Day 22: Suwannee River State Park to Monticello: A network of good people

January 26, 2014

By the time we were ready to head out, at 7:00 a.m., the temperature was 1.5 C. So it was probably just at freezing during the night. Still, we were fine in the tent. As usual, though, cycling along produced frozen hands and feet. As soon as the temperature warmed to over 5, though, we were fine.

We crossed the bridge over the Suwannee, and got one last look at the famous river. Shortly thereafter a truck and trailer combo pulled abreast of us, and we were greeted by David and Marieanne. Last night they had been sitting with us at the music presentation, and put on a very professional demonstration of dancing to the tunes. They are from New Orleans, and regularly dance to the local bands. They now live some miles up the Mississippi, and invited us to stop by. It happens our route goes right by their place, so we are looking forward to seeing them again.

David and Marieanne - hopefully we will meet again soon

The local paper contains typical small town stories, but some are quite puzzling

Clearly we want to stick on 90 - but we understand hills are in the forecast for 90 as well

The ranger had talked about the store down the road making breakfast, and she mentioned Texas Toast. I fixated on that and talked about it all evening, without really knowing what it would be. No matter, the place was still closed when we got there. The next gas station/food store along was open and provided a welcome change to warm up. With no Texas Toast in sight, I had to fall back to the shelf of one month shelf life packaged "pastries". I made one photo, feeling a little guilty because in Europe I was producing three or four pastry photos daily. Anyway, you can probably see why pastry photography has not been a big hit with me this tour:

The local newspaper was also on offer. I learned that the guy who broke in to the pawn shop had stolen two ipods and a cell phone. He plead guilty to grand theft. Then there was the lady who had threatened to set fire to the deputy sheriff's house. They picked her up driving around looking for the place, and charged her with attempted arson. Maybe she should have bought the cell phone from the first guy, assuming it had GPS!

Finally, a consultant was chosen to run the local economic development function. As I read it, he got the job over the Other two proposals because he was the only one without a Powerpoint presentation.

At this stage, the Southern Tier spends a lot of time on hwy 90, which loosely parallels I-10. Probably because I-10 is out there, and because today is Sunday, 90 was all but deserted. There is an excellent shoulder in this area too, so the riding conditions were excellent. For the first time we began to notice gently rolling hills, though they were not really much problem. We understand that soon the hills will become more pronounced, as we enter what is actually the most southern influence of the Appalachian mountains.

This triggered a lot of debate as we pedalled about which four freedoms were involved, whether this precluded other freedoms, and the difference between freedoms and rights, if any. You have lots of time to think while cycling!

Aha, the four freedoms explained. Here is the statue and the plaque is on the next shot.

This stately house seems to be in the old South plantation style

The town of Greenville lay in our path. Greenville is most famous with us for the reference in the Lucinda Williams song. To be honest, it is possible that she is really referring to Greenville, S.C., but we don't so much care. It turns out that this Greenville is genuinely famous for another musical reason. That is, it was the home of Ray Charles. We went and had a look at the Ray Charles memorial, and feel certain that we have seen this in one or more other blogs. It certainly qualifies as a must photograph for anyone cycling through.

As we scanned ahead yesterday to see what accommodation possibilities there might be for us today, we drew a blank. There is certainly no camping in the region. And the one motel, the Brahman, got atrocious reviews on line. So it was that Butch Galloway and his wife Paulette stepped into the breach. Do you remember a couple of days ago the fellow with the Cattrike in the pickup standing beside the road? That was Dennis Crowder. Butch and Dennis are friends, and fellow trikers, and Dennis asked Butch to watch over us. He did just that.

Butch gave us directions to his place West of Monticello, and we have just passed a lovely evening with him and Paulette and family, including their great granddaughter. Butch is planning to cycle the Natchez Trace route soon, and we were able to steer him to the Adventure Cycling Great Rivers route, that includes it. Butch already has a book covering the ride, but we know he will find the maps most helpful to use while actually cycling.

Butch and Paulette fed us supper and stashed us in a warm and lighted camping trailer. We are grateful to them, and also to Dennis and the CGOAB network that binds us together. Like Warm Showers, is is a use of the Internet that is allowing kind and like minded people to help each other. Certainly tonight we have found some of the kindest.

The story of the Miccosuckee extends to this area as well

We atre lunch in this shelter. A group of older teens shared it with us. They were stylishly dressed in jeans falling down about the hips, revealing red boxer shorts, and with very floppy shoes or slippers. Most sat on the tables.

Clearly, freedom to sit on a metal table is not one of the four freedoms.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0