Sun 12/19
Today ended up a little longer and harder than I expected. The good thing was that I had company for 40 miles and a wheel to sit on. After making some great biscuits this morning, randy set out with me around 9am. I was in for a surprise. Eastern pensacola is a lot hillier than I thought! Once you get away from the gulf, this area is basically the very southern appalachian foothills. I know randy was going slow for my sake, but I still probably rode harder this morning than most other days this trip. At one point we caught up to a group of 5 racers he knew and we rode with them for a while. My bike probably weighed as much as all of theirs combined. Eventually the group went a different direction and randy and I headed on a rails to trails path that led towards the blackwater state forest. We wound our way back towards hwy 90 and randy turned back rowards home. I kept going east, and made it to my destination after almost 70 miles.
The most interesting part of the ride after randy left was the 5 miles of dirt roads to get to my host, north of baker, fl. To call them dirt would actually be a misnomer though. Really they were sand roads. I stayed on the well packed sections but there were a couple places where it got pretty loose. Having ridden it one way, I think ill get a ride back to pavement in the morning. Dirt is great for riding - sandy silt not so much. The color of it was amazing though. It was the reddest dirt ive ever seen.
My host here farms blueberries in addition to working for the aforementioned forest. There was homemade banana bread and homemade candies, as a sampling of some of the highlights. I think I might do 80 miles tomorrow, if I can manage it. Now that im all done with the clinics I can be more flexible. We'll just have to see where I end up.
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