April 21st
Mi 1698 to 2092, 394 miles
We reached a new low in hotel rooms last night. The sheets were clean minus the cigarette burns. Jay said just stop reading the reviews and “I’ve stayed in worse.” Oh boy, something to look forward to in the poor and dilapidated south. Surprisingly I slept well and as planned we were up before the sunrise!
We are traveling under cool and cloudy skies, the air thick with moisture. I wore my heated jacket this morning and enjoyed the warmth. The highway is empty, it’s Sunday and we’re going through a green tunnel past many nature preserves along the coast. There’s standing water at the base of the dense forest on both sides of the road, it’s dark and intimidating. As we approached the coast the forest opens up to marsh lands. Also seeing a lot of gnarly oaks draped with Spanish moss that we both marvel at. The old run down shacks filled with mystery along the highway are interesting look at and wonder about.
We stopped for coffee and breakfast at a nice gas station picnic area along the water. It a casual Sunday morning and everyone was polite and friendly.
We stopped and walked through an old cemetery from the early to mid 1800s. There was a walking tour flyer with historic facts about the people and the area.
The overcast skies suddenly turned to giant drops of rain and we quickly pulled into a gas station before the cloud burst let loose. A lady came out and welcomed us in to shelter from the storm. We enjoyed some hot coffee and put our rain gear on inside the store. She also gave us a giant trash bag to keep some other items dry. Such a caring a stranger!
We entered the Panama City area, again the beautiful white sand beaches have been gobbled up by resorts and condos. I feel like such a hypocrite. I’ve enjoyed many resort style comfortable, clean and protected vacations. But I’m enjoying that environment less and less and crave more and more to be in nature. I love finding the small remote places and meeting strangers and locals and having conversation. So grateful for our state parks holding onto some of the land!
Finally we made it to the Flora-Bama border!
We’ve managed to ride the entire Florida coastline! The Flora-Bama bar and oyster bar would be a fun summer concert venue…especially on a sailboat!
I was directed to the free community coffee station …”if it’s empty, make another pot” so I did.
The sky had cleared and our rain gear was packed up again. We arrived at Fort Morgan and took the ferry to Dauphin Island. We were warned about the risk of getting soaked and advised to consider back tracking and going around. We asked if it would be safe for the bike. “Yeah, but you might get soaked!” We said no problem, we’ll put our rain gear on!
The water was choppy and we got sprayed, but not too bad. Water washed over the deck and the cars all rocked in their places. It was fun! The boat captain canceled the last ferry after reporting to us that the winds are going to kick up again, we just caught the last one!
Dauphin Island was really cute.
We drove into the sunset and into the night, the day had gotten away from us.
Soon we were in Mississippi, got a great deal at the Hard Rock Hotel with a jetted tub and a late dinner on site. Both of us were too exhausted to even play a quarter machine.