Day 55, FL, Gainesville to St Augustine!

Still cool for this part of the country. 43 degrees this morning and everyone we talk to complains how cold it is. It's a good temp for riding but it's a little drizzly so the raincoat will get you wet from holding the moisture in. 

Tom and Martha fed us and Martha led us out to the bike path to get us on our way. 

We had the trail to ourselves. 

Aside from the Gators that I know were watching us. 

They're there somewhere!

Visions of gator eyes rising through the pond scum.  

Magnolia Church, founded in 1900, rebuilt in 1954. Jim was on the phone explaining to a friend why yesterday's blog entry wasn't posted yet when I took the picture of this church. 

I can taste the finish line. 

It is an old town, the oldest in the US I've been told. 

To the right, next landfall is Europe!

After dipping my wheel in the Atlantic. 

My trusty Co-Motion, basking in the glory. 

I pedaled back to Sprockets Bike Shop and arranged to have my bike boxed and shipped home. The fine folks at Sprockets allowed me to camp in their back yard tonight while I made arrangements to get myself to the airport tomorrow. As luck would have it, Sprockets was having a customer appreciation party tonight and I was in the right place, at the right time. Aside from the party, the employees were really kind to me. Thanks to them for adding to the pleasure of the completed southern tier. 

Thanks to everyone who followed the trip on the blog. It was inspiring to know that others were rooting for us or were interested in the trip. That too added to my pleasure. 

I'm lucky to have loving support from home as well as an extremely capable partner for this trip in Jim.

Perry

Day 54, FL, White Springs to Gainseville

Warning! This blog doesn't have any pictures because it was too wet to pull the phone out. The phone was double bagged and It was raining pretty hard much of the day. I was soaked, my helmet was dripping, my gloves were wringing wet. If I took my gloves off the skin on my hands was too wet to slide on the iPhone screen. There was no way to bring the phone out without getting it wet. 

We woke up and the pavement was dry outside of our room. I checked the weather and the forecast was for rain to start in 56 minutes, and it did! We rode the overpass of I-75 again for breakfast and while we were eating we got a taste of the day, it started pouring rain. We expected at least 72 miles to Gainsville so we just kept on truckin, splashing through standing water on the road. We stopped for lunch at a RV Park, recreation area quick mart. One of the only choices besides snacks was a Cup of Noodles with water heated in a microwave. I was shivering when I got back on the road but 10 minutes of extra effort had me back up to temp. As we approached Gainesville, the rain tapered off. We had to cross through town and go to the south side and meet the warmshowers host so he could guide us to his house. Tom and Martha have a beautiful place and were as gracious and giving as any we have met. 

81 soggy miles today. 

Day 53, FL, Madison to White Springs

Wet morning at 43 degrees. Not too inviting to ride but we weren't looking forward to laying around the motel all day. I saw there was one motel by I-75 about 42 miles away and almost on route. With a room at the end of the ride it doesn't matter if you get wet and cold on the way. 

With a choice of fast food down the street, we opted for a subway (yes, again) breakfast sandwich. 

Leaving breakfast we used Google maps to find a route northeast back to the route on hwy 90 instead of northwest, back to Madison. The road turned to sand for a few miles but was fine but for the last 300 feet where the sand got deeper. Jim's skinnier tires gave him some trouble there. 

The Suwannee River was the first river that had rock banks and a well defined riverbed with the high river levels. 

The water was black rather than brown and steaming from the cold air temperature. 

A pretty spot next to the back road after we left hwy 90. Many of the trees look like they were struggling to survive the Spanish Moss that is so prevalent here. 

We never had heavy rain today, just drizzle at times with the temp never getting out of the low 50's. 

The only businesses still open near the motel is two gas stations with quick marts and a McDonalds. Our dining choices are extremely limited. 

42 miles today. 

Day 52, FL, Tallahassee to Madison

Jim and I followed Scott and Kierston (and Scott's dog, Beauty) to their coffee shop of choice. It is colder today and still a threatening sky. 

From there Scott led the two of us through the campus of Florida State University and out of town on a different route from the ACA map. It was a good route on lightly traveled and pretty roads. It also saved us around 5 miles over the ACA route. 

We re-joined the ACA route just before Monticello on hwy 90 again. By the time we reached Monticello it was lunch time. We found a popular local restaurant and ate and tried to warm ourselves. The temp started out at 53 this morning and had dropped to 50 at noon. When we left the restaurant it was misting with a NE breeze. 

Couldn't resist this picture. It's probably the nicest town in Florida!

We reached the town of Madison around 4:00 pm and rode 6.5 miles down to I-10 where the motels were. The only place to stay in Madison itself was a (relatively) expensive B & B. 

The Deerwood Inn was $16 cheaper than the nearby Days Inn and Super 8. We have to fend for ourselves for breakfast however. 

76 miles today. We should reach St. Augustine this Friday. 

Day 51, FL, Marianna to Tallahassee

We got to the front gate of the Florida Caverns State Park this morning and we couldn't trip it to open on our bikes. A big RV came up behind us and we followed it out. We took a different route out of town that put us east of Marianna. 

It was another pretty country lane with beautiful scenery. 

This picture doesn't capture the crumbly detail of the building. 

We picked up hwy 90 again at next town, Grand Ridge. 

There is so much water in Florida that bridges are never far away. Since they have had so much rain recently, the area on either side of the River is flooded also. 

The panorama picture here really distorts the view. It's about a 180 degree view of the Apalachicola River. The upstream dam is on the left and the crumbling old bridge downstream is on the right. We lost an hour to the eastern time zone crossing this river. Just on the other side is the town of Chattahoochee where we had Subway for lunch. 

On the way to the next town, Gretna, we had a pretty good tailwind. This is what a tailwind looks like. 

Nearby were these crumbling buildings. 

I could of taken a thousand of these old buildings. Many nice brick homes were abandoned too along the way. 

A classic picture of roadside Spanish moss. 

Home sweet home (for the night). A non profit bike shop is on the other side of the  wall on the left. 

Good pizza and beer was handy for dinner next to the bike shop. 

76 miles today. 

Day 50, FL, DeFuniak Springs to Marianna

Beautiful, clear, calm morning in mid 50's. We were 4 miles north of hwy 90 at the campground. We took a longer road back to 90 but it took us further east and right into DeFuniak Springs. We found a good breakfast spot and Jim said it must be good, the local police were eating there. 

Much of the day, yesterday and today looked like this along hwy 90. 

This picture may be a little blurry. I took it while riding. Just don't drop the new iPhone!

We met Dublin (picture above) when he  crossed over to our side as he approached us and talked quite a bit. Very interesting character! He left Tucson last July and was on his way back west coming from the Keys. He always wild/stealth camps and cops hassled him down there too much. One of the many jobs he has had is working as a carnie. He had a 100 pounds of gear and uses flat proof foam inserts in his tires in place of tubes. 

We stopped in Bonifay for iced tea and ran into four other cycling tourists. The older couple were on a tandem and were the parents of the young man with his girlfriend. We had some good info exchange and they were fun to talk to. We wish them a great trip west on the southern tier. 

Choctawhatchee River

More flowering roadside weeds, evidence that spring is coming. I've been having more insect encounters the last few days too. 

We stayed at the "Florida caverns State Park". We didn't have time for the cavern guided tour but the campground is nice. This was taken inside the park on the way to the campsite.

It's hard to see but a small tree is covered in white blossoms. Several other trees were blossoming along the road today. 

Day 49, FL, Pensacola to DeFuniak Springs

We met our host Jeb for breakfast at the same restaurant where we had dinner last night. We left at 8:00 in 53 degrees and mostly sunny. 

It took us awhile to clear Pensacola since we had to wind around Pensacola Bay and Escambia Bay. This a view of I-10 crossing Escambia Bay. We stayed on hwy 90 to Milton where we caught a 7 mile bike trail. Then we were on back roads for 25 miles before re-joining 90 again. 

This is the bridge we crossed at the head of Escambia Bay. We were forced out into the traffic lane twice by road construction but traffic was light enough we had no problem. 

We've seen a few of these burned areas in several states. I think it is a method to keep the forest healthy. These are Long Leaf Pines. 

We had burgers in Holt where we re-joined hwy 90. 90 had good shoulders and even some bicycle specific features on the shoulder. Once we left the water there wasn't much to photograph other than the pretty back roads.

87 miles today.