January

Heading north from Lakeland brought us into some very cold weather. When we left Lakeland the bike showed it was 10 degrees but when we reached Perry It had dropped to 6 degrees celsius and we both felt like Harry and Lloyd off the movie dumb and dumber. Why exactly did we send all our warm layers back to Ontario with my parents again?!! Dohhh!

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We were headed towards Baton Rouge Louisiana and the cold temperatures were waiting for us there too.

Heading to Baton Rouge in Canadian like weather

We spent the next three days heading west in search of warmer weather but never got that lucky. Apparently we left Florida at the wrong time! An extreme cold front had just landed in the southern states along the Gulf of Mexico and the next three days temps hovered around the freezing mark.  We rolled from Perry Fla. to Pensacola Fla. then onto Gulfport Fla. before we landed in Baton Rouge Louisiana on Thursday. We had scheduled a service appointment on the bike at BMW of Baton Rouge for Friday and we were ready for some  much needed unthaw time aswell.

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We dropped Señor Blanco off for his all day doctors appointment and headed down town Baton Rouge to check out the sites and enjoy some classic Louisiana cuisine.

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Mr. crawfish the poor mans lobster

While wandering the Mississippi river we found USS KIDD a Fletcher class destroyer. The USS KIDD or also nicknamed the pirate of the pacific was restored back to her 1945 configuration and laid to rest in the heart of baton rouge across form the State Capitol building. 

old state capital building

USS Kidd

We picked up Blanco and he was running like a top thanks too Cory and James over at BMW motorcycles of Baton Rouge. You guys were top notch and it was a pleasure doing business with y’all. 

James @ BMW Baton Rouge took great care of Blanco

We had planned to roll on out to New Orleans on Saturday afternoon but a certain someone had waaayyyy to much fun on Friday night and a near death hangover Saturday. I decided I didn’t want her barfing on my back or all over Blanco so we rolled to New Orleans on Sunday instead.

Our new Baton Rouge buds Josh and Justin showed us a good time downtown

Off to New Orleans! The city we had been warned about by almost everyone that knew we were headed there. The warnings were to watch out for the hungry vultures lurking the city streets. While John was inside booking a hotel room two blocks from the french quarter downtown a man was circling the bike and acting very peculiar. My gut told me he was up to no good and he was looking for something easy to grab. I gave him the F’off you aren’t touching nothing look and he finally grew tired of casing the bike and left. The cuisine and the party is what attracts people the most to New Orleans and we had a fun night out on Bourbon street. We had our fill after only one night downtown and rolled on out the next day.

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“the real drag queens” cause there is no such ting as fake drag queens..wtf

Headed over to Jennings Louisiana today for a sleep over with our new friend roach. He lives just off the highway

me casa su casa

at the cockroach Inn, “we’ll leave a light on” name that phrase?!

Finally hit Texas Y’all!!! Tomball Texas was our first stop and it was a cold day again, will it ever warm up we ask ourselves?! The bikes temp gauge was coming in at -1.5 degrees Celsius add that to 100km pr/hour and you’re a frozen popsicle. We left Tomball after a thaw and a good nights sleep for Schertz Texas just outside San Antonio.

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Today we met up with a fellow adventure rider named Bob a.k.a Tricepilot on many adventure riding websites. He is one of the people among others that have encouraged us to travel in and around Mexico and has racked up thousands of miles in Latin America.The afternoon was filled with many questions that Bob was happy to answer as well as route planning based on some of Bobs favourite spots in Mexico. Bob was a fantastic wealth of information and a all round genuine guy with a great sense of humour. Hope to see you down south this winter Bob!

plotting tracks with Tricepilot

Blanco needed some fresh rubber on his rear end so we thought while we where in Schertz we would easily find a Hideanu Scout K60 for the rear. Well we where so friggin wrong and not one of the dozen or so places we contacted carried it. Just by luck John remembered that the BMW motorcycle store in Baton Rouge had one the same size we where looking for but little did we know to have it shipped to Texas the cost would be $150. So a $200 tire plus freight and install totalled a painful $450.00 OUCH we got rubber rapped big time!!! Needless to say it had to be done and it was to expensive to stay and wait for snail shipping to arrive the following week.

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Hallelujah we hit +17 today!! We rolled into Laredo Tx around 5:00pm hungry and tired. We found a great hotel called the Family Garden Inn for a good price with all the best perks. The best part of the hotel was free happy hour between 6-8pm with FREE beers and snacks we raced to get our gear off and get in on the action.

Outside our room had a huge solarium with a garden area a waterfall and two hot tubs.

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Viva mexico

Tomorrow is our biggest day yet as we will cross the boarder into Mexico. It’s been a great four months making our way south but the real fun is about to begin. Look out Mexico 2rods2wheels2up is heading your way and we can’t wait to taste your food meet your people and CATCH YOUR FISH..