Saturday, April 30, 2011
Big Lagoon State Park to Fort Walton Beach
61 miles

I left Big Lagoon with directions to the Coffee Cup, the diner in Pensacola recommended by roadfood.com. I like to have a big stop in the middle of the day, around a good meal if possible. Fifteen miles is not exactly the middle of a sixty mile day, but I couldn’t pass up being this close to such a highly touted greasy spoon. I actually left without eating my normal cereal breakfast. I did have an apple and a few almonds, because I still need some energy to get the fifteen miles down the road.

Of course I still stopped once or twice on the way there. At least once to put on sunscreen, and another stop at a gas station to fill up a water bottle. They’re just hard for me to pass up! Especially if they’re on my side of the road and I don’t have to navigate across several lanes of traffic to get there. At this stop, the clerk came out and asked me if you could get a different seat for your bike, if the one you had was too small or something. I’m sure he wasn’t looking for quite the lecture I launched into about all the different types of bike seats you could get, but how really, smaller is better, since there’s less chafing surface, and I had rode here from California on this one. He ran back inside to ring another customer up, and came back out.

“You rode from California on this thing?” he asked wide-eyed and incredulously, and all that.

“Well I took the train for a couple of parts, but mostly, yep.”

He just shook his head and went back inside. I headed on my way.

Breakfast was good. The biscuits were so light and not at all greasy. I asked for a second one after I finished, which, as it turns out, is how it actually works. Your breakfast comes with up to two biscuits, but they only bring them one at a time so they are still light and fluffy when you eat them. Except they don’t actually tell you this. I heard someone else request a second biscuit, and I thought I just couldn’t leave without having another. I tried to get them to add it to my ticket, and they said, oh, no, it comes that way. So now I feel a bit as if I know the biscuit secret.

The rest of my breakfast was not as amazing as I’d hoped, but I think I ordered poorly. The website said to smother everything in their tomato gravy, which I saw on the menu but decided against, so of course I regretted that later. Also, I skipped grits. What was I thinking? And I later saw someone eating french toast that looked fabulous. But I did have two excellent biscuits. So now it was 9:30 and I still had 45 more miles to go.

About a mile after breakfast, I had to cross the Pensacola Bay Bridge, a three-mile long bridge. Signs ahead of it instructed drivers, “Check fuel. Long Bridge.” My belly was full and I had plenty of water, so I kept on. It’s mostly a flat bridge, with a small hill in the middle. It has a wide shoulder, rather than a bike lane. Unfortunately, I had to ride directly into the wind to cross it. I just crawled over that bridge. Going up the hill got a little easier at first, because the hill blocked the wind. But at the top, where it usually gets a little easier, it got harder, with the wind coming over the top again. I barely rolled down the other side at a top speed of eight miles per hour. Most other bridges I had easily gotten up to nearly twenty. I try not to complain about this sort of riding, because it’s not like you can expect to avoid all challenging riding situations. But I do make a lot of noise. It seems to help.

At the next gas station I stopped at, I called Ben to ask about mitigating the sand on my chain. He explained how to give it an oil bath. Wow, did that make a difference! I should have asked him that a few days back! Then I met a woman named Amanda.

Amanda thought she wouldn’t have the stamina to do a bike trip. I tried to explain how you just build it up. You just need time. I enjoyed talking to her. She took my picture. She is a photographer and a painter. http://amandalongart.blogspot.com/ Here is her website. She encouraged me to go over the Pensacola Beach Bridge and ride along the Gulf to the Navarre Bridge, rather than riding down highway 98. She described the bike path that followed the road along that stretch. She also mentioned there was a little festival going on in Navarre this afternoon.

Now, riding on bike paths can be great, because being separated from traffic really is a treat. But, on the other hand, they usually have a rougher surface than the road to begin with. After that, they tend to have more cracks and bumps since they are not as well maintained as roads, and driveways cut through them, creating more bumps. So they tend to be a slower and less comfortable ride.

I also knew that the wind would be stronger at the beach, because there were not as many trees or buildings to break it, and today it was blowing almost straight at me.

I knew all this, and I still decided that riding along the beach on a bike path would be preferable. The shoulder had not been that great on 98 so far, and, it’s not like I have anything else to do all day. I was heading to a grade school friend’s house for the night, but it seemed like the beach route was the way to go.

A little ways over the bridge, the bike path ended at a parking lot. Wait a minute, I thought, it’s supposed to go the whole way! But then I looked up and realized I was right in front of a shop that served Boba Tea! And organic homemade Popsicles! I was still pretty full from breakfast, but I couldn’t pass up at least a Popsicle.

There’s a place on Adams Avenue in San Diego called Viva Pops that has incredible tasting pops, and I hoped these would measure up. (If you live in San Diego and haven’t been there yet, go there. Eat two! http://www.ilovevivapops.com/) At Beach Pops, (http://www.beachpops.com/) I had a mango/guava/lemon/coconut milk pop. Awesome! If I wasn’t already stuffed, I would have had an amazing smoothie with boba, too.

The owner was telling me how BP had been cleaning up the beaches here up til last month. Amanda had also mentioned how a lot of people are getting sick, and they think it’s because of the oil spill. You sure can’t tell from looking at the beaches, though. They look pristine and white like sugar!

Gorgeous! Like Amanda said, I’m still not sure how I feel about eating the seafood. Just because you can’t see it anymore, doesn’t mean it’s not still affecting things. My Uncle Bill was saying not to be too worried, because there is always some oil in the Gulf. I’ve also heard that repeated testing of local fish has shown nothing unusual. At least I don’t have to be exposed to it regularly, myself, and I wish the best for the people that live here and do.

The headwind was bad down the beach. But it was beautiful. I now understand why so many places down here have the word “emerald” in them. (The first place I noticed was a lingerie place called Emerald Fantasies, and I just couldn’t figure out how they came up with that.) The color of the water is just incredible! Way more enticing than ugly southern California beaches!

But I tried to put the headwind in perspective. In New Mexico, the day that Anna picked me up, I was struggling in my lowest gear at a top speed of four and a half miles per hour. It was hard to keep going. Here, I was spinning comfortably, two to four gears above my lowest, at seven to eight miles per hour. Sometimes a little less. It was still challenging and draining, but certainly doable. After I barely made it 20 miles in the New Mexico wind, I felt like I couldn’t go on. Fifteen miles down this barrier island, I was growing tired, but was mostly hungry.

Luckily, that’s when I arrived at the Fun Fest Amanda had mentioned. Mmmmmm. Fair food. I had a pulled pork sandwich. (At home, I rarely eat any meat at all. But when I am traveling, especially in this strenuous way, I eat just about anything.) Then I couldn’t pass up a dreamsicle sundae. Scoops of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream, with orange sauce. It was over the top, but it was good.

While I was indulging in that excess, I watched the local Fun Fest beauty queens parade across the stage. One was a babe in arms, one a toddler, then the others were six, eleven, thirteen and sixteen years old. They had impressive tiaras and small retinues that followed them around the festival. I looked for the pageant moms. I hope they are learning something and having fun. The six year old won the “Spirit of the Pageant” award. She just smiled and smiled and smiled. Maybe it was because she had a kind and generous spirit, and maybe she just didn’t really know what was going on. Of course she was nice to everyone! What six year old isn’t adorable in a tiara and a foofy dress?

If I were eleven, I’d pick this sort of dress, too.

The Navarre Bridge was headed north, so I had a tailwind for that very short time. Yippee! But, the separate bike lane was so narrow.

At some point, it stayed narrow, but changed to this tacked on, wiggly, more open railing lane. I just couldn’t ride, because I kept imagining the bike tire slipping under the railing, and it made me have vertigo, so I walked the bike. Later, when I looked at my bags, I realized they had holes in the sides from rubbing on the close walls of that lane! I wish I had thought of that and started pushing earlier.

Once back on the mainland, the wind was better because there were so many things to block it, so I made much better time to Jenny Garrison’s house, with fewer stops. Jenny had lived down the street from us in Crystal Lake, but her family had moved away in about 1986. I had seen her a few times briefly since then, but not for over 15 years. Our moms were still in touch. It’s both comforting and a strange adventure to see and stay with someone you haven’t been in touch with for almost 20 years. We had a lot of catching up to do.

With two miles to go and my energy flagging, a car pulled up alongside me. A young man yelled out, “Where you heading?” and asked if I would pull over so we could talk. This is how I met Dane, a touring cyclist who had recently relocated here from North Carolina. He loves bike touring, and had recently completed the transamerica route, but is now spending some time settled down as a beer brewer. It’s a great job, as jobs go, but he has to stay in one place.

He checked out my bike and we talked about all different types of gear. He highly recommended Brooks leather saddles. He started out with buckets strapped to is bike to carry his stuff, but is now a fan of Ortlieb panniers. His enthusiasm for bike touring was infectious. I was just ready to be at the end of my day.

We also both agreed that Florida drivers are not the most considerate to cyclists. Perhaps this sign helps explain a little.

I guess I filled their quota for the day.

I pulled up to the house Jenny shares with her fiancé, Jim, and her dog, Baylor, a few minutes later. They recently spent eight months not just remodeling, but basically rebuilding the house, and it is terrific! It’s very open and spacious, with a great view of the bay, and I love their decorating.

They have very unique furniture and art. I wish I was better at taking interior photos. The countertop in the guest bathroom is the most beautiful countertop I have ever seen!

Besides their house being wonderful, they are both interesting and fun and easy to be around. They travel a lot, scuba dive, and ride around on their Harley and in their boat. They spend a lot of time in Key West as well. Jim is a mostly retired dentist, but on Monday, for example, they are going to take the dental bus to provide care to underserved communities. They are planning a trip to Australia, Singapore, and maybe Tahiti! They have a full and exciting life, and had such a beautiful and comfortable space, that it just made sense to take a rest day there. Plus, I needed one!

We went out for a great dinner at a Greek place, and with three restaurant meals, including two large desserts for the day, I think I may have actually overdone it, even on a day I rode 60 miles. But, boy, was that baklava delicious, right unti the very end!

It was so fun to reminisce with Jenny, who now goes by her middle name, Noelle, about Red Barn Road. But we were also basically remeeting each other as adults. She even sounds southern, she’s been here for so long! But Red Barn Road was a special place to grow up, it seems. Of course she turned out great!

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