Day 15: To Gulf State Park

Published on 2010-02-15 by Bryan Carbone

Monday February 15, 2010, 47 miles (76 km) - Total so far: 575 miles (925 km)

Woke up to the sound of rain yet again. This is not one of the trends I was hoping to endure. Anyway, lots of weather channel watching led us to postponing departure for a while. A bunch of Sara's friends came by to see us off and take pictures. The rain finally passed and we got on the road. It even cleared up and became a beautiful day.

Sara and her mom. Sara took a 7 month leave from work to ride cross country, then thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail. She also got this gang together.

Jeff from South Carolina. Oddly enough, he grew up in Teaneck, NJ and graduated from William Paterson.

Carol and Rosie. Carol's retired Air Force. Been riding with her since St. Augustine.

Ryan from Virginia. He is also hiking the Pacific Crest Trail when he gets to California. He and Sara didn't know each other before this, and both planned to do the same awesome adventure. Very random.

Mike from Long Island. He got in at like 7 last night, after leaving NY on Friday I think. Greyhound, delays, layovers, weather...

We left Pensacola, getting back on the ACA route. A lot of today was spent riding with views of the water, which I love. We stopped by Sara's work so all her colleague's could see her off as well, then it was back on the road. We came across a bamboo garden, so Ryan, Mike, and I stopped in. The owner was real cool guy, and rode bikes as well. He showed us all these different bamboo plants he had, I think he said there are 306 varieties. Interesting.

He also had peacocks runnin around. So cool.

Then we pushed on to Perdido Key, and rode along beaches for the rest of the day. We stopped and walked around by the ocean for a bit. Then we rode by Flor-Abama, where the owner gave us a bunch of Bama Bucks, and we got like half price sandwichs. Got a fried shrimp sandwich, very tasty.

View off a bridge heading into Perdido Key.

So now we're all camped out at Gulf State Park. This place was sold out, we got the "emergency site." 28 bucks, and they let us set up 6 tents. Sweet deal.