"It's Country!"





From Janie:

 

Monday, November 5.  Driving from Destin, Florida to near Milton, Florida.  Riding into Alabama, back into Florida, then Alabama again.  Georgia tomorrow!

 

The view from our hotel balcony early this morning.

The beach, at sunrise.

Janie, Jody and The Little Darkness, at the resort in Destin.

Breakfast at one of a dozen Waffle Houses along the Gulf Coast, in Destin.

Inside The Waffle House.  Jody at the jukebox.

Yup.  At The Waffle House.

 

Jody, riding back into Florida.

 

I rode first this morning, for the first time on this trip.  Jody extended the ride on Saturday, down a lovely bike path and through the Blackwater River State Forest.  Nicole dropped me first, so I could ride those twenty miles.  Jody started where he had stopped on Saturday.  Nicole then picked me up and took me forward, where we had lunch.

 

After lunch, she ran me ahead again.  I got chased by dogs twice today.  The first was a group of three labrador-sized dogs, heads up and tails wagging as they ran out into the road to chase us.  And by us, I mean Nicole and me, in The Little Darkness!  Seriously!!??!!  I mean really, now they're chasing me even when I'm in the car!?!!

 

I rode another 25 miels miles, for a total of 45 today, in a little under four hours.  Jody rode close to 90, coming into the motel after Nicole had picked me up a couple miles out of town, where it was getting toward dusk and I was tired and cold.

 

Before she picked me up, I rode into Alabama, back to Florida, and into Alabama again.  While I was still in Florida, I met a woman riding down the road in a golf cart.  I passed her on the flat, and then left her as I sped downhill.  A little while later, she caught me going up a hill.  Long, long climb.  I stopped.  We chatted.  She told me that the farms along the road belonged to her mother.  That was her brother down the way, harvesting the soybeans.  Good crop this year.  Great peanut crop farther north.  Maybe peanut butter prices would fall to make up for the expected climb in corn prices. 

 

She offered me bottled water, which I declined.  I had a second bottle on my bike.  I said how beautiful the farm was.  "It's country," she said with a smile.  "It's country."

 

Jody and Nicole ended up talking to the men harvesting the soybeans.  Jody talked politics, then got back on the road.



Jody and the soybean harvestors.

(Not to be confused with Jack and the beanstalk.)

 

Then they persuaded Nicole to climb up on the harvester and see the crop:

 

Nicole, surveying the crop.

 

Soybeans.

 

Soybeans.

 

After the farm, the road meandered back into Alabama.  Coming around a bend, I saw a small dachsund run across the road, being chased by three yappie little hors d'oeuvres-sized dogs.  I shifted and speeded up.  Stupid little furballs.  They might have actually been smaller than the tarantulas we saw in southern Colorado.  Not much to fear there, other than running over one of the little beasties.

 



Late afternoon, Alabama countryside.

 

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
     ~Buddha