some pics and put them up when I get back next week. :2tup:

[bonehead]

Have a great trip and be careful.

[burkbuilds]

We had a great trip! Pulled out of Marietta at 1:15 on Thursday, and immediately got in a traffic jamb on I-285, 45 minutes later we started moving again and after that we had no traffic problems worth reporting all the way to the beach, arrived about 8:15 that evening. We stopped about every 100-120 miles and got gasoline, walked about for a few minutes and stopped once for dinner at Arby's too. By around 7 that night I was ready to be at the beach, not horribly uncomfortable, just tired of sitting on that seat all afternoon. My son in law's back was bothering him and as we came through a small town's traffic that evening a guy in a pick up noticed that he was really stretching out at the stop lights, got out of his truck and brought my son in law two analgesic patches to stick on his back to help with the pain! It did help and that was a really nice gesture from a complete stranger! Nothing like southern hospitality! :2tup:
This is Raymond and I just before we started out on Thursday.

WE made it to the Florida welcome center, that's my oldest daughter who decided to drive the "Mini" instead of doing 6-7 hours on the back of Raymond's 750 Shadow, good call Julie!

A shot from our balcony on Friday afternoon just before sunset, great day!

[burkbuilds]

Here's a few more shots from our trip.
A shot of the pool area from our 14th floor balcony.

View from our balcony East around sunrise Sunday morning.

This place had some nice amenities, here's the Jacuzzi area and right behind it is a little "shop" that sells 18oz mugs of beer for .99 and you get to keep the mugs!

[burkbuilds]

On the way home Sunday afternoon I stopped in Eufaula, Alabama to snap some pictures of a few awesome old southern homes, most of which have been restored to perfection. If you are ever in the area, it's worth stopping and walking around for a bit if you like to see this type of restored architecture.
Not only is the trim detail amazing, someone did an outstanding job of painting it to perfection!

What a wonderful old mansion!

These houses are in amazing condition I wish I was a better photographer and had taken the entire afternoon to snap all of them but these are representative of what you will find on the main road in about a half mile stretch, they just line both sides of the road all down the street.

[burkbuilds]

Finally cruised back thru Atlanta and into Marietta about 7:15 Sunday night. I'm really glad I did this trip on the bike, it was kinda long to be in the saddle, but it was a great trip. Raymond and Julie did a lot of cruising around in Panama City Beach on his Shadow while we were there, I mostly just hung out at the beach though. Apparently we missed "bike week" which was last week but there were still a lot of motorcycles down there. I don't remember seeing that many parked at the condo's when we've stayed there in the past. Anyway, if you get the chance to ride your bike to a beach for a few days, I say go for it!

[Water Warrior 2]

BB, looks like a fantastic weekend. Thanks for sharing with pics and make sure to plan another ride soon.

[burkbuilds]

Thanks WW, for a while I'll just be going back and forth to school and then my weekend trips back and forth to see my wife and youngest but now that Raymond and I have this little trip under our belts we will definitely be looking for the next road trip and maybe get my daughter to join us on her Rebel if it's not too long of a ride.

[Water Warrior 2]

Sounds like the makings of a travelling family.

[BusyWeb]

Wow,
it looks great bike trip.
Thanks for sharing with us,
And nice photos...hope I were there, very relexed environment..