Cycling across the southern U.S.
Finally a day of no cycling. So nice to enjoy island life – relax, catch up on other life, read, sightsee, eat. Visited the very popular Lighthouse Bakery, West End Beach where you can enjoy a sandy walk a very short distance between the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay, & Alabama Aquarium. Cooked in both nights.
Lovely bike ride on multiple paths through Gulf State Park and the city of Gulf Shores this morning. Then west to Fort Morgan and the ferry across Mobile Bay to Dauphin Island for 2 nights! Don’t worry, I didn’t count the mileage on the ferry in my cycling mileage! And how are we so lucky to encounter calm seas and breezes and cool temps?! 😊 30 miles, 289’ So happy to now have a break off the bike til Sunday morning.
Florida days cycling: most of 7 days, miles: 508, elevation: 11,477’ elevation gain…. amazing when the highest point in the whole state is less than 350’ elevation!
Busy Hwy 90 for first early hour with heavy fog and morning traffic, then glorious back country roads, then lovely Blackwater Heritage Trail, then back on 90. And sadly “Gulf Beach Hwy” along Pensacola Bay doesn’t mean beautiful. Finished off along the Gulf of Mexico with a lot of high rise buildings and white sand. Another long gritty day! 88.6 miles, 1962’ elevation gain. Jody adeptly secured a new car battery!! Thank you!! 👏 👍
Welcome to short visit to Alabama along the Gulf of Mexico and across Mobile Bay the next few days.
Yesterday Tom decided to count churches. From the outskirts of Tallahassee to Marianna, Steven and I helped Tom count 43 churches – actual churches on the route of varying sizes, mostly Baptist or Pentecostal with a smattering of Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal and Lutheran. Signs for churches off route didn’t count! There were a lot of churches; not sure about attendance.
Another big mileage day today of 85.8 miles and 1819’ elevation gain – all on highway 90 which varied in number of lanes and shoulder width. I-10 parallels 90 to the south, yet 90 is a fabulous road with little to a lot of traffic. Three separate times today a wide load came by and serendipitously we were already pulled over for a short break each time! With a gorgeous tailwind; cloud cover til 11am; no navigating necessary…. One can notice all sorts of things along the way! The last 30+ miles were quite busy with lots of traffic so less enjoyable but all safe! A cute Airbnb tonight in Crestview and then on to Alabama tomorrow!
Would have been nice to spend some time in Tallahassee and see the Florida State campus. Will have to return for a longer visit. Sunrise departure for another long day, but we crossed over to the Central time zone, so life is now an hour earlier! 75.7 miles, 2509’ elevation gain as we entered the NW of FL and rolling farm land. Even the soil changed from a sandy white color to a bright orange after crossing the Apalachicola River in Chattahoochee (a stones throw from the Georgia state line). And did I mention what an utter joy it was to have the slightest east/northeast tailwind most of the day??!! Totally amazing to end day 5 a bit sore in the wrists and tushie when the rest of your body and soul isn’t wiped out from battling a headwind. Staying in another clean 2 star motel in Marianna, another county seat with a gorgeous old courthouse and lots of history of battles between humans. And so great to arrive at our destination and our amazing support driver Jody already has us checked in and bags unloaded! Luxury!
58.7 miles, 1527’ doesn’t sound difficult but started late at 915am after nice B&B breakfast, so ended with 85 degree temps and some varied headwind all day. Wish I could figure out my eating! Stomach aches has been the bane of my challenging cycling for years. Now in the capital of FL – one of the bigger cities we will cycle through – home to Florida State and also the Seminole tribe which is known as unconquered people who never signed a peace treaty.
Dinner last night on a hoppin’ Saturday night in historic downtown High Springs. One disadvantage of our treks across America is our choice to keep pedalin’ even when we travel through an interesting place. Cycled across Suwannee River today… made famous by Stephen Foster’s song, “Swanee River”/“Old Folks At Home”. Foster never saw the river and misspelled it intentionally since he only wanted a river name with only 2 syllables! 🎶
Roadkill: deer, possum, big vulture with another one flying overhead very disturbed. Live fauna: wild turkeys, great egret, deer, vultures. Flora: more Spanish moss, lots of pink bachelor button-looking flowers, azaleas, wisteria, huge pine plantations
Sunday mornings are reliably a lovely time to cycle even when they start out early (due to expected long day) with a bike pump fail causing you to think you have a tire tube fail, and your TST buddies change your front tire! Then a 20 min late start in the fog on a four lane divided highway, O’Leno to Ichetucknee Springs Trail, lovely county roads with no shoulder and busier highways with decent shoulder. 88.3 miles, 1719’ Thank goodness for Tom and Steven pulling me along at a 14mph daily average pace. The wind got pretty bad the last half of the day together with the 85° temps. Did meet a young man on the Southern Tier who had started in San Diego. He was anxious to get to the next café before it closed on a Sunday, so didn’t get to chat much.
Staying in a lovely 1890 B&B tonight owned and operated by an amazing 84 year old Linda. Madison, although the county seat, seems somewhat depressed since I-10 is just south of town. Tired but used my GRIT today!!
Last night’s vrbo on a very dry White Sands Lake (hence the very deep sandy roads to get here!) was a comfortable, clean, basic lake front cabin. Most of the Spanish moss is grey and dry looking, and the lakes and swamps and rivers are very low due to an exceptional drought here. Tom cooked up a great pot of lobia pulao (in the Instapot we packed) to accompany dry rubbed bbq chicken and lemon garlic asparagus. Fuel for the road.
The morning was gorgeous with a cacophony of bird sounds greeting the dawn. Jody drove us back to the route in Melrose (no need for battling sandy roads again!). From 4 lane divided highways with varying shoulder width to gorgeous bike paths today. Through “Gator nation” of University of Florida in Gainesville to smaller historic towns of Alachua and High Springs. 53.8 miles, 1112’ elevation gain felt harder than it should have been with about avg speed of 13.6mph. Slight winds and not too hot. Tomorrow will be a doozy with over 90 miles! Haven’t cycled that many miles in one day since the last TransAm in 2023! 🤞🚴♀️
FL nickname: The Sunshine State, bird: mockingbird, flower: orange blossom, wildflower: coreopsis, motto: “In God We Trust”
We enjoyed old town St Augustine yesterday, prepped some yummy boiled potatoes, egg bites and Super Hero muffins (“Run Fast, Eat Slow”, Flanagan & Kopecky), went for a test ride (forgot all the water bottles I thought I packed in the car for me and Tom! Bike shop run before Day1! 😩) and enjoyed another lovely dinner (albeit very loud and busy) out with Steven and Jody. So much great food in this city.
62.5 miles & 829’ elevation gain. Super exciting to dip our back tires in the Atlantic Ocean again …. as we did in Rehoboth Beach, DE in 2015 and in Bar Harbor, ME in 2023! Enjoyed cycling on two gorgeously smooth trails during most of the day today: Palatka to St Augustine State Trail & Palatka-Lake Butler State Trail. North wind pushed us along a lot of the day with a bit of tail xwind at times. Stayed in a small vrbo on a small (very dry) swamp/lake north of Keystone Heights. Had to call Jody for a pick up a few miles short of the house on day 1!! Backroads in FL can be several inches of sand…. not noted on the maps! 😩 Thanks Jody!!
Animals today: small wild pigs, vulture, egrets, cranes, hawks, geese, possum road kill. Flora: southern yellow pine plantations, big fields of potatoes and cabbage, huge live oaks with Spanish moss (which is neither Spanish nor moss!!)
St Augustine FL greeted us with mild temps and light winds on St Patrick’s Day. Our driver Jody got held up by airlines, so she arrived a day late. But no worries; we planned on 3 nights here to adjust to the time change and sightsee in the nation’s oldest city (461 years of non-native occupation). Of note: Ponce de Leon, Henry Flagler, coquina, Castillo de San Marcos, Fountain of Youth, lighthouse, tourists!, lots of great food, beaches….
Thanks again to Steven’s Transport, aka our fellow TST – Team Southern Tier – cycling buddy Steven, for driving our support vehicle and all the gear 3000+ miles from Oregon. Tom and I LOVED staying home the extra almost 2 weeks to enjoy time with our new granddaughter Miyako Katherine Yuan born 3/4/2026 and watch her wonderful parents, Anna & Aki, adapt to a new normal. ❤️ Also needed the time to celebrate on 3/12 the amazing life of Tom’s mom, Joyce (10/5/1935-2/11/2026). ❤️ 💜 She will be missed.
TransAm Cycle 3.0