75.6 miles 482 feet of climb
We left the RV park at Mexico Beach and headed east along the Gulf Coast. Our goal was Ocholockonee State Park where we were going to camp for the evening. Most of the day we were going to be on our old friend HW 98. At least it had a decent shoulder.
We had a slight headwind, but nothing like it was two days ago. Still it was enough to slow our progress a little bit. We went by several beach developments, Saint Joe Beach, and WindMark Beach. Just past the Port of St. Joe, we encountered our first bridge, but it had a shoulder to ride on and it was not a problem. There were places where the road moved away from the coast and the wind was slightly diminished. James and I had lunch in Apalachicola at a place called The Station Raw Bar, an oyster joint. We were on the coast and it seemed like we should be eating local. We were joined by Tom and Chuck. We tried several things, steamed oysters, Oysters Rockefeller, an oyster po boy along with cheeses grits, fried okra and hush puppies. Chuck had a cheeseburger. He said it was good.
After lunch we went over a three mile long bridge/causeway that took us out over the water. The climb over the bridge portion was not bad, but the wind grew stronger over the water, which slowed us down. There were a couple of stretches of road which had no shoulder and that pushed out into the traffic lane. This was a highway and it was getting busier as the day wore on, especially with trucks. Most people move over when faced with a cyclist in a traffic lane, but not everyone is nice about it. We had one semi come up behind us, slow down, and honked his horn at us loud and long before moving past us with not much room to share. Believe me, if there was anywhere to go to get off the road, I would have been happy to do so.
Part of our ride was through the Apalachicola National Forest and the Tate's Hell Wildlife Management Area. This contrasted with the building boom along the coast. I googled Tate's Hell and here is what I found: "Legend has it that, back in 1875, that Cebe Tate came staggering into [the town of] Carrabelle out of this enormous swamp along the Gulf Coast after being lost for days, perhaps a week, and only lived long enough to say 'My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell.'"
We moved off of the highway and onto a road that turned away from the coast towards Ocholockonee River State Park, where we camped for the night. It was primitive, there were limited facilities, but there were an abundance of white squirrels around. Bennie told us they were aggressive and would chew through a bike bag or a tent to get at food. Most of us locked up in the trailer any snacks we were carrying in our bike bags, except Tom. He did have a squirrel gnaw a small hole in his bike bag to get at something.
Tomorrow is a 70 mile day to get us to Perry. We are getting weather reports about a thunderstorm so we have elected to stay in at motel tomorrow night so we wouldn't have to ride out the storm in tents.
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