Thursday, April 28, 2011
Biloxi, MS to Dauphin Island, AL
69.5 miles

Levi, the rider I met yesterday, caught up to me. He had stopped before me yesterday, but I’m slow. Unlike most riders, however, he slowed down and rode with me until we turned different ways, about 20 miles! I’m so glad I got the chance to get to know him better. He’s just starting to really travel. He has plans to bike or run along the Great Wall of China, to ride in Europe, and to learn to sail and travel that way. He’s got the bug.

It’s also so fun to talk to someone who’s really experiencing the world the same way I am now. We both have really enjoyed meeting so many wonderful people along the way, and are finding that everything unfolds the way that works. We have the same concerns, like trying to decide what else to send home to reduce weight, carrying enough water, keeping track of interesting roadkill, and getting chased by dogs. Levi has actually been bitten by one–it got his foot but didn’t break the skin, thank goodness. He got dog mace from a mail carrier he met, and has now used it a few times. When we discussed our routes, I tried to think of the few days I had sketched out ahead. “Is today Thursday?” I asked him.

“I don’t know.” He answered, and we both laughed. That’s how it is on the road.

Levi is a kind and thoughtful soul who is passionate about being in the world. If you get it, at 22, that the more a restaurant looks like a dive, the better it’s going to be, then you’re on the right track! Travel well, Levi!

We crossed the Alabama state line together, which was cool because then we each had someone around to take our picture with the sign.

A few miles later we parted ways, as he went north to Mobile and I went south back to the coast. Soon after, I stopped for lunch at the most idyllic McDonalds. It was in a wooded bower! I sat outside and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to go with my milkshake, while I used their wifi.

A few miles after that, I heard screeching brakes repeatedly right behind me. Then a tan pickup passed me, then I still heard the screeching behind me, then a beat up black car passed me. I think he might have been trying to pass the pickup on the right, in the ditch, there wasn’t a second lane, when he had to stop because I was there. The driver was hanging out of his window, yelling that I should get the fuck off the road, because I might get killed. Then he swerved into oncoming traffic, almost colliding with a semi. Then he turned left into a gas station, cutting someone off. Then I saw him cut another car off as he left the gas station.

It sort of sounded like he was expressing concern for me, rather than anger, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the one who doesn’t belong on the road. I saw him a little later, pulling out of another gas station, and he leaned out of his window again to yell, “You’ve got to be careful! You could have gotten me killed!” I motioned to him that he should put down his phone as he veered away. Wow.

A few miles later I stopped at a gas station and had a much more pleasant conversation with someone from Alabama. The clerk told me it was only about eight more miles to Dauphin Island, but I would have to go over a really tall bridge to get there. “You might have to walk up it,” he said. “I see a lot of people walk up it.”

Of course my ego told him right away, “I came over the mountains to get here. I think I’ll be able to ride up it.”

It did look big and pretty steep, especially compared to everything around it, as I approached it.

I chided myself, reminding myself that I had walked up other hills, and that I’d do it again if I had to. I stopped once on the way up to poke at my tires. They were not flat. It probably just felt difficult because it was the first hill of any size I hauled my butt and my gear up and over in a week or so! In the end, I did not have to walk, but I did have to remember that, though I have been practicing this for a while now, I am still practicing.

I got up to 25 mph as I descended the other side of the bridge, then rode to the end of Dauphin Island, right next to the ferry I will take in the morning. The campground here is really nice. It has lovely facilities and a short path to the beach.

I love the Gulf of Mexico! I believe I haven’t been to this part of the Gulf coast since the late 70′s, when I was quite small. Just after that, a hurricane devastated the areas around Mobile and Gulf Shores, where we used to visit. I remember the holes in the beach where the little sand crabs come out of. They were there today as I did yoga at the waterline while the tide came in. The water is not freezing, in contrast to the Pacific Ocean, so it was lovely to have it lap over my hands and feet as I worked through my asanas.

I came back to my campsite with some haikus in my head, which I wanted to post on facebook right away. As I approached, I saw a squirrel sitting on my handlebars. Oh, isn’t that cute, I thought, he wants to come with me. The squirrel jumped down, and I got my ipad to post my poems. I went over to my bike to put away my glasses and saw that the squirrel had chewed both zipper pulls off my handlebar bag and gnawed through about two inches of zipper!

The Yogaslackers had lent me this terrific bag, and I am definitely going to have to get a new one for them now! I’ve been overloading it for a while, so I thought it might need to be replaced at the end of the trip anyway. Now, how am I going to make it function for the rest of the ride? I haven’t thought of a way to use socks to fix it yet.

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