Circling the U.S. Chapter 77: The first week of Florida

Tuesday, March 3 - Monday, March 9, 2020

Following our ride through Gulf State Park we crossed the border into Florida.

We fairly flew through the miles on Tuesday, easily leaving Alabama behind and looking forward to a long stretch in Florida where we had friends and family to visit. Our plan was to follow the west coast down to the Keys, then begin the final leg of our journey north along the Atlantic Coast.

Every time I looked at my odometer it registered 12-15 mph, a good clip for us. With our usual short stops and two long ones it took us 8 1/2 hours to ride 69 miles. Rob asked me how I felt about the riding. I said, "We must have had a tailwind. I feel like we've been riding downhill all day. I'm hardly pedaling." He admitted that he was working hard to keep up with me, but keep up he did.

The scariest riding on our trip has to be bridges. You never know how they will accommodate cyclists. Is there a dedicated bike lane? Is there a shoulder? Are bicyclists even allowed? A bicyclist heading west warned us that the bridge from Pensacola to Gulf Breeze does not yet have its bike/pedestrian lane complete so we would have to ride in the emergency lane, in the center of the bridge, separated from the rest of the traffic only by orange posts.

We arrived at the bridge and didn't see any emergency lane. There was no shoulder and two lanes of traffic were moving at rush hour speeds, everyone eager to get home. We flagged down a construction worker coming by in a truck on the other side of the jersey barrier.

"How do we get across?" I yelled.

"You have to ride in the emergency lane."

"Where is it?"

He said, "It starts just ahead."

Too scared to ride, we walked our bikes and, just around a bend in the road we saw the emergency lane. There was no traffic light and no pedestrian crosswalk, no way to safely cross two lanes of speeding traffic to get to it.

Pressing ourselves tightly against the jersey barrier, we had no choice but to wait for a break in the traffic. We looked with pleading eyes at the driver of each car racing by. Finally, we must have looked desperate enough. A car in the closest lane stopped; then one in the inside lane gave us a break and we were able to cross over.

The emergency lane was filled with debris, perfect for a flat tire, but then it cleared up and the riding wasn't too bad. As I approached the top of the bridge, my single thought was, "I hope a car doesn't come flying down this lane right at us." But the only thing that came down the lane toward us was another bicyclist.

The next challenge was getting back across the two lanes of traffic, which we were able to do easily when there was a long enough break and a pullout on the other side. When we were safely across I said to Rob, "Well, that was fun."

Then we were in Gulf Breeze and on our way in search of the home of Emily, the older sister of one of Rob's closest high school friends. When we found her neighborhood we were stopped by a locked gate, a gated community with no gate keeper to let us in. We thought we'd have to call Emily for the key code, but then we realized, it's just a gate across the road and there was no fence. We got off our bikes and walked around the gate. Any burglar on a bicycle would have no problem here.

Every house in this part of the world has a hurricane story. Emily's parents once lived in a house right here, but it was destroyed in one of the hurricanes that came through around 2003. They sold the property but then Emily and her husband bought it back and built this house with an elevator so that her parents could live with them. (They are now deceased.) The elevator is in the center of the house. If a hurricane comes through, they would take their cars, leaving the garage door and the golf cart door on the opposite wall open. When a storm surge comes, it will push out the walls, leaving the house standing. The windows are all graded for 180 mph winds. Anything higher than that would blow off the roof. With all those protections Emily said their flood insurance is only $400 a year.

The forecast for Wednesday, March 4, called for rain and flooding so it made sense to take advantage of a beautiful place to stay and great company to wait out the bad weather. Emily was extraordinarily gracious, taking us on a driving tour into Pensacola and feeding us terrific food. Unfortunately, we didn't get to meet her husband, Larry who was out of town on business. It was nice to relax after three long riding days.

Emily is a professional pianist, making her living teaching and accompanying choruses. After dinner Rob dug through her piles of music and we sang old familiar songs. 

We woke to rain Thursday, March 5, so we hung out in the morning, waiting to leave until after noon. Even then, it was still foggy and a bit drizzly.

One high rise building after another towered over us on both sides of the highway as we shared the road with an abundant amount of traffic. Florida is making efforts to be bike friendly. We rode along for a good many miles with well-marked bike lanes. Still, it would help if the drivers were educated on both courtesy and appropriate passing distance. Cars and pickup trucks honked at us for no reason at all, many of them passing with only inches to spare.

Whenever a car passes too closely I try to make a mental note of it in case I can catch up and have a conversation with the driver. The opportunity presented itself when, at a stoplight, I caught up to just one of those. I knocked on the window, scaring the bejeezus out of the older woman at the wheel. She was alone. I said, very politely, “I know you didn’t mean to, but you passed me way too close back there.”

She replied, with a lovely southern accent, “Well, I got as far away as I could but there was a car on the other side. I had no choice.”

I said, “You could have held back and waited for a safe distance to pass.”

“Oh, but I had to go.” I can only hope that she’ll think about it when she next comes across a cyclist.

The riding was still terrific. We flew along, clocking 15 and 16 miles an hour. It must have been the tailwind. And there was not a single hill.

As we passed a small park in Fort Walton Beach some sculptures grabbed my attention. I had to stop and take some pictures.

Forty miles brought us to Henderson State Park in Dentin, and a "Campground Full" sign. But Rob had spoken to someone that morning who said we could camp in a primitive campsite and didn’t need a reservation. The staff on duty knew nothing about that. Did Rob remember the person’s name? No. The park ranger went off to make a phone call and came back to say they had a site for us but not to expect anything at other state parks. Which was a bummer because it was March, Spring Break Month, and crowds were packing the campgrounds.

For the record, the following states will not turn away bicyclists, even if they are full: Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, and California. Other states don’t care. They’ll send you packing. Or you can beg and plead and they might find a spot for you.

As it turned out, the primitive campsite was perfect. It was the site of a former playground, a large open area covered in wood chips, right off a path to the beach. It even had a picnic table.

While we were registering for our campsite another cyclist rolled into the park, a young guy. I talked to him a bit. He was from Pennsylvania, had been on the road since the end of January but was planning to go back home in a few days because he wanted to see his grandmother. He was worried that she might get the coronavirus. I applauded him for being so caring, even as I thought he was being a little extreme in his concern.

We began the day on Friday, March 6, with a walk on the beach at Henderson State Park.

Because our mileage is often determined by lodging availability, we had a short, relaxing day on Friday, only 28 miles to our Warm Showers host in Seacrest. Our riding took us on an 18 mile bike path through very well-heeled waterfront communities where we bicycled past young retirees out for their morning stroll.

We spent almost two hours sitting outside a coffee shop trying to figure out lodging for the upcoming two nights along the way to Tallahassee. Just a few days into Florida it was beginning to look like finding affordable places to stay would be a challenge. Florida is definitely not a friendly place for budget travelers.

Allen Lake is one of 15 named coastal dune lakes along Route 30A in South Walton. Coastal dune lakes are only found in Madagascar, Australia, and South Walton. Located within two miles of a coastline, a special marine ecosystem forms as a result of the intermittent exchange of freshwater and saltwater that occurs when one of the lakes overflows.

We stopped for a picnic lunch on a beach and Rob went for a swim. Not being a particularly hot day I decided to pass, figuring I'd have plenty more opportunities to swim in the Gulf. If I'd seen into the future maybe I would have gone in with Rob. But then, who would have taken the following pictures?

It had been a very long time since either one of us had gone for a swim. Rob was a happy guy.

We know it's going to be a good night when, just after we arrive, our host asks us if we want a beer. Joey was hands down the friendliest Warm Shower dog we've met on this trip, jumped right into my lap and snuggled. We also enjoyed dinner and conversation with Marty, who invited us to join him and Joey for a short walk on the beach in the morning.

Saturday, March 7, we had 68 miles of pleasant riding on a state highway (98) that doesn't see much traffic as it winds through the Tyndall Airforce Base and along what is called the Forgotten Coast, with several small communities on the Gulf. We saw a dolphin swimming while we ate our lunch.

We passed fields of trees that had been mowed down by hurricane winds.

Who can remember all the hurricanes - sometimes several in one year - that have devastated parts of the Gulf and Atlantic Coast communities in this century alone? I know I can't. As we've been cycling through these areas and seen hurricane damage I've tried to figure out how long ago the last hurricane came through. In Mexico Beach there were many new homes built up on stilts. But there were also many destroyed buildings that hadn't yet been cleaned up. I said to Rob, "My guess is that this is from a hurricane in 2018."

"You think so?"

"I don't think the houses could have been built so quickly if it came through last fall, and the damage looks pretty recent. Besides, I don't remember hearing about any hurricanes this year."

I was right. Hurricane Michael hit the area hard in October, 2018.

We rode by a piece of beach front property with a for sale sign - $39,000. The building on it was a pile of lumber and what beach there was looked like it would be taken over by the ocean in a few years. I thought, "Good luck selling that."

The long day was determined, again, by lodging availability, and this time all we came up with was a very expensive campground, Presnell's Bayside Marina & RV Resort in Port St. Joe, costing $64. Rob tried to talk the owners down in price several times - all we had was a tent, after all - but they wouldn't budge. At least this campground was nicer than the equally expensive one we stayed at in Ontario back in July. The campsite was roomy and we had a view of the Gulf and the sunset.

We had stopped at a Piggly Wiggly to pick up something for dinner; they didn't sell beer and we were too tired to hunt down a liquor store. But, leave it to Rob, I came back from my shower to find four cans of Stella Artois, my favorite beer, sitting on the picnic table. He is not shy when it comes to asking our neighbors for beer. Rod and Annette - from Ontario - were spending the winter months in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, They insisted we join them around their propane campfire after dinner.

Because we crossed over a time zone - our last one - and because we "sprang ahead" into daylight savings time overnight, we gained two more hours of daylight at the end of the day, when we need it most. To celebrate we went to sleep without setting an alarm. I didn't crawl out of my sleeping bag until eight o'clock the next morning.

Our next destination, on Sunday, March 8, was the old fishing community of Apalachicola, only 25 miles away. Emily, back in Gulf Breeze, had recommended that we stop there. Rob did the research and found us a place to stay right in town, the Coombs Inn and Suites. We looked forward to an easy morning. But we hadn't counted on an unrelenting headwind. Thankfully Rob was able to stay with me, but sometimes his nonsensical prattling got on my nerves as I was just barely holding on. I didn't even have the energy to tell him to shut up.

We arrived at the inn around one o'clock and they were nice enough to let us check in early. We had lunch on the porch, showered and relaxed, then set out to explore the town.

We stopped first at the John Gorrie Museum State Park located right next door. It turns out that John Gorrie was a pioneer in developing an air conditioning system; he received the first U.S. patent for mechanical refrigeration in 1851. We weren't that interested in spending four dollars to find out more about this particular history, but we were the only ones in the small museum and we got talking to Tom, the park ranger, asked him a few questions and he wound up giving us a 45-minute history lesson on this fellow who was a doctor interested in finding a way to keep patients cool in order to treat them for yellow fever. I'm not sure what impressed me more, the story or Tom's ability to tell it so well.

As so often has happened, we arrived in town on a day when most restaurants were closed. On a Sunday, no less. So as we wandered around town our mission included finding a satisfactory dining spot. Along the way we discovered The Old Time Soda Fountain serving ice cream sodas and milk shakes. Of course we had to indulge.

I neglected to take any pictures of downtown Apalachicola, but I did catch these fine pelicans as they hung out on the water.

We found a casual place for dinner, Up the Creek, where we sat at a wooden counter overlooking the water and enjoyed beer and flounder and crab cakes. As we were finishing up and Rob went to the rest room I began talking to an older woman sitting alone next to us. Rob came back as she was giving me advice on the best way to ride to Tallahassee and we all chatted a bit. We got ready to leave and she introduced herself as Karen and Rob said, "Karen Berkeley." She and I were both taken aback. Rob said, "I interviewed at Florida State back in the eighties. I remember you."

There are a couple of weird aspects of that chance meeting. One was that, as I was fighting the wind that morning, I happened to think that we were due for a another random meeting. The other is that these random meetings have happened in the corners of the country - the San Juan Islands (father of our son's baseball teammate), San Diego (graduate student from UNH), and now Florida. When I mentioned this to Rob he said, "Well, we're sure to meet someone we know in New Hampshire."

Monday, March 9, we had a hard riding day - 76 miles - into Tallahassee. Our route took us over a bridge from Apalachicola to Eastpoint lasting several miles with a relentless headwind which didn't die down as long as the road hugged the coast for the first 20 miles. We were able to maintain nine miles per hour, but we feared we would be struggling all day. I'm always doing the math in my head, and nine miles an hour meant over eight hours in the saddle, not a pleasant thought. But the wind died down when we turned inland, heading northeast, and we picked up our pace to 13-15 mph. We had a flat, decent shoulder riding through pine forests with glimpses of tiny purple and yellow wildflowers and giant violet thistles, some three feet tall with three or four flowers atop them.

No quaint little towns dot the landscape in this part of Florida. When we needed a break we stopped at a convenience store in Medart because that was all there was, but a diesel pickup truck was sitting outside with its engine running so we stayed just long enough to use the bathroom and share a chocolate milk. Six miles down the road was Crawfordville with nothing but a Hardee's. Rob wanted a strawberry shake and I wanted fries. When we got inside I decided I had to have a cheeseburger, too. Nine months on the road, and this was my first fast food cheeseburger; I just had to have one. I knew that as soon as I said I was having one then Rob would want one, too. And I was right. At least I didn't get a milkshake so I was one step healthier than Rob. I got iced tea. I like the southern sweet tea, but sometimes it's just too sweet, so I mix it with the regular.

Every time I eat trash food like this, I think how my son, Tim, would be thoroughly disgusted if he knew. But I thoroughly enjoyed every bite.

I was thrilled to arrive at our Warm Showers home where we were served a totally healthy vegan meal of a kale salad and chickpea/brocolli patties, the perfect antidote to our junk food binge.

Rob fell asleep easily while I stayed up following the news of the coronavirus on my tablet, finding emails about my adaptive ski program shutting down early and our chorus cancelling rehearsals and concerts. Nobody in Florida seemed concerned.