To Kingsland Georgia

April 10, 2024

This morning we bid farewell to Dan, our Warmshowers host in Jacksonville, and head back to route A1A for our last ride in Florida. It's a gorgeous day with temps in the 70s and a tailwind out of the south.

In Mayport we catch a short ferry over the St John's River, then ride through a chain of islands - St. George, Talbot and Amelia. Much of this is public land and traffic is light. It's not long before Mike is a speck in the distance.

Cost to ride the ferry with your bike: 1 dollar, no holler

Creeks wind through the marshes on Fort George Island. It's quiet and peaceful here.

There's plenty of room to ride on the shoulder, plus this nice bike path for us. Such riches.

In Big Talbot Island State Park the bike path veers away from the road into the shady woods.

I like the sound of bike wheels on a boardwalk. It's Birdland here. I'm not quick enough to catch them on camera, it's just fun to watch them.

Riding here for the first half of the day is pure bliss. Then Barry and I turn west and take the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway. This part is not so fun. The traffic is loud and fast, adding extra punches to the strong crosswind that is pushing us around. I stop to remove the flying-saucer brim from my helmet and lower my flag before the wind snaps it off. In Yulee we leave A1A for the last time, shifting over to ride north on U.S. 17.

As the traffic picks up on 17, the map shows a detour to the right. It's gravel and a fence blocks the way so we'll pass that up and stay on the highway. Further on we turn left on a county road and ride a couple miles to a turn onto another fenced-off gravel road. That doesn't look tempting either so we double back to 17.

Later Mike will report that he walked around the fences to ride both of those gravel roads, and regretted it when the track turned into sand. He slogged through 10 miles of the stuff. Dang, sorry about the routing fail there buddy.

At this point Barry and I are in a time box. It's just past 3:00 and we have 10 miles to get to an Amazon locker in Kingsland for a pickup. Barry ordered a new air mattress like mine, and a pillow to replace one with an unpatchable leak. Then we want to get to the post office before it closes at 4:30 to ship the old mattress home along with some other stuff I don't want to carry any more. There's rain in the forecast tomorrow so I want to get the errands out of the way this afternoon.

We pass an electric sign that says the bridge ahead over the St. Mary's River is closed for roadwork until 4 pm. That'll mess with the plan. There really isn't another good way to get there so we forge ahead and ask a guy on the road crew if we can walk through. He thinks it's probably ok and mentions that another guy went through here on a bike earlier this afternoon.

We have to squeeze our wide loads through the tight passage between trucks

We're on Georgia's Coastal bike route 95. A rumble strip runs along the lane line by the shoulder. I don't remember many rumble strips in Florida. It's not a problem at the moment since the bridge work held back all the car traffic.

The tailwind helps us make the post office drop by 4:15, then we turn back into the wind to get to the campground. Drivers here are not so patient as in Florida. There's no shoulder and we have tailgaters. Two of them pass uncomfortably close.

We're lightening our load by over 3 pounds here and cleaning out our bags of extraneous stuff

Meanwhile Mike has us all checked in at the KOA. Even with the bushwacking on the sandy trails he beat us with over an hour to spare. We did some extra miles for the errands in Kingsland, but still, it's impressive.

The KOA has its charms, like a luxe new shower house and friendly staff who deliver a pizza right to our campsite. The downside is we are 400 feet from I-95 where the traffic roars on day and night. My earplugs are not up to the task of blocking it out. Thunderstorms with wind gusts up to 40 mph are headed our way tomorrow. I hope we don't get stuck here.

I lay back and scroll through pictures of the blissful ride this morning through our last miles in Florida. It'll be awhile before we get back to a beach. We'll see what other charms Georgia has to offer.

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Keith AdamsThe spikes on that profile sure show where the bridges are, don't they?
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6 months ago

Janice BranhamTo Keith AdamsIt's good to get any kind of hills here Keith. I'm getting soft from all this flat riding.
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6 months ago

Today's ride: 61 miles (98 km)
Total: 680 miles (1,094 km)

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Bob DistelbergUnfortunately those rumble strips are going to persist on 17. Seems to be a thing in Georgia.
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7 months ago

Janice BranhamTo Bob DistelbergIt's so ridiculous on a designated bike route. Sometimes the rumbles run right down the middle of the shoulder. Ugh.
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7 months ago