Between my 5:30 a.m. cup of instant coffee and tucking into the Gulfport Best Western this evening , I've finally had a minute to put a little update about our journey online. Nothing fancy (and the editor in me must apologize for some layout problems), but there's a map of our route below and some photos underneath that.
The trip so far has been great, and I'll try to backtrack and fill in some information on the map as I go, but here is a brief, brief history for now. Florida was a great state for us--highlights included historic St. Augustine, a state park on the Suwanee River dedicated to Stephen Foster, the capital in Tallahassee, the backwoods Panhandle, and gorgeous sugar-white beaches on the Gulf. I loved riding highway 399, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, which is still closed to motor traffic from Hurricane Ivan damage from four years ago.
We came into Alabama on the Gulf Coast and took a ferry across Mobile Bay from Fort Morgan to Dauphin Island. The Dauphin Island Sea Lab is major marine research institution, and they operate a small museum--the "Estruarium"--where we got to take a close look at some horseshoe crabs. (Their bodies, which look like something out of the movie "Alien," have changed little over millions of years, we're told.)
Alabama passed in a blink of an eye, and today was our first day in Mississippi. We had a great po' boy lunch at Biloxi's Schooner and rode the coastal highway down here to Gulfport. The beach was neatly raked and pretty, but noticeably sparse. Later this afternoon, a bike mechanic gave us a firsthand report on what everyone just seems to call "the storm." Details brought his story home. Frozen chicken from a Tyson storehouse was apparently rotting all over the beach amidst the destruction, and people made temporary homes in churches not just for weeks--but for years.
It's way past my 8:30 bedtime at this point, so I must sign off before I get carried away again. The miles definitely knock me out by the end of the day (and we just cracked 700!), but I'm having a blast.
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Hello Elizabeth and John--
ReplyDeleteSo glad to see you documenting this as you go.
Ah: St. Augustine! I lived there for 8 months when I was 19. Interesting, hickish, small town and cheap. Looking at your Flick'r takes me back.
Coincidentally, it was my launching off point for a 6 week, 3,000 mile hitchhiking trip... in a time before blogs (or internet even).
Anyway, enough about me.
Enjoy the rest of your trip and keep us posted.
congrats on such a great trip. looks fun so far...how's the actual camping going? john, i want one of those crawfish meals when you get back, k? we can grill it on my back porch so you'll feel camp firey. rock on, guys.
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