Florida Ride - Day Six

Florida Ride - Day Six

Diane drove me out of the busy Pascagoula traffic toward Alabama Highway 188.  But when we got there we found that this beautiful scenic byway was just a two lane road with little or no shoulder for me to ride on.

Feeling less than secure about the safety of the situation we drove on to Alabama 193 where I mounted my bike again.

Alabama 193 includes a 10-mile stretch of the causeway to Dauphin Island.  The causeway had a clean, wide shoulder.

Although it was still pretty chilly and windy, I thought I was in bicycle heaven, until . . .












. . . I saw this "bump" in the bridge.

I shifted down to the lowest gear that my bicycle has, and even then I wasn't sure that I was going to make it up and over the crest.

I had to ride my brakes hard all the way down to keep my bike steady.













I was quite intrigued by these "homes' on Dauphin Island.  It was obvious that the boat launch in the back was of far more importance than the house.  I later found out that they are just vacation rentals.















We took the Mobile Bay Ferry from Dauphin Island to Fort Morgan, Alabama.

The fare for the two of us, including car and bicycles was only $26.  That allowed us to circumvent the city of Mobile.













This section of the Gulf Coast is home/habitat for many species of birds and wildlife.  We passed several jetties whose ownership appeared to have been taken over by these pelicans.















Mobile Bay also seemed to be dotted in every direction with oil rig platforms.  The 2010 BP oil disaster put all of these habitats at severe risk.

The clean up efforts by BP and their subcontractors actually caused more damage than the deep water oil leak.















BP and the US Federal Department of Justice agreed to a settlement of $4.5 billion after BP pled guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony count of lying to Congress.













To date, however, the total cost to BP for clean up plus fines and penalties has exceeded $65 billion.

Guess who is paying that bill?
















Arriving at Fort Morgan, Alabama was uneventful, but it is a beautiful peninsula west of Orange Beach.

The ride to Orange Beach, while still on the cool side, as sunny and pleasant.  We saw many beautiful parks and beaches - some of which are privately owned (and you better believe it).















We couldn't find a place along my route to have lunch, so we just pulled over to the side and ate lunch in the car.













After working our way through some road construction detours in Orange Beach (through which Diane had to drive me), we found this nice public park.

It was early in the afternoon, and was my last rest stop of the day -- and the Florida Ride.














While I rested a bit on the bench, Diane did some exploring and "closeup" sightseeing, until . . .



















. . . until she came across this sign.  It seemed to take all of the fun out of her explorations.
















From the Perdido River bridge I took this first glimpse of the Florida Coast.

At one time the center of the Perdido River formed the boundary between Alabama and Florida at this location.  However, the boundary is now 2 mile further east.
















I was one happy camper when we finally made it to Florida.

Suddenly, I had no interest in riding one mile more.  I was done.













While the fete emphasizes the bicycle.  It would not have happened -- could not have happened without the constant support of Diane.

It is impossible to enumerate all she did along the way -- providing food, beverages, finding detour for closed or unsafe roads, scouting the path ahead, etc, etc.

She is the heroine of this ride!

Takeaways: 

I've tried to come up with a "good reason" why I would even think about riding my bicycle from Texas to Florida.  The only explanation that I have is that I wanted to prove to myself that, at age 75, I could still do hard things.  Hard things, not unwise or ill advised things.  I wanted to accomplish something that was noteworthy for a common person such as I, but which could be achieved with an exceptional degree of tenacity.  I think the thing that made it possible for me was in simply believing that it was possible and that I could do it.  I was not competing against anyone else or against the clock, or a speed record, or miles achieved; I was competing against myself -- my resolve to do it. 

Most of us, when we encounter adversity, try to make it go away, or find some way to circumvent it.  But, when we take away adversity we also take away true achievement, real accomplishment.  On this ride the difficulty wasn't just the distance between Texas and Florida.  Other trials came by way of the unseasonably cold temperatures, the near-gale force winds, the monotony coupled with slow progress, and muscle fatigue, all of which just caused me to double down my commitment to stay the course.  However, occasional concerns about safety did motivate us to briefly modify our planned route. 

It is sometimes hard to sincerely share the joy and satisfaction I received through accomplishing this goal.  I have found that those who have achieved difficult goals themselves are more likely to appreciate the effort required to achieve this goal.  On the other hand, most people minimize the difficulty of it through humor, saying: "I don't even own a bicycle," or "I rode my bike to the store once," or "What on earth is wrong with you, anyway?" 

I had set out on this ride to show that I could do hard things.  I did do hard things, in addition to achieving my destination.

Florida Ride - Day Five

Florida Ride - Day Five

Our motel in Bay St Louis was just a block of two from the bay.  Due to inclimate weather few, if any, boats left the marina. 














I rode less than a mile before coming the the Bay St Louis Bridge.  It had a wide segregated bicycle/pedestrian lane, which most of the coastal bridges seemed to have.

The weather was bitter cold due to the high humidity and gusty 25-mile per hour winds from the north.

I sometimes felt that I was going backward as I tried to climb the steep bridge.










The beaches were totally deserted due the weather.  Riding along the sidewalk adjacent to the beach from Bay St Louis to Pass Christian to Long Beach to Gulf Port, Ms, I had to battle the wind all morning long. 















I didn't arrive in Gulfport until early afternoon.  The wind seemed to get stronger as the day progressed and the temperatures were dropping. 














The beaches were freshly groomed, with wooden beach lounges evenly spaced -- and not a soul but me to "enjoy" them, and I was doing my best to get to Pascagoula.















I really liked this sign, but I hate to say that as welcoming as the sign was, I was being beat up by the relentless 25 mph winds.


















The nice sidewalks that I had been riding all day ended just as they approached the Biloxi bridge.  In their place was this wooden walk that went out over the Gulf waters for about a half mile.













Interestingly, the only sign I saw for Biloxi was over the road as I was leaving.

Leaving Biloxi, I found myself crossing yet another bridge, this time the Biloxi Bay Bridge.  Like the others, it offered no protection from the cold northern winds.

















The bridge had brass placards posted very .1 miles.  About half way across my curiosity got the best of me and I stopped to read what it said.  I had been on the bridge for 1 mile and I had .7 miles to go to the other end.  How comforting.  It didn't say anything at all about the near-gale force winds. 











The welcome sign for the City of Ocean Springs is on the side of a red caboose.  It is reminiscent of the old L&N Railroad that served this area years ago.  I want you to know that I once rode on the L&N (Louisville & Nashville line).  The car where my seat was located had a brass placard that read: "Rebuilt in 1918." 

This red caboose sells ice cream and snow cones -- not for me.  The wind would blow it out of my gloved hand.













Finally, two hours and another bridge later (this time, over the Singing River) I arrived at our destination for the day, Pascagoula, Ms. -- still in one piece (just barely).

Takeaways:  

Today's ride was the most challenging of all.  The forecast for the week included a couple of days of rain, so we were prepared with several changes of dry clothes, if needed.  I had even anticipated the high humidity.  But I thought we would escape the record-setting cold wave that was punishing the rest of the nation.  However, the dry-cold air from the north colliding with the moist, warm air from the gulf produced strong, cold, and humid winds. 

Some time ago a friend of mine who was an OTR truck driver asked me about riding my bike in the wind.  He asked if it was harder to ride into a headwind or to be battered by a crosswind.  I quickly confirmed that a headwind was the most challenging, thinking that a crosswind wouldn't bother me as much as it would the broadside of the tractor-trailer rig.  Today, I learned differently.  Two or three times the gusty winds almost blew me off the path on which I was riding.  I had to fight them every minute of the day to keep my balance, stay upright, and on course.  It was truly a one-day endurance test, a fight to the end.  Fortunately it only lasted one day, but I didn't know that at the time.

Everyone faces challenges in life.  Some adversities challenge our ability to remain upright and on course physically, socially, intellectually, or spiritually.  Perhaps the most difficult adversities are those that challenge our ability to gain or maintain balance in our life, giving the proper attention and energy to our needs in each of those four areas.  Finding and keeping that balance is THE challenge of this life.  We learn from Luke that: "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."  His was a life of growth and learning in the face of constant adversity.  We shouldn't be surprised when our challenges blow us off course, or even make us feel like giving up, nor should we become discouraged when for a moment our life doesn't have the balance we would like it to have. Like our Savior, we should strive to improve in all areas of our life, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." - Matt 6:33.   

Florida Ride - Day Four

Florida Ride - Day Four

Diane drove us from our motel to the Tammany Trace Trailhead in Covington, La, where I began my ride this morning.

In addition to a replica of the original rail station, there was a clock tower, a bandstand, restrooms, visitor center, exhibit hall and a small movie theater.  On Wednesdays, the Covington Farmers Market offers fresh produce, light lunches, and live music.












The 31-mile Tammany Trace trail extends from Covington to Slidell, La.   The old Illinois Central Railroad beds have been asphalted and the rail trestles have been remodeled into pedestrian bridges.

The high humidity (98%) and the threat of imminent rain were the only challenges along the trail.












As one of the highlights of my six-day ride, the trail connects the communities of Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, LaCombe, and Slidell as it makes its way through piney woods, dence deciduous growth, and wetlands with their lengthy bridges.














Some of the wetlands were perennial swamps dotted with knees from the Cypress trees.
















Other areas of the wetlands were made up of major waterways, such as Bayou LaCombe, shown here.

I stopped for a short break at Bayou LaCombe.  While there I struck up a conversation with a homeless gentleman.  Before leaving I gave him one of my Clif bars to eat.











The bridge over Bayou LaCombe is a simple sectional-lift drawbridge.
















The drawbridge stays in the up position between 5pm and 7am to avoid boating accidents at night.  Therefore, this section of the trail is closed during those hours.












While exploring some of the communities the bike trail went through, Diane found this beautiful specimen of a Live Oak, laden with Spanish and Resurrection Moss.  (She asked me to stand in front of it to provide a scale).

















Surprise of all surprises!  Diane also found this small remote cemetery.  It had only five graves, but was freshly adorned with flowers.












After riding the better part of four days across Louisiana, I was ecstatic to finally cross into Mississippi.

(Keep in mind that Louisiana is shaped like a boot, and I crossed the lower section.  Only the tongue of of the State of Mississippi extends to the toe of the Louisiana "boot".)










I didn't ride too far before Google Maps informed us that we had to turn off of the main road.  The secondary road quickly turned into a seldom used gravel lane.

It had been freshly graded with minus 2" gravel.

After several miles, I wanted to yell "Uncle" to Diane, but I couldn't catch up to her, and we had NO cell service.

We eventually arrived back at the same road we had turned off of.  :-(










Most of the homes in this part of Mississippi, whether small mobile homes or large mansions, were on stilts.

















Alas, we reached the Gulf, with its clean white beaches.  We were both energized by the change of scenery.
















 While Diane rode ahead to scout out where we were going to stay for the night, I stopped for a while to talk to a couple of fishermen on the "all-but-deserted" fishing pier.

Only one of them was having any luck, the other one was mostly interested in telling me his life story.













I continued to ride on the sidewalk adjacent to the beach the rest of the day - until we arrived at Bay St. Louis, where we stayed the night.

Takeaways: 

The Tammany Trace trail was one of the highlights of my six-day ride.  However, because it was straight, level, narrow, and without a horizon it offered few, if any, challenges or choices.  Generally, it was also without milestones or anything that might have served as a progress marker.  Even with the variety of foliage around me, after a while the trail started to become a bit monotonous.  The adversities, trials, or just hard things in our lives bring not only variety and progress markers, they also help us determine what is really important to us and help us remain committed.  While hard at the time, adversities play an important role in joy we get out of life. 

The gravel road we encountered was in sharp contrast to the smooth paved Tammany Trace trail.  It was very slow going, and after several miles for slogging through the loose gravel, and with no end of it within sight, I was ready to give up.  Diane was intentionally staying far ahead of me to avoid kicking up dust in my face.  I probably would have thrown in the towel if I'd been able to catch up with her.  To make matters worse, we were in an area without cell coverage.  The Google algorithms that put us on this isolated road don't consider road surface or other important personal services that cyclists need, but rather select what appeared to be the shortest route.   Sometimes in real life we do the same thing to ourselves; we divert course onto undesirable paths because we don't take into consideration things that later on might become very important to us.  The scriptures help us maintain a long-term prospective. 

My visit with the homeless man at the Bayou LaCombe bridge was very interesting.  Due to a couple of day-jobs he had taken, he had temporarily been away from his established place of residence along the bayou.  Upon returning, he found that others have taken over his place, and had trashed and vantalized it.  He was consumed by distress and fear.  He was afraid that if he moved back they would return and hurt him.  He felt that he had no choice but to find another place -- one that no one else wanted.   He was troubled knowing that his friends wouldn't know where to find him, or even if he was alive.  Once he found a new place that he could call home, he thought that he would try to let his friends know of his change of residence; but he worried how he might not be able to do that and still keep claim on his new spot.  The poor man was paralyzed with worry, fear, and bewilderment.  When we let our fears drive away our faith, then our peace, comfort, and security are also sacrificed.  Without faith our troubles can paralyze us and destroy our future hopes. 

Florida Ride - Day Three

Florida Ride - Day Three

We started our ride this morning from Livonia.  The temperatures were in the low 50s and the humidity was in the high 90s.  It was hard to stay warm without sweating under my cool-weather riding gear.

The Spanish moss brought back a lot of old memories for me, from when I lived in Savannah, Georgia.













I hadn't peddled very long this morning before I noticed that the highway was littered with small chopped pieces of cane and other debris.

I found a place to pull off the road to see what was being grown.  And found two plantings, this young crop...

... and this full grown crop of sugar cane, reaching 8 to 10 feet high.  All of the chopped cane that I saw was being transported in large open-top trucks, thus the littering.

Louisiana cane takes about 13 months after planting before it is ready to be harvested.  The littering begins when harvesting starts in October.  It last about 3 months. 











As we were researching about the crops grown in the Acadiana Basin, we found that perhaps the most popular crop was that of rice/crawfish.

Rice is planted in flooded fields, then a couple of months later the same flooded fields are stocked with crawfish, which are ready for harvesting about three months later, just before the rice is ready to be harvested.










Several miles further down the road I found that the debris along the side of the road had changed.  I was now riding through logging country, and the debris along the road was pine bark chips.  The cross-winds from the passing vehicles blew it off the road and onto the shoulder where I needed to ride.












We had to cross the Mississippi River just after we arrived in Baton Rouge.  As with the Atchafalaya bridge, without any shoulder it was impossible to continue across the bridge on my bicycle.

Further, we found US 190 through Baton Rouge to treacherous for a bicycle, so Diane transported me to the outbound side of the city, where I resumed riding to our lunch destination.











We found a lovely park about a mile off the highway, where we stopped for a quiet lunch.  While I stretched out on a bench, Diane was able to walk around the park on the paved pedestrian paths.  (And not a mosquito in sight!)













When we arrived at out motel in Hammond, later in the afternoon, we received a recommendation to eat at a local diner.  Considering that we only had motel-room-sandwiches the night before, this place was great!

The service was first class, and the food was even better than that.

Takeaways: 

During today's ride I noticed a couple of different conditions: the highway being littered with chopped cane, and the highway being littered with pine bark.  Being aware of the presence of both of these could have stopped there without further thought or investigation.  Even noticing that the size and shape of the pine bark made it more apt to be blown to the side of the road wasn't that significant.  But as we continued to observe and inquire about local crops, we discovered and learned more than we were able to see -- the farming (production) of crawfish.  When the flooded rice fields are stocked with young crawfish, they burrow down into the mud 6 to 8 feet deep, where they stay and molt for the next three months, when they surface again to feed.  They are not only out of sight to us but to the farmers, as well.  In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord says: "study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people."  (And, I suppose Crawfish).  A major part of our trip and our sharing each time we got together was about the things each of us observed, or learned along the way.  Life is like that, we can go along accepting the things we see at face value, but altogether miss what is below the surface, unless we take the time and put forth the energy to learn what is really there. 

I was initially disappointed when Diane had to drive me across the Atchafalaya River, and then again across the Mississippi River.  My disappointment was rooted in my original intent of riding my bike from Texas to Florida.  From a purist point of view these necessary adjustments didn't allow me to fulfill that objective. But as I thought more about it, I realized that I wasn't doing this so I could report to someone monitoring my ride, but rather for my own enjoyment and purposes.  This change in my paradigm opened the way for us to make other appropriate, but not required adjustments, which proved to make the overall venture more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been.  Further, the minor adjustments we were thus able to make opened the way for us to see, do, and learn things that otherwise would not have been possible.  Life is like that, when disappointments, discouragement, or setbacks come along, we can let them derail us from our destiny, or real purpose in life, or we can use them to grow and progress, and still arrive at our ultimate destination, all the better for it.