Florida Loop 2026 Day 7 Part 6 – April 10th 2026

In this video I am departing Daytona Beach, Florida and headed to Palatka, Florida where I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Palatka, Florida for the night.

Day 7 Total Miles from Dupuis Campground to Palatka, Florida = 273 Slow Miles 🙂

Today’s Original Plan

The original plan for Day 7 was to ride from Dupuis Campground near Indiantown, Florida, ride east to the coast, and then ride north on Florida A1A to Daytona Beach. In Daytona Beach I would ride the Ormond Scenic Loop and then proceed to Ocean Pond Campground near Lake City, Florida in the Osceola Wildlife Management Area and camp for the night. While the weather was fantastic today for camping (a rare occurrence on this trip) I grossly underestimated the time it would take to ride north from Stuart, Florida to Daytona Beach.

While I accomplished most of my goals for the day from Palatka, Florida, Ocean Pond Campground would have been about another 1.5 ride in the dark in area and roads I am not familiar with. While I can and have ridden plenty at night, I prefer not to as the potential road hazards and wildlife risk increase exponentially, plus, you can’t see anything at night.

It had been a long day waking up at camp just before sunrise and instead decided to cut the route short for today and stay at the Holiday Inn Express and make up the 74 or so miles on Day 8.

Worde Pizza Delivery In My Life – So Far

This Holiday Inn Express was nothing special, but it was clean and more convenient than camping for the night. In the spirit of convenience, I decided to have a Domino’s pizza delivered. I am typically not a fan of Domino’s Pizza, but they are ok and it was the only place still delivering to the hotel (tried Pizza Hut first with no success). The pizza arrived in a timely manner HOWEVER; this was the most disgusting pizza I had ever received. Greasy, all the contents of the pizza box all over the place and frankly tasted like ass! 🙂 And this disgusting excuse for food cost about $30.00 when it was all done.

NEVER AGAIN, I will eat my Mountain House food before I eat that garbage I wouldn’t feed my dog.

Today is May 19th, 2026, as I am writing this and I am still angry about this mess LOL.

Add Insult To Injurty

Ok, well not really, I am being dramatic (still upset about that pizza LOL). While preparing my gear for the next day, I discovered that I had lost a bootstrap on one of my Alpinestars Toucan GTX touring boots. Earlier in the day I noticed that one of my straps popped open (probably when mounting or dismounting Bruce, my Pan America). I am guessing the same thing happened again and didn’t notice but this time the strap being pulled off. I was happy that the boot still fit snug enough for road riding with no movement on the boot. If needed, I could have zip-tied the boot together, but I believed it was tight enough for the Day 8 ride from Palatka, Florida to Douglasville, Georgia (which it was and performed fine).

I ordered replacement straps from Dennis Kirk on April 12th, 2026. Lucky me, they are still on back order. Today, May 19th, 2026, I order a couple more sets from OEM Cycle on eBay and should arrive by May 27th. I will not have them for the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend moto camp with Tristan (we are camping for the weekend at West Point Lake in Georgia, also cheating having most of the gear hauled via car LOL). But I will have the new straps (and spares) for the North Georgia weekend with Tristan June 19th thru June 21st that will consist of some more technical riding in North Georgia (all on pavement) and will feel better having my boots at 100%.

Images of my room at Holdiay Inn Express – Palatka, Florida