Day 24: Midway to Sneads

January 28, 2014

Famously (to us, anyway) organizations that publish cycle routes never explain their reasons for taking one way over another. So when you see that they are wandering off the direct line, you have to decide if they just thought you would enjoy passing by that park or monument, or if perhaps the direct line is a deadly high traffic no shoulder disaster.

Coming out of Midway, we saw Adventure Cycling wandering off on Highbridge Road, in preference to good old US 90. This time we decided they might have a good reason, so we wandered off with them. Highbridge Road started off peaceful enough, but had no shoulder. In due course enough traffic showed up to make us very uncomfortable with that. For the rest of the day, then, we ignored the ACA side tracks and stuck with 90.

This no shoulder road recommended by ACA turned scary.

A typical house on the way to Chattahoochee. Note the dogs. At one place five dogs charged onto the road and chased us. I pulled my dog whacker stick and explained to them in my most menacing voice that I am one of the largest and most aggressive bipeds on the planet. Then we eventually out ran them.

Highbridge Road did give us a good look at this area, for what it is worth. The natural surroundings are mainly pine plantations. What was most striking was the evidence of low income or poverty. A lot of the houses are mobile homes, or at least manufactured homes. Many are in good repair, many are not. There are some houses that are outright hovels, and some that look really quite substantial and nice. I chose for a photo one that is fairly representative of the average.

As we came to the town of Quincy, we were looking for a spot to warm up and get a hot drink. Normally that means a gas station with a "mini mart". On the scale of food outlets these do not rate very high, but you can normally expect a bank of coffee and hot chocolate machines or thermos' and the famous wall of poisonous Little Debbie type pastries. But on the east side of Quincy, the only place had only two pots that looked like they at one time did contain coffee, and there was not too much else on offer either.

We carried on into the centre of Quincy, and found it to be the county seat. It seemed like any employment here was linked to government which I suppose is fair enough. It's just that government seemed to be the only thing going. A plaque explained the history of the county, and it seems there was lots more of a base in previous times.

There were quite a few abandoned gas stations and houses. This out of business market made a good spot to eat our lunch of plain bagels salvaged from the motel breakfast.

A classical plantation house is visible through the trees.

Hwy 90 had a good shoulder and reasonable traffic. However none of the roads here feature too much of visual interest

On the west side of town it did manage to muster a McDonalds and Walgreens and some grocery stores. Among these was Piggly Wiggly, known to us from the film Driving Miss Daisy.

Click the link below to see the clip from the film

www.metacafe.com/watch/an-bjrUb4bnYhn7m/driving_miss_daisy_how_to_g

We had another try at the hot drink thing. At a Shell station and mini mart there was a coffee pot. I asked about fresh hot coffee and the clerk came and had a look at the pot. It contained about 6 oz of coffee lurking at the bottom. He just shrugged. Dodie now tried out the hot chocolate machine. It produced lightly brown coloured hot water. Well, at least the water was hot. Dodie went and put her own hot chocolate powder in it.

The background of Gadsden County. Quincy, the county seat, seems quite depressed these days, though.

As we pedalled along this day, as for the past several days, we noticed not only the large number of churches, but the large number that are not affiliated with any well known national or regional organization. We snapped the signs of a small selection of these. What is mind boggling is to think of the theological details and variations that are embodied in these churches. Earlier we had read the Wiki on Methodism, and found the complications of that quite puzzling enough.

One thing we did find in the mini marts was the latest local paper. Headline news is the threat of really cold temperatures, freezing rain and/or snow. In fact, we had cycled at 8 degrees all day, but by mid afternoon it dropped to 2. Rain began, with wind. We carried on, thinking this was kind of like Grampies Go Coastal, where we had cycled down the west coast in Winter. The only thing, then, we had had much tougher gloves and footwear.

Oh, oh. We happened to speak to someone at Adventure Cycling in Missoula, Montana today. He says there is no snow there!

We located a motel in Sneads, about 10 km beyond Chattahoochee, in the tablet. Just beyond Chattahoochee there is a long bridge as the road crosses the Apalachicola River near Lake Seminole. It's an exposed area, and the freezing rain was blowing fairly horizontally. Holding a gloved hand up beside the face was helpful in blocking this, but with both hands in fists inside the gloves, there was not much available in terms of braking or gear shifting ability.

We arrived at the motel and experienced again another "Coastal" feature, that of drowning the counter with dripping water. The clerk gave me the little address slip to fill out, using a remaining dry spot, but my fingers were not moving. He improvised by taking the info from my drivers license.

Looking at the weather forecast is dizzying. Certainly, the low tonight is supposed to be well below freezing, and tomorrow's high not much above freezing. But since this is Florida, figures for some succeeding days have highs in the 70's F. On the other hand, we are continuously moving West, so it's hard to predict which prediction will apply to us.

Again, camping (which seems to be all off route when we have located it at all) seems to be moved off the agenda for now by the weather. On the other hand, motels just ahead are giving us quotes under $40, which makes them way cheaper than Key West camping.

We knew the Southern Tier would be challenging one way or the other. So tomorrow we will open our door and see if the challenge includes snow in Florida.

WHERE HAVE WE BEEN

Our friend Michel Fleurance in Nantes France is keeping track of where we have been, If you click on the link below, you will be taken to an entry that he made in our Guestbook, that shows an updated track. Give it a try:

CLICK HERE

Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 1,282 km (796 miles)

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