One Week as a Biker Part 3

In part two I covered what it felt like to be a biker. Our first night in Florida was not what I had expected. Because my dad had asked me if I wanted to go only a few days before we were actually leaving I just assumed were were going to be staying in hotels. Wrong! About one in the afternoon we were in the middle of Florida. We had gone off the interstate for a little while and we were just taking highways.  So we stopped off at a gas station somewhere and started checking the map for local campgrounds.  By that time I was starting to get tired and "saddle sore" as some people call it.  At around 5 or 6 that day we pulled into the closest campground we could find, and we were both exhausted.  We set up the tent got a fire ready and took off to find a place to eat.  It's a weird feeling in modern society making sure you have a place to sleep at night before eating.  I have to admit by this time I was getting a little grumpy.  I was exhausted, extremely "saddle sore", hungry, and not at all looking forward to sleeping in a tent.  When we got back to the campground after finding a local gas station big enough that had food I went straight to the tent and started sleeping.  It wasn't even dark yet but it was 50 degrees outside so I figured that I wouldn't be sleeping that much that night when it got colder.  I wanted to get as much sleep as I could while it was warm.  I only slept for about an hour then woke up because i was getting cold.  I walked out of the tent to see my dad picking up volleyball sized rocks and putting the in/next to the fire.  When I asked him what the point was he told me that when you put them in your sleeping bag you'll stay warm at night.  I was skeptical.  I there was no way that I was going to be comfortable sleeping with a hot rock and stay just as warm as I would have been if I'd stayed home in my warm bed. 

That night it got down to around 32 degrees outside.  At around midnight I found myself going outside the tent, building the fire back up, and putting my rock back in it.  Then i started walking around gathering up more rocks, and placing them all in the fire.  Not thinking far enough ahead as to how I was going to get them back out of the fire, it took quite a long time before I found out that leather gloves worked best when trying to get them out.  Although it was 32 degrees outside, and I was sleeping in a tent I slept like a baby.  I found out that placing one rock at your feet, cuddling with another rock, and placing one rock on your back is the best way to sleep.  The rock on my back took away the soreness from the previous days riding.  When I woke up the next morning I discovered that I was actually sleeping on top of my rocks.  I wasn't sore from sleeping on rocks or from the previous days riding.  I was extremely tempted to take those rocks with me for sentimental value and in-case the next campsite didn't have any...yeah right.