Sounds like a dream vacation doesn't it?
After what seemed like 3 days driving through the backwoods of Alabama, (I swear I heard banjo music coming from the woods. On the upside you can buy crickets and pee in the same place $1.50 for 50. ) we finally pull into the outskirts of Panama City Beach. Our first indicator this wasn't a typical week in PCB, a large flashing sign that read EVENT WEEKEND. Translated means, Holy Crap Traffic. But no ladies and gentleman of the road trip, not just any traffic ............... Bikers.
Two miles into town and we are the outcast SUV in a sea of bikers. Every size, shape, gender, color, and nationality known to the universe straddled over their steel horse. And here we are, an SUV full of moms and kids rollin in their midst. We lean forward pressing our noses to the window trying to make out the tattoos on the young lady in front of us.
But it's okay, they have security.
Photo Cred: www.PCBrally.com
We find our condo which is just as beautiful as the website says it is except the pics on VRBO didn't show the tattoo shop across the street or the 5000 bikes patrolling out front. We can't stop laughing. The noise is deafening.
We pull into the condo front and center to unload the road warriors and our stuff and pulling in beside us....none other than G Money from Detroit on the biggest baddest most beautiful white motorcycle I've ever seen that I'm sure cost more than my SUV. He's blasting some home boy tunes from Detroit and carrying a pizza. We hang with GMoney for a minute or two admiring his bike and then let him get on his way to enjoy his dinner. Still laughing. We load back up to find our own dinner with the giddy girls in the back making up a cheer about GMoney. Who says the middle school white girls from the country can't appreciate some color and flavor to their lives.
We find a little hole in the wall pizza joint and order our food, sit down at the picnic table to wait. The string of bikes on the street is so loud we have to lean in and shout across the table to talk while the girls clap their hands to the GMoney cheer which to the adults has lost it's allure. Every time the bikes hit that loud thunder clap sound on the street one of us jumps out of our seats and the rest of us roar with laughter. Laughing, yep, that's what we go on vacation for. The sound scares the beejuzes out of us and gets our heart pumping and then we laugh, which is exactly what our hearts need.
Full of carbs and cheese, we park at the condo to find that we are directly across from the final concert night of the rally. An AC/DC cover band perk. We didn't have to buy tickets, just parked in the garage. #winning #laughing
We wake the next morning to find the bikers packing and moving out of our fall break vacation. I head out on my long run to see them off and in act of spiritual alignment, my iTunes "shuffle all" provides far more heavy metal than usual, which is good for my soul and really good for my pace.
