February 9-15, 2014 – Finally! We made it to Florida!!

We pulled out of New Orleans just before noon on Sunday, headed for Florida, three states away via Interstate 10. We were now determined to get to Florida and warmer weather. It sure was a quick trip.  For some reason it just struck me as wrong to cross three state lines in a matter of hours instead of a couple of days.

 Our first state line.  Welcome to Mississippi!

 That’s a mouthful, but after all we are in Mississippi

We got to Alabama so quickly, that I missed the sign! We had planned to stay a couple of days in Alabama and travel north to the Barber Motorcycle Museum, but the nights are still too cold to camp so we pretty much blew right through. Soon we were trying to navigate through Mobile, and heading into the George C Wallace Tunnel.

Then it was over a causeway and past the USS Alabama.  Silly me, I never realized it was there, or I would have planned for lunch at the park.

 We have been on many causeways on this trip, but this one across Mobile Bay seemed to go on forever...

About 30 miles later, we’re in Florida. We stopped at the visitor’s center at the border, where they served samples of fresh orange and grapefruit juice, yum. We also picked up a ton of information. So much so that we parked at the rest area for the night and hammered out a vague plan.

WE got up early and headed south to the Emerald Coast Parkway AKA US 98. This will take us right along the beaches. We crossed the Pensacola Bay Bridge and spotted dolphins swimming near the bridge. Nice! 

 Morning rush hour.

This is vacation central, apparently. Both the mainland and the barrier islands are filled with hotels and resorts.

The state of Florida has a ton of state parks.  Henderson Beach State Park is located near Destin, FL tucked in the dunes between the highway, the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding resorts.

 We stopped for lunch and a walk along the beach.

 

 Wayne says the water’s a little cold

While we were stopped I called an RV park farther along the gulf coast in Mexico Beach, and reserved a spot for 5 nights.  It was time to take a day to work on the bikes and fit our new luggage to the racks.  We are still prepping for our Coast to Coast ride this summer. When we arrived and set up camp, Wayne discovered that the satellite dish was having problems, again.  So a call to Winegard and a lot of troubleshooting later, we had an appointment the following week to get more new parts installed.  This put us back on a schedule, of sorts…

 The first day was bike maintenance day, but day two brought a bit of rain.  Thought we were back in Washington!

Day three was clear but a bit cool.  After a trip to the post office, we rode our bikes the half mile to the beach, and then rode through ‘town’ to the far end where we headed out to the beach.

 Beautiful white sand beaches

If the sand is wet and packed down, then even my town bike can go.  But Wayne’s fat-tire mountain bike does better (they call them off-road bicycles here, I guess because they don’t have mountains).

We had to take a minute at the city park to enjoy the view. 

Day four was ride day. We wanted to see how the bikes handled with our new luggage attached.  We usually have nothing on our bikes, but maybe a spare tube in a fender pack.  Now we have tank bags and seat bags and saddle bags, on my!!  Soon we’ll have to do a trial run with a tent and all the rest of the gear.  Makes me want to shudder…

I was determined to find us a place to camp in the National Forest.  We dry camp in our forests all the time, so why not here?  So off we go to see if we can find something near Wakulla Springs State Park.  I have heard about that place and want to spend a day there, but they do not have a campground.

We head east on Highway 98.  Yes I know it’s paved, but what can we expect? We are doing Urban Adventure riding again.

We turn north on US 319 and take a left onto a dirt road. Yeah!!!  We actually rode about 70 miles of dirt mixed in with pavement for a total of 210 miles.

In areas that flood often, the trunks of Cypress trees grow wide and swollen.  How high up these buttresses go depends on how deep the swamp floods.  Cypress trees growing in the deepest parts of the swamp have the tallest buttresses.  Scientists do not know why buttress trunks form.  They think that the wide trunks help hold the tree up in the soggy soil.  Makes sense to me.

 When we got to the possible campsites we found lots of sand.  Too much to bring our big rig into.

This one would work, but we don’t feel comfortable with the thought of leaving the coach and trailer out there while we go sightseeing.  So it’s time for plan B. But there is no plan B, and we are leaving the next day.  If you know me, you know that I’m a planner and not having a plan makes me nervous.  Not sure I like this way of traveling, but I’m trying.

 We continued through the National Forest, passed the Bradwell Bay Wilderness. This 24,602 acre wilderness was established in 1975.

Underbrush is removed with prescribed fires.  As my friend JD would say, Smoky playing with matches. But it is effective here.

After leaving the forest we took paved back-roads and state highways back to camp. We loaded up the bikes, ready to move to the next location, I just had to figure out where that will be…