Day 65 (April 9)
Defuniak Springs Fl to Marianna FL
The route
continues to be wonderful. Wild flowers
are sprouting along almost every roadway, the grass looks manicured, and there
is red clover , with bright red flowers, growing everywhere. It is hard not to enjoy the miles.
The Florida
States Parks offer very nice camping, I stop at the Florida Caverns State Park
for the night. The ranger kindly gives
me a site in the Horse Camp, where there is only one other active camp site,
instead of in the main park, which is packed with RV's, campers, and loud
kids.
Luckily,
the only other campers have extra beers, so I trade them some of my
strawberries and kiwi for a couple of beers. They are a young couple from a
nearby town giving their new backpacking gear a test run before they start a
month long hike on the Appalachian trail.
In the morning I swap them my coffee
and the rest of the strawberries for some of their instant oatmeal and
hot water for my coffee.
78 miles
Day 66 (April 10)
Marianna FL to Tallahassee FL
A short day
today, my plan is to ride off route a little and visit Patty's cousin and his
wife- Woody and Joy- in Tallahassee.
I see one
oddity that deserves mention here; during the ride I pass alongside a large
reservoir ( a lake of about the size of Emigrant Lake) and notice that both
sides of the road have a short wall, built of driven steel sheet pilings,
constructed along the edge of the road right of way. This wall system goes on for what seems like
miles, even through a couple of housing developments. During the ride I mull
over any practical use of this wall system, it is too short in stature to keep
any large animals, like deer, from crossing the road, it is only along the road
where it is close to the lake, so the value must be there...but why. When I arrive at my overnight stay, Woody
(who works for the State of Florida as a beach engineer, more about that later),
mentions the wall with disgust, he describes the wall as a terrible waste of taxpayer’s
money- it's purpose is to stop turtles from trying to cross the road in the
time honored way, where they are certain to be squashed, and provides numerous
culverts under the roadway for their safe passage. Woody put the price tag for about 2 miles of
wall at 5 million. The poor turtles of
Texas, where the shoulders are covered with their squashed carcasses, would
love a little of this action.
Let's put
this in better perspective, spending money for goals that might seem out of
place in our current deficit driven economy. Woody works for the State of
Florida, and has for almost thirty years, in an office that spends 100 million
a year rebuilding Florida's beaches. I
cannot recall all of the different projects that his office manages, but he
described one project in detail, the sand replenishment of the St Lucie Inlet
beach. Two offshore dredges are pumping
sand about five miles, picking the sand
up well offshore and pumping it through a large pipe, where it is then
deposited on the beach, and spread with dozers.
He said the two dredges and the booster pump for the operation are
consuming 12-14,000 gallons of fuel per day.
The Florida
Beaches are a wonder to behold, I never would have guessed that there is an
operation that works behind the scenes, undoing the "damage" nature has
wrought when hurricanes and currents wash sand away from those beaches. The beaches would not look so fabulous if the
sand wasn't renewed on occasion. It is
all a matter of perspective.
I know the
turtles love their safety wall. I know
the beaches here look fabulous, so fabulous it is going to be hard to finally
turn my bike westward towards Tampa and my flight back to Oregon. But you spend a dollar here and a dollar
there, all for good causes, and before you know it, you are fifteen trillion in
the hole.
56 miles
Day 67 (April 11)
Tallahassee FL to Monticello FL
After great
morning coffee and an endless "green smoothie", consisting of
generous amounts of spinach and blueberries, Woody takes me to the Akulla
Springs State Park where we take a boat tour of one of Northern Florida's
wonders- fresh water springs. The one we tour spits out 250,000 gallons of
crystal clear fresh water each day.
Alligators everywhere, but no manatees.
When the Gulf water cools during the winter, the manatees like to swim
up the fresh water rivers and enjoy the constant spring water temperature of 68
degrees, my visit comes after the Gulf has started warming, so the manatees are
all back in the Gulf.
This
spring, like many of the springs in the area, has a very large vertical shaft
that drops deep into the earth, hundreds of feet, a draw
for experienced cave divers with SCUBA equipment. Woody dives here frequently.
The
mornings boat tour keeps me off the road until mid-afternoon, at which point I
pore on the coal to try and try to build some miles before dark.
No
campsites at the end of the short riding day, so I stay at the only motel in
Monticello. Like many older motels that have been forgotten by the tourists,
located on older state highways that no longer carry much traffic- the major
traffic now travels the newer interstates, which are often miles away- this one is owned by
"non-Americans". I am glad it
is there, albeit a little tired and dingy, managed by a feeble older man and
his son. I appreciate the roof over my
head, but I am also glad I only stay one night.
There must be a university in India that teaches a class "how to
buy and run a motel in America", these two, the father and son, just
passed with a C-.
55 miles
Day 68 (April 12)
Monticello FL to Ichetucknee Springs
FL
The ride is
through more Beautiful northern Florida terrain, but there is one new and
unwelcome element in the afternoon, smoke from wildfires. The continued drought
in Florida has brought larger and more frequent fires in the state, and there
are several raging in this area. Breathing is a bit raw during 4 or 5 hours of
riding, but then the route swings south, away from the smoke and back into
fresh air. This is the only time I experience
the smoke, but it is a reminder that all forests are combustible, even in a wet
state like Florida.
At some
point during the day, I pass a young guy pulling cart. He has rigged a UPS
style hand truck with a wire cage, which keeps all of his worldly possessions
contained, but open for viewing, neatly in the cart. He has a belt around his
waist, attached to the cart, which keeps the cart tracking behind him, at a
convenient angle so that the wheels are clear of his stride. He walks quickly down the road, his hands
free, the cart following right behind him. He plans to walk across the US without spending a dime. He is going to beg food or dumpster dive if
the generosity of the local population leaves him hungry.....sounds like fun.
Today is my
birthday, no cake, but I find an ice cream and a nice, cold can of Fosters beer
to celebrate my birthday. I am camped at a quiet family campground that caters
to the "tubers" who float the Ichetucknee River during hot
weather. A camper from the cabin side of
the campground comes over to offer me dinner from the leftovers of a feast her
extended family just finished.
96 miles
Day 69 (April 13)
Ichetucknee Springs to Hawthorne FL
I take a
couple hours in the morning to hike to the famous Blue Hole spring, which is
the major fresh water spring that feeds the incredibly clear Ichetucknee
River. There are three springs in close
proximity, all spewing forth large volumes of fabulous clear water, forming the
headwaters of the river. The river is
famous for kayaking, canoeing, and tubing; the springs are famous for scuba
diving- especially cave diving- and swimming.
The
campground has free coffee, so I grab a cup and then set off on a moderate,
early morning hike to the springs. There
is not a soul around, so I feel like I have the entire park to myself, at least
until I get to the Blue Hole. There I find two young people, just sitting by
the spring, I come up on them quietly, I didn't even know they were there until
I am almost standing next to them. They
have a withdrawn look to them, like I am an unwelcome guest, my guess is that
they were planning an early morning swim when I appeared. They accept my presence finally and I have an
interesting chat with the girl, which starts when she learns I am from Oregon, She has plans to spend the upcoming summer
working in Newport OR at the Marine Sciences.
She grew up near the Ichetucknee Springs, so she proceeds to tell me a
great deal about the recent problems the springs have been experiencing. The story is familiar; local agriculture, too dependent upon
chemical solutions, is funneling large quantities of runoff, heavy with
fertilizers, into the springs. She sighs
that the springs aren't as dependably clear as they once were. She hopes to return to FL for her masters,
where she wants to participate in studies on the springs, better mapping the
problems and solutions. I suggest
everyone get to Florida at some point and visit a few of these marvels.
68 miles
Hawthorne to St Augustine FL
Day 70 ( April 14th)
Big day
today.......
I camped at
what I would rate as the most depressing place of the entire trip; it is a
motel/campground that might have had a brighter future many decades ago, but
now it is a pit. It was packed with
migrant workers, either living in older RV's and mobile homes, or staying in
what the owner of the park euphemistically called "cabins". I will refer to them as hellholes. I couldn't use the bathroom or showers, they
looked like giant petri dishes of pestilence. The workers were in town for the
blueberry picking, for the most part they seemed like a happy and quiet bunch,
but I suspect the owner of the park made more money renting these squalid
cabins and mobile homes to the pickers than the pickers kept after paying for
their overnight stay. I will look at
blueberries differently in the future.
The final
days' ride to St Augustine is a little melancholy, for at the end of the day
the ride will be done. But mother nature gives me something to take my mind
from that, a headwind. A cool fifteen
mph headwind re-shapes my thinking 180 degrees and quickly, too. I go from a 9 am attitude that I want the
ride to last as long as possible, to a 1 pm attitude that I should push as hard
as I can to get into town for some food and a COLD drink.
I stop at a
little pub in the historic section of town for a quick black and tan, then down
to the south beach to rendezvous with a burrito shop for a killer burrito
(Winnie's contribution) and a cold Corona. I have the Bob Gnarley burrito,
weighing in at at least 1 1/2 pounds, it definitely fills every empty crevice,
and then some.
The State
Park is booked ahead for weeks, so I spend the night at the local KOA. Since I have "made it", I don't
complain about the $42/night to camp.
Imagine a cute picture of Geoff at the Atlantic!!
86 miles
