May 2013Eastcoast2 Tour

45:400 What a day! Up at 4:45, at the airport by 5:40 (John was already in line in front of me). John and I arrived at 9:40 at the Ft Lauderdale airport and immediately started putting together our bikes behind some unused information stations. Took about an hour and a half.....but no issues. Pretty much everything arrived undented and intact. The bikes were $75 a piece, as they were oversize, but the rest of the luggage was free.

John and I then biked right out of the airport, onto the perimeter road, and headed for the shore. Half way there we stopped at a fedex, where Bill had shipped his bike and was putting it together.

Once we were all intact, we biked to the shore, took a left on A1A, and biked for 45 miles. Florida has a very different vibe to it. You can tell you aren't in Maryland any more from the palm trees, the architecture (or lack thereof), the complete lack of body issues. Middle-aged, fat, with way too much hair on your back? No need to wear a shirt down here. Just stand in your front yard scratching your belly and smoking a stogey, and you'll fit right in.

The beach scene is something else altogether. Again, everyone is on the beach in minimal clothing: fat, thin, short, tall, wrinkled, young and firm, doesn't matter. "Cover the least you can and get very brown" seems to be the approach.

Now I am very tired.....

So today was a lot of fun. We started out a bit slowly as this was supposed to be a short day. More on that in a bit.

We stopped at a deli for breakfast. I was drawn in by the aroma of waffles, but in the end I got nova eggs hollandaise, which is as good as it sounds. It was accompanied by a bowl of very good oatmeal, giving us a great start to the day. John's meal wasn't as impressive, hence his picture.

One of our first towns was Palm Springs, which wasn't all that fantastic, but the place really does reek of money. We also stopped at the evidently famous Breakers Hotel (built by Flagler), which was so posh it was just overboard. Beautiful tree-lined bealevards, enormous fountains, some of the most perfect grass I've seen as the floor of an "ordinary" outdoor seating area. Across the street we went to the Flagler museum. They wanted $18/head, so that didn't work, but we did take the picture w/ the enormous tree. What is this, anyone know?

An hour later the heat was getting oppressive (John was convinced it was mid-90's, I think it was cooler, but with a burning sun), so we pulled into the John D. MacArthur Beach State Park and went swimming on the beautiful, pristinem mostly-empty beach. Going to have to make that a staple of every day while we're in Florida. I caught one picture of a part of a big V of pelicans flying low overhead.

Back on the road, we soon realized that our destination was not on the 10-mile spit of land we were following, so we had to backtrack in the heat of the afternoon when we were already pretty knackered.

Finally, the last picture is of a very ominous thundercloud. If you look closely you can see long streamers in the cloud as if the winds were very high. Neighbors said we were expecting nickle-sized hail, so though the cloud grew even more impressive we didn't have time to take any pictures.

Alas, the storm never materialized.

A semi-short day, only 45 miles. Yesterday afternoon we decided we needed to start cooking (John brought a flying pan!), so we bought some top raman, some spinach and green onions. Bland! For breakfast we had eggs and green onions. Bland! And John couldn't eat them. We'll do better in the future.

It was a very pretty, and again very hot day. We started by backtracking the 5 miles we had to go south last night, then down the dixie highway for another 13. We were flying, w/ a slight tailwind, probably averaging above 17. Later we went down some beautiful magnolia-lined streets on our way out to the outer island.

The heat just grew more intense, but this is florida! We went body surfing. Problem solved.

Pulling into Fort Pierce, we negotiated for the one shady spot at the KOA (on route, and has washers and dryers). Only later did we figure out that he had charged us $32/person, i.e. each of us was being charged the same amount as one of these RV behemoths. Luckily we were able to talk him back to less than half of that.

Today was our longest by far, so of course Bill and John decided that we had to get up at 5:30, eat a muffin and banana bought the night before, and be on the road before first light.. This was not just because of the length (60 miles isn't that far), but because it's extremely hot in the sun essentially riding up the beach.

So....Bill got up at 3:30. Bastard! Got back to sleep and .... John wakes up at 5. I stubbornly refused to move until 5:30. So we got on the road and were across the big bridge before it got light.

And the bridge was not a problem! Yesterday we went over a very high bridge w/ no shoulders or room for bikes. We had to cross on a sidewalk about 30 inches wide. w/ a relatively low railing keeping you. Then there was a breeze, the bridge was bouncing from trucks, and I have vertigo. All this is a long-winded way of saying that I had to walk across. Bill crossed w/o issue, while John skinned his knee from riding so closely to the bridge side. Turns out that that bridge is called out by the ACA as being especially tricky, and none of the others are, so no worries for the futre.

So we rode! And rode...and rode. Long day, not especially scenic, as we were about half a mile from the beach most of the way. We had second breakfast at a very scenic restaurant, on the balcony overlooking ocean. And this was a large breakfast.

The day was saved by a beach stop at the 43-mile point, where we commandeered the only shelter, took a quick nap, and then had an exquisitely welcome swim.

We pulled into the campground just as the rain hit. We had stopped to watch some horse jumping competition in the same county park we are staying when the deluge hit. And I mean deluge, as in we were soaked to the bone. We decided to make for the park's one pavilion to wait it out, but the rain stopped before we got there. So we set up our tents at the other end of the campground. And then the rain came back and we picked up our tents and put them in the pavilion, which we also ruthlessly commandeered. So far so good....

Today the plan was a short day and a visit to Kennedy Space Center, but that part fell by the wayside as we learned that it was expensive and kind of hard to get to on bike.

We decided instead to just have a short day and rest up for a good long ride tomorrow. However, not a pretty day, at least after the opening 10-mile ride along the inlet on one of the prettier roads we've seen on our travels. LOTS of money, houses with their own piers across the road.

After that we were on US 1, which is pretty much down here exactly what it is up north, but hotter. In desparation, we turned into the "Warbird Museum", which turned out to be pretty neat. Over 40 planes: from a replica of the first epps flyer (georgia folk don't think that the Wright Brothers did anything but jump off a hill) to an F14. Plus a ton of memorabilia, including racist posters (pic), a Norton bombsight, and a book of airplane "nose art."

After the museum, we went back into the heat down that nasty road towards our goal for the night: an RV park. Two miles short, Bill insisted we pull into a VFW hall. They not only were happy to let us pitch our tents, they also are leaving the pavilion restrooms open, and gave us a free meal.

We're a bit inland right now, but we'll be going back out to the beach for at least the next day and a half. So our run of swimming 3 days in a row is interrupted, but we should be able to start a new streak soon.

my bad: So this is a bit of an admission. We're here at the VFW lodge. Bill is in his element, bullshitting and charming everyone at the bar in the pavilion (while he sips iced tea daintily), John's sympathetic mein immediately has folk telling him the most sad stories, and I'm bored. Worse, I think most of these guys are ill-informed blowhards, and I neither want to nod while they say asinine things, or argue w/ them. The latter would clearly not work, and the whole thing just didn't seem to be worth it to save us from going to a crappy RV park for one night.

On the other hand, they are incredibly generous. I mean just over the top. They invited us to put our tents anywhere we wanted, begged us to bring the tents into their very nice pavilion to stay dry during the rain. They they brought us over a menu and invited us to order anything, free. We left at 6 to go to a restaurant they recommended (decent italian) and when we returned they were all gone. However, they'd called ahead to another VFW lodge for us to stay at tomorrow night (the alternative was another RV park, ick), they'd left the bathroom open and lights on, they made sure to tell us of the hose for an ad hoc shower, and to top it off, they set up a fan right next to my tent and told us of another if needed (aside: Bill and John weren't too happy about this, as this left them downwind of the guy who had the most garlic for dinner).

They were just the most generous and hospitable people you could meet, and meeting such people form some of the highlights of a trip like this.

Today was mostly a travel day. We had no first breakfast, and second breakfast was 21 miles down the road. Most of the rest day was a hard slog, as for the first time we had a headwind most of the day. This meant head down, maybe in the drops of the handlebars, for whomever is leading the pacelane.

We stopped after 45 miles to do laundry for the second time this trip (!!). This show our enthusiasm for cleanliness. Our ineptitude was shown when Bill emptied the washer and toss our clothes into .... another washer. And we all sat there for 10 minutes before John got a funny look on. I saw John's face, mentally smacked myself in the forehead and asked Bill, "What is this machine?" while pointing at the washer. "A Whirlpool?" he responded.

We're camped outside side an American Legion hall tonight. They are just as nice, but nowhere near the accomodations of last night. Note the picture of John and his tent, and it's proximity to a parking lot. There is currently a construction effort going on in the parking lot. We hope it stops.

Staying at one of these halls is cheap, but not free, as Bill feels compelled to buy a round of drinks for everyone. The upside of this is that we sometimes get drinks bought in return. Sadly, only John and I partake.

Still, more than 300 miles in, and tomorrow we hit the beach again. A huge bridge, but thankfully one w/ a bike lane. Hopefully a good night's sleep, notice the bags under my eyes.

52.8-433 Today started with a quick exit from the American Legion parking lot. Despite the all-night construction, the police disturbance, and the motion-activated light that turned on every time pete turned over, or one of the construction lights strobed, we slept quite well.

The first order of business was to find, um, a place to start the day correctly. We figured that since McDonalds has served us all shit for years, it would be appropriate...Unfortunately it was closed and we ended up at the Peaches Cafe. The fresh apple fritters were wonderful, the price for the whole meal less so. We immediately resolved to cook more and eat at fewer restaurants.

We quickly hopped onto the trail north on the barrier island, led by pete powered by unaccustomed caffeine. The surf and sun were beautiful, and we frolicked innocently. Alas, John had some eye issues and resolved to visit a optomotrist later in the day. That left Bill and I to shop. So we bought whole-wheat bran tortillas, PB and jelly, refried beans and chips. Also spinach, bananas, and apples.

After setting up our tents, Bill and I headed for the beach. Big surf! Upon arriving back at the site to pick up my computer, I found the PB jar on the ground with a big hole in it. I tossed it in the fire ring and went back to the beach.

When John arrived back (no immediate danger, small hole in retina, no fighting allowed), he mentioned he'd seen a squirrel pulling an apple across the road. We whirled and looked; only two apples remained. Also, the PB jar was just gone.

Back to the food: raman w/ spinach and red chili peppers. Despite the highly off-center pot placement, the pot did not fall and we had successfully boilded ramen. Bill expressed interest in the peppers and loaded about....half a full chili pepper into his ramen broth. By the time he'd realized his mistake, the broth itself was burning. Wimp.

Our first attempt at cooking the refried beans was just putting the can on the stove. If you look at one of the last pictures, you see that the top half of the can's contents are exuding from the can, pushed by the beans boiling at the bottom. We had to go another way. The result still wasn't pretty, but it tasted just fine.

Late, short post. Morning was past insanely gorgeous, expensive homes. Afternoon some of the best riding we've had. 73 miles, beautiful bike path, last 10 miles at near 20 mph.

Our first border crossing! Our first thoughts: "even the georgia sign looks kind of crappy". Today was a hard, hard day. 64 total miles, starting out in rush hour traffic, progressing to long, unrelieved 65-mph highways, to backways that went straight for 30 miles, to georgia, where we were briefly back on 65-mph highways....w/ shoulders completely filled by rumble strips. In other words, we had to bike in the 65-mph lane. Luckily, it was a lightly-used two-lane highway each way, and even the logging trucks had no problems giving us a wide berth.

As beautiful as yesterday was, this wasn't. Still, we are more than a metric century further down the road, in our second state, and that much closer to home. Also, we've arranged to meet our old tour leader, Sally Fenton, on Saturday night when she and her current charges will be in the same state park.

Up early and covered the 39.5 miles to the Comfort Inn before 10:30.

Adventure Cycling Trips always have rest days built in, usually one a week. Yesterday was our ninth straight day of hard biking, fighting traffic, heat, sun, bulky limbs and we needed rest. Additionally, there was nothing on our ACA route the next 100 miles, other than a rundown hotel only 25 miles from Folkston. We like Comfort Inn and a bit of googling turned one up only 39 miles away, and in the right general direction.

We used Google's bike directions to plot a route. This worked well today, other than the occasional dirt road that google thought was fine for bikes. Not *our* bikes. We end up with a short day today, which we'll count as our rest day. Done by 10:30? Who could complain? Tomorrow will be 60 or so, but that's turning out to be fairly normal.

Pictures are a bit light today because there wasn't much too see. I took a couple pictures of logs. Were you aware that Florida has a vast logging operation? Also a picture of the rumble strip on one of the excellent roads we used today. We've encountered other roads (in georgia) where the strips completely fill the shoulders. This is extremely nasty for bikers if there is much traffic. Note that the strip in the picture has room on the right for bikers (even those towing one-wheeled trailers), and cut-throughs so that you can easily go back and forth.

About georgia itself, and the people, well, we're now in the poorer section of the state and most of the southern stereotypes are well-represented. To misquote "My Cousin Vinny", we do not "blend". Despite being on the ACA route, most folk down here act like they've never seen a biker in a jersey before.

The RV park we stayed in last night was typical. Fairly well-kept, grassy field w/ three RVs, two of which were evidently the homes of people who lived pretty much in squalor. The front office doubles as a kitchen that supplies the local prison (the local prison supplies people to cut the grass).

The local tourist attractions were the Okefenokee Swamp, and "train watching". The former sounds interesting, but we just didn't have enough time/interest. The latter boggles my mind. People just come and watch trains! Evidently Folkston has the "Folkston Funnel", multiple lines that converge and carry most of the freight in and out of Florida. From a website: "A recent visitor from Tampa told of seeing '41 trains or engine movements and units from seven different railroads.'" These people have too much time on their hands.

Apropos of nothing, I'd estimate about a dozen trains passed within a quarter mile of our tents during the night, horns blasting.

We're going spend the afternoon napping, grading finals (pete), swimming, eating, and more napping.

Quote for the day (bill): One of the prime advantages of touring in the company of men is that one may fart at well."

Spending the night at a Comfort Inn has advantages: no packing and no cleanup in the morning. We got moving by 7:15 and had finished the day's 60+ miles by noon. The ride was in eventful, though we did have a few rollers, which were unfortunately just a bit too far apart to ride at high speed.

The pictured houses are probably sharecropper's palaces, but could fat back even further. Slave quarters? Would't they tear such a thing down? Even if so, I think the dish antenna is probably relatively new. The other pics are of the very nice state park.

The big event of the day is meeting up with Sally, the leader of the pacific coast ride during which we all met. Sally is great: always energetic, always upbeat, and a good soul.

Tonight we are going to the all-you-eat Krispy Brown Family Restaurant: $8.

Talking to Sally's group last night, we decided that we had to do some tourist stuff, and they uniformly agreed that Savannah was nicer than Charleston, and that Charleston was hellish getting out of.

So, rather than spending the next couple days biking between little towns, we google-mapped a 66-mile route into the city. Unfortunately, a couple roads faded into dirt roads, and some of the others were real hard (traffic, rumble strips, etc.), and we rambled around a bit looking for a bike shop and food. In the end, we had 75.3 miles for the day, a bit more than expected.

Since this was hard, and we're wimps, passed on staying at the Savannah Pensione (big group room, bunk beds), and lit upon a wonderfully situated Hampton Inn. They initially wanted $270 for a pair of rooms. John and I were able to get this to $250, and then we sent in the big gun while we waited outside. Bill came out five minutes later, "$95 a piece". Always good to have Bill on your side.

We sent the picture of me in the elegant living room, together w/ a brag of our 75-mile day to Sally; she responded by ignoring our wimpiness at going to a hotel, and casually mentioned that she was currently at 78 miles, and probably had another four or five. Sigh.

In the pictures, we figured that "Bubba Kennedy" must have been the one they don't talk about. A quick google didn't tell us much. The long building is a chicken coop. We thought about getting closer for a better picture, but the smell convinced us otherwise.

Tomorrow we're going to get on a tourist trolley, one of those that let's you get on and off as many times as you want, and start biking after lunch. We'll probably still get in ~50 miles. During this calendar week, we've gotten in 428 miles, over 61 miles a day every day of the week. Very nearly a metric century every single day with full gear. This is my all-time high: we never did more than 360 miles on the west coast, though I did hit 420 miles on the Tetons-to-Tides ride (which included one day through more than 90 miles of desert).

Yesterday we dove down into Savannah, eschewing the ACA-approved routing which would have taken four days to get from Reidsville, GA to Point South via Savannah. Instead, we google-mapped (w/ bike option) in and out and did it in two. 75 miles in yesterday, then today we took a 90-minute trolley tour and then biked 50 miles out to SC.

The trolley tour was exactly what we wanted: something to give us the flavor of the city. For example, the most important historical happenings, ordering not clear, were the founding by Oglethorpe (and the palavers w/ the 7' indian chief who lived to be 97 in an age when western men averaged 5' tall), and the filming of Forest Gump. We went by the Gump park, saw where Gump and his girl strolled, and learned that the Gump park bench was bought at a local Home Depot.

The Pirates' House! People just disappeared and noone knew why (the local voodoo practitioners painted their houses "Haint Blue". However, an off-duty cop wandered into the bar (alcohol was prohibited at the time) to find out, and learned that they had a tunnel dug all the way to the harbor. They used it to smuggle booze in, and shang-haied sailors out. Though the cop learned all this quickly, it took him two years to get home to tell anyone.

Savannah is extremely beautiful, with gargoyles and spanish moss evoking all the myths of southern hospitality and grace.

The ride was hot, but only 48 miles, our shortest in some time. I think we make an interesting combo on the road: Bill, the old bull moose, all bluster, non-stop non-sequitors of a blue variety, rigorous analysis of anything that catches his fancy (basically everything), and all upbeat, all the time. John is the lean and lithe racer. Much quieter, but with a sense of humor and basic decency that gets us entree into any place that Bill can't blast us into. He's too nice to leave us in the dust most of the time, but once in a while he can't help himself.

Slice of life: yesterday the above happened about 55 miles into a long hot day. I labored mightily behind Bill as we fell further and further behind. I thought of my sore knee, my sore achilles tendons (they complain on alternate days), my sore hands and arms, and above all my sore ass. When could I reasonably call the next rest stop? And how could I do it when John, the bastard, was now easily a half mile ahead and couldn't be called back? Finally, I'd just had it, I had to either stop, or sprint, so I sprinted. I pulled out around Bill, surely looking just as athletic and sharklike as Tour de France riders attacking the peloton. Bill receded in my mirror. I laughed. Ha-ha! See-ya! Pretty good, huh, John?

But John was still half a mile in front. I was doing 17 on a slight uphill (recall that bike+trailer+stuff is about 100 lbs, we aren't talking about a 15-lb carbon fiber bike) and not gaining. I upped it to 18. Nothing. 19. Was he speeding up? John is much too nice to do this intentionally, but easily competitive enough to do it unintentionally. Finally, I had it pegged at 21 mph and I was gaining (clearly I wasn't on an uphill anymore). I kept that up for five minutes and finally reeled him in, gasping, sweating, heart pounding. All the hurts were gone, all the heat had been forgotten, and only then did I remember that any day on a bike is a good day.