Angels and Demons Rally 2013
or
Into every life some rain must fall
or
Don't leave home without it!
Ever since Cora completed a Saddlesore 1000, she has been dying to complete a real rally. Scheduling is a challenge between her work and school but I managed to find a 10 hour rally that worked into the schedule so it was to come to be! The Angels and Demons Rally for 2013, hosted by Ray King, was to start and stop in Brooksville, Florida around 600 miles from home.
Rally books arrived on Wednesday the 30th so Cora and I worked over the book trying to determine a good, high scoring route. We ended with 2 choices with similar mileage and points. One would take us into north Florida through Jacksonville (a ball game weekend) or south into the Everglades and back through Tampa (always a mess). We watched the weather with great interest and decided on going south which we thought would avoid the worst of the rain for the majority of the day. Oh how silly of us.......to attempt to follow one of the virtually iron-clad rules of the Iron Butt Association - Plan your ride and ride your plan!
Rather than dashing 600 miles to Brooksville on Friday we opted to break the trip up leaving Thursday afternoon to spend the night with my sister, Alison, in Panama City and then take a leisurely ride along the west coast of Florida into Brooksville on Friday. We made quick work of the trip to Panama City and spent the evening catching up with Alison and Steve. We were off early Friday morning and headed down the coast. Old Florida is a joy to ride through....Mexico Beach, Port St Joe, Appalachicola, Carrabelle....all have the flavor of old fishing villages not tainted by high rise condos that block the view of the Gulf. A pleasant ride.
Into the Apalachicola National Forest we rode occasionally meeting a car or two. We saw signs for Tate's Hell State Forest and were intrigued by the name. At a lunch stop in Perry, we did some research and discovered an interesting story.
1885 A tale that has been told for many years recounts how Tate's Hell Swamp got its name. Local legend has it that a farmer by the name of Cebe Tate, armed with only a shotgun and accompanied by his hunting dogs, journeyed into the swamp in search of a panther that was killing his livestock. Although there are several versions of this story, the most common describes Tate as being lost in the swamp for seven days and nights, bitten by a snake, and drinking from the murky waters to curb his thirst. Finally he came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, "My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell!". Ever since, the area has been known as Tate's Hell, the legendary and forbidden swamp.
Now down the coast through Crystal River and Homosassa Springs and into Brooksville. We arrived early afternoon and relaxed, visited, and got ready for the rider's meeting at 6:00 PM. Our esteemed Rallymaster went over some details of the rally, handed out our packets and a final piece of paper detailing changes to the rally book. Wild cards bonuses (finding something related to an Angel or a Demon) had their point values raised. The killer was the inclusion of six MANDATORY BONUSES required to be a finisher. This was a game changer if there ever was one! Cries of indignation, anger, and disgust filled the air!
Quickly glancing over the six, we realized that neither of our two very well planned routes would work. Time to start all over! Now this normally would not present a big challenge - simply drag out the laptop with mapping software and re-do the route. However, and a big however, I had opted not to load all that stuff since I had two very well planned and documented routes available. So, no laptop, no mapping software, no cables for the GPS. We did have a road atlas that at least showed major roads.
Let me pause at this point to simply say.........I am not in favor of nor nor am I a fan of last minute changes to a rally that cause such dramatic changes. Why even give a rally book in advance so you can plan your ride??? Frustrated, angry, and muttering obscenities, we headed back to the room to try and salvage the rally.
I quickly realized the atlas did not have sufficient detail so wandered to the front desk and the angel behind the desk has a real Florida state map. With note cards and rally book pages scattered around the room, we used our phones and my Ipad to generally locate and mark the mandatory bonuses on the map. We filled in the locations of other known bonuses and tried to make sense of a route. We had the choice of running clockwise or counterclockwise in a circular route that included Orlando and Disney World. We tried to guess the weather patterns to determine which route would keep us out of the worst of the rain. We opted to run counter clockwise thinking we would avoid the rain. We remade note cards leaving lots of blanks to fill in during the day. Ha! This is what our plan looked like. Note that we had no idea of timing, total mileage, just a general idea of where to go.
After breakfast and a final rider's meeting it was time to go. The Rallymaster apologized profusely for screwing up everyone's planned routes realizing the impact that the mandatory bonuses had on all riders. It was certainly to late to change the game again at this point. We would ride what we planned last night. Of course, it was raining.....big old Florida raindrops and at 7:00 AM it was still dark as pitch!
First bonus planned was south of Groveland and a photo of the Green Pond Cemetery. It's 7:39AM and rain is still coming down.
We were headed to Sanford to find Angel's Soul Food and BBQ - one of the mandatory bonuses. Watching the GPS, we saw a bonus pop up just off our planned route. We quickly snapped a photo at 8:04 and were off.
Sanford has lots of old brick/cobblestone streets which are not only rough, but slick when wet. We luckily missed construction detours and found our goal at 8:56. One mandatory down!
Enroute to Daytona we found the All Saints Episcopal Church in Enterprise Florida. Not scheduled but we grabbed the bonus at 9:12 and were off again.
The Devil's Chair in Cassadaga, FL was a mandatory stop. Legend has it that if you put an unopened bottle of beer in the chair it will be there the following morning.....empty but unopened. No one had tested the legend the night before since the chair was empty.
n Daytona, we were to take a picture of the Angel and Phelps Chocolate Factory located on Beach Street. Daytona is always busy even when it is not Bike Week. As we approached Beach Street, we noticed a couple of closed streets and detoured around them. Beach Street was also closed with a full blown street fair in progress. The streets were filled with people, vendor tents, and other distractions, not to mention nowhere to park. Realizing precious time would be wasted, we opted to continue on without the bonus.
On to the next mandatory bonus which was the Ghosts of Bulowville. The ruins of an old sugar mill were on the "Loop". A nice ride with old oaks covering the road it would have been very pleasurable if not for the rain and that incessant ticking of the clock counting down the hours and minutes left in the rally. At 10:35 we grabbed the photo and we off. We still had no concept of being ahead or behind - we were just riding as hard as we could considering the conditions.
I am horrible with names so apologies in advance. While at the Sugar Mill, a young rider was there on a Suzuki DL1000. He asked us if we had a compass and which way was west. I looked that GPS and pointed in the direction of west. He thanked us and we were off. After returning to the finish line, I was chatting with same rider and discovered that he had not only plotted and planned on paper and Google maps but finished the rally WITHOUT the aid of a GPS. Evidently his Google map directions said head west from the bonus, hence the question about direction. Kudos certainly should go to this rider!
Back to the beach area for a photo of the Devil's Elbow Fishing Resort. This was another of the cursed mandatory stops. We were actually thankful for the rain at this point since it certainly kept beach traffic to a minimum. 11:12 AM now and we are 216 miles into the rally. Hmmmmm, maybe we are about half-way, maybe not.
Another bonus we had figured we could fit in was the lunch bonus worth 2,000 points. The requirement was to take a photo of your lunch and stay in one spot for 30 minutes verified by a start and stop receipt. I also figured we could gas up at this point and not have to worry about a another fuel stop. Lunch was one of those gas station/Hardee's operations in Palatka, FL. It is very frustrating to sit for 30 minutes without a schedule.
Next bonus was less than 1 mile away for a historical marker photo and then on to Angel's Dining Car, another mandatory bonus, which was also nearby. Didn't dawn on us to eat lunch there! We hit the diner at 12:32 and ventured towards Gainesville.
Enroute to Gainesville we saw another bonus and zoomed in. Campville Ghosts. The house is over 100 years old and looked it too!
Into Gainesville we went at around 1:30. Thankfully weekend football was out of town in Jacksonville. The Devil's Millhopper is a huge sinkhole in it's own geological park and a mandatory bonus. Time is 1:43 and we are 306 wet miles into the rally. Looks like we'll make it to the finish!
We knew the next bonus was right off I-75 and was called Twin Angels. Cemetery bonuses are always a worry since you never know if it will be a small or gigantic cemetery. Luckily, as we approached the entrance we saw the bonus through the fence. Other riders came in from a different direction and evidently spent a good bit of time looking for the angels in question.
One more mandatory bonus and we elected to chase down a bonus in Ocala worth a lot of points first. Time is 2:43 and it really isn't that far now
Last bonus is a sign at the entrance to the El Diablo Golf and Country Club. Some folks evidently didn't follow the instructions and took pictures of a very similar sign NOT at the entrance. It's 3:25 and only 46 miles to the finish line.
We did find:
We hit I-75 running hard to the finish line. As we exited the interstate, a Florida State Trooper was sitting right as we exited. Thankfully we were being lawful citizens at this point!
At the finish line, we grabbed our last and and last Demon photo. Valerie did have an angel on her t-shirt.
On the other hand, the Rallymaster received an honorary demon rating for his antics with the mandatory bonus locations. Sounded good to me!
Cori and I noticed the lack of bikes in the parking lot even though less than 15 minutes remained until DNF time.
We sat and quickly got our paperwork in order and headed to scoring. We kept wondering why there wasn't a line at scoring. We sat with Larry Meeker who went through our bonuses and approved them all - even the Rallymaster as a Demon! We had ridden about 430 miles in some very trying conditions in less than 10 hours.
Supper was delicious as we chatted and enjoyed dinner. The results were announced!
Until the official results are published I am not exactly sure of our overall standing.
Bottom line: Planning and operating off a paper map will work in a pinch. For a first time rally rider, Cora did a marvelous job and finally got pretty good at figuring time/distance on the fly when we realized we just couldn't make the last high point bonus we wanted and still make it in on time.
We rested and made a wonderful 550 mile ride home Sunday. The skies were perfectly clear, temperatures hung around the low 60's, and traffic wasn't bad. Why couldn't it have been that was Saturday?
I remain convinced that if I say the word rally in a sentence then it shall rain. Maybe I just need to go into the rainmaking business! The 2013 rally season at least ended on a positive note. No more big rides are planned at this point. Who knows what 2014 will bring. Just for fun....this is what the 2013 riding year looked like from a SPOT viewpoint. This certainly isn't everything but does include all the big trips and all rallies!
