January 30, 2014
Day 26: Sneads to Bonifay: Stir crazy
The weather forecast is for warming - tomorrow. This morning, the news is still filled with the disaster in Atlanta. Closer to us, the Interstate, I-10 remains closed from east of us to west of us. Our road, hwy 90, parallels the interstate, and therby becomes the main east west artery in the region.
At 8:30 a.m. the bike computer thermometer shows the temperature all the way up to 0. So, in another 1/2 hour we will go for it.
Aside from temperature and traffic and places to camp or stop, food has become a growing concern. It's not that there is a shortage of things to eat. It's the shortage of things that are edible. From our yesterday's shopping trip, we threw three things directly into the garbage unused: Hormel Microwave Roast Beef and Mashed Potatoes (worse than dog food), Carolina Pride Salami (made from pork hearts), and the mustard we bought to go with the salami.
In principle, the store had some reasonable quality food, like fresh meat, but you would have to cook that, using a fair amount of kitchen equipment. We are relying either on one pot, or a motel microwave. Perversely, we feel that puts us in league with the poorer people around here. We can feel our bodies weakening from it. We will have to search harder or more carefully for any kind of quality carbohydrate, protein, vegetables, or fruits.
In the meantime, we still have some Moon Pie and a plain motel bagel, so we will put those in the "tank" along with instant oatmeal, go out on the highway and burn it up!
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We bundled up in all our layers, including three hoods, and set off down the highway. As often happens, reality was not nearly as bad as what was feared, and in fact it turned into very pleasant cycling.The exception was the traffic diverted from I-10, which was way worse than feared.
We see the same pattern in each of the towns we pass through. The highway has a reasonable shoulder until the town boundary. Then an extra traffic lane is added and the shoulder disappears. At some point, but not necessarily the point at which the shoulder disappeared, a crumbling sidewalk appears. Then you get to cringe along the sidewalk for 5 km or so, until the process reverses at the other end of town.
An exception was Marianna, where the shoulder disappeared and a sidewalk did not pick up the slack. Meanwhile, both lanes were full of charging traffic, including an incredible number of big trucks. Dodie's approach to this is probably the accepted one: take the lane. My feeling is that holding up a lane of dozens of trucks for kms is not on. The risk I see is that an inattentive driver justs takes you out, straight on. Or the variation - the driver just behind you sees the situation and hangs back, but soon is able to move over to the left lane. Then the driver that was tailgating him steps on it. ooops.
One thing that does happen is that the driver just behind you will protect the lane for you, crawling along at your speed. They always get a big wave from us when they finally do pass.
We made it through Marianna, obviously. I was pouring sweat, and not from any particular exertion.
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We found a shelter with picnic tables, and broke out our cheese sandwiches. A man came along, and after some UQs, strongly advised us against trying to go any further west today, because of ice and slush. A little later, we stopped at McDonalds, where the 50 cent apple pie is now starting to taste good to us. The same thing happened - we were heavily warned against continuing west. The people are very well intentioned, but they are projecting their own reaction to unaccustomed cold, and are not assessing the situation strictly rationally. In fact, no ice or slush attacked us over the course of the day.
Camping that we are able to find on the ACA map or in Google Maps is normally quite far off route, if it exists at all. Plus, the typical price is $25. Motels here range from $33 to $45. Tax puts the $45 to $50. But at least there are motels on route.
On the other hand, the one motel in Chipley, at $33, was just too skuzzy. So we persisted a bit and continued to Bonifay. Here there are some good motels, but off route, at I-10. The one on route one, the $45 Economy Lodge, was reasonably clean but had a smallish room, no water pressure, a bath control that fell off in my hand, and a microwave (once they found one) from 1985.They came around and asked us to keep the water running so it would not freeze overnight. Good move, since it's another hard freeze tonight.
The lands we are passing through are remarkably plain. One could not say that it is one of farm fields, nor forests, nor former plantations, exactly. There are elements of all these, but the overall impression is -- no impression.
We want to make this tour and this blog as interesting as possible, but Florida is going to have to step up to the plate and come up with some farms, markets, architecture, or history to throw our way. If not watch out, in a few days we will have taken our business to the competition: Alabama and Mississippi.
Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 1,362 km (846 miles)
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