The most challenging part of this trip

September 6, 2016

Google maps street view is a mixed blessing. It's nice to be able to look at roads to decide if they are suitable for bikes. Last night we looked at the US 98 bridge going south from Panama City to see if it was suitable for cycling. The answer was no, there were no shoulders at all. But in this case there was no alternate route that would let us ride along the coast to Port St Joe. We resolved to take the bridge, but all last night I had visions of the dangerous bridge haunting my sleep.

This morning brought good news. Traffic on 98 to the bridge was surprisingly light. Cars gave us ample room to negotiate the bridge. Once we crossed over to Tyndale the rest of the route was excellent for cycling.

There was barely enough room for our shadow to cross the bridge.

End of the bridge, now there should be room for us.

When we got to Tyndall AFB we could here jets taking off right next to us. The base is full of pine trees and we couldn't see the planes behind the trees. The runway was so long that the jets were almost out of sight before they cleared the tree line.

The forest on the AFB looked so inviting we briefly considered taking a hike in the woods.

The Florida coast from Panama City to Apalachicola is very undeveloped. There are a couple of small villages, but they seem to have done a reasonable job of managing growth. The beach in Mexico Beach is publicly accessible, nor blocked off by condos.

Wait - how come we can actually see the beach here? Where are the condos?

The wildlife here is found in the woods, not in bars.

We emerged from slow time into the Eastern time zone. It's a good thing I never changed my watch to central time back in Kentucky, it saved me the trouble of changing it back today. It must be really nice to live in Port St Joe in Eastern time and work in Mexico Beach in slow time. You could leave for work at 9:30 and still make it to work before 9:00.

If you read the title of this entry, you may be wondering what was the most challenging part of this trip. For me the biggest challenge has been doing this blog. Most people don't want to hear about bicycles malfunctioning, road conditions, or washing dirty bike clothes in hotel sinks or washing machines. But that is what we spend big chunks of our day thinking about.

You may think there are lots of interesting sights to report. It's true we have seen a lot over the course of 3 months, but the majority of the time I am looking down at the pavement for debris, bumps or obstructions. We cover about the same distance in a day as you would in a one hour car ride. When was the last time you felt an urge to blog about taking a one hour car ride?

Cumulatively we have covered a vast distance. But we have also been confined to a tiny space. Consider a bike seat, there's not much room to move around. Our hands stay in the same position for hours every day. We get painfully sore in more or less the same few places over and over again.

Against this backdrop of following the same routine every day, trying to write about what we did, or more often what we didn't do, has not been easy. But I feel good that I have left some record behind that will jog my memory a year or two from now when I try to recall what exactly we spent the summer of 2016 doing.

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