Day 28: Crestview to Holt to Milton: The pants come off

February 1, 2014

Again, this does not imply anything risque, but merely indicates that we could dig deep into our bags and find our cycling shorts, putting away at least for now our woolly track pants.

So, decked out in shorts and soon, not even a windbreaker, we set off down US90. Once more we could remark that this is really a parkway in this region.And shaking off the past downers of weather and traffic, we can say that this bit is one of the most pleasant cycling sections so far.

Breakfast outside the motel. Look at the difference between the Coleman monster and the MSR stove with Jetboil cannister.

I am writing this in the five minute slice of time as Dodie has gone into the post office at Holt, to send some cards to th.e kids. Holt is only about 20km down the road. We left late and it is now 10 a.m. Our idea was to make a short day of it, maybe camping near Milton. On the other hand, with conditions so nice I would not be surprised to see us make a dash for Pensacola. That would put us in a motel by the water on the east side. It actually does not seem to matter much now, because we will have fun either way. What a difference the weather makes!

It turns out that the post office is not all there is to Holt. It also has a flashing traffic light. But hey, one more thing - a volunteer fire department. As we rolled up to the department we saw that were advertising the sale of ribs as a fundraiser. Best of all, they were cooking them up, right now! They were using several trailer style smokers. Unlike the little Traeger model we have at home, these did not rely on wood pellets for fuel. Rather, a robust fire is built in a chamber at the back. The firemen were using pecan which sounds like a good smoker wood.

The thing about these guys is they were not fooling around. They were cooking whole 4 1/2 pound slabs, and doing hundreds of these in a day. This was the third day of their sale!

Now I love BBQ, while Dodie usually avoids it. Even if we were trying to feed both of us, there is no way these huge dripping slabs were going onto the bikes! The firemen came up with a knife and some bags and fixed us up with a week's supply from one slab of ribs. $17.

The Holt fire department. That smoke is ribs cooking, not fire.

The bikes are getting ready to be loaded up.

Sending us down the road, the firemen proudly advised that the next light was 15 miles away. No matter, we sailed happily off in the warm sun on the good road. 15 miles did produce a flashing overhead light. Interestingly, it also produced what might be termed a bike path. This was a brick road, part of the original cross country road through this region, dating to 1921. We gave this a try for a km, but although there had been a lot of good restoration done, it was still too bumpy for us. We returned to the smooth road shoulder, which had now been helpfully signed as a bicycle lane.

The long needled pines look great against a blue sky

The only store in the town named for my brother.

The original long distance road in this area, SR 1. It's amazing how narrow it is, compared to US90 and then I-10

We don't want to overdo showing the signs of small churches, but this one certainly got our attention.

The Adventure Cycling map information had alerted us that after Milton the shoulder would disappear and we would need to be alert in an urban cycling situation. So our focus was mostly on the road and on predicting when we would arrive in Pensacola, after blowing through Milton and Pace beyond that.

So it was that we crossed the Backwater River. From the bridge, I had a look at the river and decided that it looked just normal, and probably did not warrant a photo. In each of our past trips, we have done this - sailed blithely into some region with little idea of where we really had arrived at. Then suddenly we would come to see that we were not just at a new town but were now at that New Town, the famous place that everyone knows about.

On we pedalled, into Milton. Until, that is, we came to the Imogene Theatre. Built in 1912, we found a lot of people pouring in. Some were wearing pirate's dress. Now, what was this all about? There is a local group called the Blackwater Pyrates. It's a service group devoted to river clean-up, historical preservation, and water and boat safety. They tend to wear pirates' costumes. They also have an annual rubber duckie race on the Blackwater, using, they say, German racing duckies.

Today they were hosting four talks by Archeology graduate students at University of Western Florida.They had drawn an audience of about 300. We peeked into the theatre and spied a spot where the bikes could be stashed. Actually we then went and talked to those Pyrates who were manning the lower area museum - the talks were upstairs. They immediately ushered the bikes deeper into the rooms, and plied us with soft drinks and UQs. With the bikes under many watchful eyes, we were free to go upstairs to hear the lectures.

We stayed for three of the four talks. The subjects were scoping out of a heritage trail along the Blackwater, the search for and finding of sunken steamships in Blackwater Bay, and the establishment of a high school course based on the archaeological excavation of a former slave operated brick kiln. The intensity and dedication of the students and the audience were clear. The Blackwater - river, communities, shoreline, Bay, and history are big things. Yes, this is the river that did not seem to warrant a free digital photo snap from the speeding bicyclist!

The flyer for the presentation we lucked in to at Milton

This is not one of the racing duckies. Maybe it's the mother duckie. We have two duckies entered in the July 4 race on the Blackwater.

Now, to be fair, on the other hand we did run into a disconnect between the glowing tourism pamphlets we picked up at the theatre and the the part of Milton along US 90 that we subsequently ran through. Here was a wide highway, vastly wide, lined with typical fast food and retail businesses. Any remnant of natural environment had long ago been completely submerged in asphalt. But, to be doubly fair, maybe we should bestir ourselves to leave the main drag a bit before pronouncing judgement!

One business that we found on the main drag was a bakery. Yes, a bakery, a stand alone bakery! In Europe we would always photograph these, and here was the first one we have seen since Key West! We waded in and managed to cross the street to get to the bakery. Lots of people were lined up to buy the baked goods. But shockingly, this amounted basically to donuts and one or two lonely breads. No matter, we bought up what we could. It was just ok, sort of. Hmmmmpph.

With all the fun and excitement, archeology and bakery, we had abandoned our plan of reaching Pensacola. We were back at the Milton short day thing. Ok, we dropped ourselves into the Regency Inn and Suites, where we knew Dan Patenaude had stayed last year. $60 plus 12.5% tax put this well away from the "almost like camping" notion. On the other hand, the skuzzy Emerald Sands down the road was the same price.

Tomorrow we will shoot through Pensacola and head for the coast (Big Lagoon State Park). With the coast, Mobile, and New Orleans coming onto our radar, we are eager to get into it!

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 1,510 km (938 miles)

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