From Louisiana to Florida

It's been a few days since I've taken the time to update you all, but now I find myself seeking refuge from the rain in a McDonalds in Gulf Beach, FL.

The ride out of New Orleans went much smoother than the ride in.  No need for hitch hiking this time.  I was on highway 90 the whole way and saw several cyclists along the way.  It's been consistently hot and humid, so the day was nothing out of the ordinary, though I must have been following a storm because there was water standing on the shoulder of the road where I was trying to ride.  It really made my bike a mess.  I had just cleaned up the chain on my day off, but by the time I was crossing into Mississippi it was black and gross.  As I was crossing the Saint Louis Bay bridge I got my first flat of the trip.  If you've ever seen a car or truck tire that has shredded, you'll see fine steel threads all over the place.  These little steel threads eat bicycle tires.  My tires are relatively puncture resistant, but these stupid little steel threads are the only things that have ever given me a flat.  The bridge had a really wide pedestrian/bike lane, so it wasn't a bad place to be changing a tire (except for the lack of shade).  I got things functional again and hit the road again.  When I crossed the bridge into Pass Christian, MS, the wind was coming off the Gulf so hard that it was sand blasting my legs and getting all over my messy bicycle chain.  Sand is bad for bike chains.  I could hear it grinding as I pedaled. 

Fortunately, I was getting close to a home that was listed in the "Mennonite Your Way" directory.  They said that they did not intend to be listed, they just wanted a copy of the directory, but would host me any way.  Matt, Heather, Kyle, and John welcomed me and my bicycle into their home for the night and where extremely gracious hosts.  Not only did they provide me with a place and the means to clean up my bicycle, but their son John even gave up his bedroom for the night and slept on the couch.  Heather made supper that night and Matt made breakfast.  After spending two days at the MDS house in New Orleans and a night in Pass Christian with Matt and Heather, I was really feeling spoiled.

I hit the road after breakfast and found a calmer day to ride along the shoreline.  As I was leaving Pass Christian, I tried to find a Mississippi map.  I'm going to get a map in each state, regardless of whether I need one.  Call it a memento.  I stopped at a book store, thinking that would be a great place to find one.  They had maps of just about every town in Mississippi, state maps of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, but no map of Mississippi.  Ridiculous.  Eventually I bought a map at a gas station that would suffice and kept pedaling towards Dauphin Island, AL.

The day out to Dauphin Island ended up being about 89 miles total.  At about mile 83 the bridge to Dauphin Island came into view.  I came out of the trees, felt the headwind, and saw a very long bridge with a pretty steep hill in the middle to allow ships to pass through underneath.  The headwind and the unnecessarily steep segment of the bridge were not pleasant things to find at the end of  a long day.  I made it over and stopped at the first gas station I saw.  There, I purchased a quart of chocolate milk.  To some, that sounds awful at the end of a pretty lengthy workout.  I thought it was the best chocolate milk I'd ever drank.  I don't know if I even came up for air; I just drank it in one shot.  Then I went and bought a quart of vitamin D milk, shoved it in my bag, and headed for the campground.

There weren't a lot of people camping with tents in the area, but there was a group of Boy Scouts from Tennessee right next to me.  I set up camp, took a shower, and headed towards the beach.  I walked along the shore with my feet in the water for a while.  Off in the distance I could see oil rigs out in the water, and it made me think about the oil spill.  I walked a little further and saw a guy bent over on the beach, poking at something.  He stopped me and asked if I knew what it was he was poking.  It looked like runny brown silly putty.  He said that clumps like that were the form the oil was in when it got to shore.  "They say this stuff is pretty toxic, but I figure it's just oil," he said as he continued to poke it with his finger.

After I left the beach, I was just about to set up the camp stove for some more beans and rice when the scout troop invited me over to their camp site for burgers.  Troop 4 from Trinity Christian Academy in Tennessee.  They were a great group of guys and they fed me quite well.  Much more satisfying than the beans and rice would have been. I sat and talked with the men that were leading the group of scouts for most of the evening.  In the morning they even gave me breakfast before taking a group picture and sending me on my way in time to catch the first ferry of the day at 8am.

Today's been a pretty good day except for the pot hole.  While riding through Gulf Shores, AL, I was cruising down the bike lane, looking at the expensive hotels, when this pot hole came out of no where.  This wasn't a normal pot hole with jagged edges and broken pavement that you can see.  This looked like a sink hole in the pavement, like when they were paving the road they decided to pave it with a hole in the bike lane.  I slammed into the hole, one front pannier (bag) came off and bounced away, and I just about ate pavement.  Fortunately I saved it and hit the breaks.  The pannier's brackets that attach it to the bike were still functional, and I didn't see any holes in the bag at the time.  I put the bag back on the bike, took a traffic cone that happened to be near by and put it in the hole, and kept pedaling.  With all of my gear, not to mention my own fat butt, on this bike, I'm pretty shocked that I didn't fold the front wheel in half when I hit that hole.  It still rolls true.  As I mentioned earlier, I'm currently parked in a McDonald's, about to hop back on the bike to head for Pensacola.  I'll probably stop there for the night.  It's the first week.  No point in burning myself out, right?

**Update**
I made it to the far end of Pensacola and got a hotel.  The rain just kept coming and going, and I was sick of being wet.  The Ramada here seems very nice.  Friendly attendants at the desk.