Day 10 – Ugh and The Beach

Wednesday, October 30th

Fairhope, AL to Milton, FL

Getting up this morning was rough.  After the cold ride yesterday, our bodies were sore and tired.  But we got up for breakfast, did some motel research, packed up and headed out.  98 had been a nightmare in yesterday’s rush hour traffic, but this morning with the traffic dissipated, it turned out to be a very pleasant road.  We took 98 South then East and zigzagged our way over to 59 South which was to take us into Gulf Shores, AL.  One part of the jog took us over county road 10 and just after we turned to go East on 10, I noticed the smell.  It took me while to place the scent, but for the length of our ride along 10 (about 2 mi) the air smelled like canned pumpkin.  I asked Dad about it later, and he called me crazy, but I thought about it a lot over those two miles and it smelled just like canned pumpkin.

Riding 59 toward Gulf Shores, we traversed the Intercoastal Waterway (which I had never seen up close) and passed about a dozen small amusement parks.  Then we hit AL 182 which parallels the coastline.  For the next few towns, we fought a headwind along the beach and the rest of the day’s ride, from Gulf Shores to Milton, was like riding through one solid city with some amount of traffic the whole way.  The twenty miles from Gulf Shores to Gulf Beach gave us glimpses of the gulf, which is always a treat for an inlander, but the rest of the scenery got a little monotonous:  giant, high-rise condos on the right and 2-3 story pastel townhomes on the left.  There was a bike lane that lasted all the way until we turned off to take the Gulf Beach Hwy, but it’s used for a lot more than just bikes:  the lane had pedestrians, sand dunes, man-hole covers, gutters and rumble strips in addition to bikes.

We took a wrong turn in Pensacola, but eventually made it through the city only to be faced by the hills along the bluffs of Scenic Hwy (Hwy 90). Stressed out from the traffic and the climbs, we stopped at the turn off for I10. There was a gas station, a Dairy Queen and a lookout spot with picnic tables, so we snacked on tuna fish and a Reeses Blizzard while watching traffic on & under the I10 bridge over Escambia Bay.

After eating, we worked on postcards for those of you who have requested them.  We haven’t mailed them yet, but hope to today so keep an eye out for one!

Our series of bridges across the bay were still several miles to the Northwest and when we finally reached them, to our dismay, we saw there was road work being done.  The street and the shoulders had been ripped up and the traffic was heavy, so our progress slowed a lot.  We made it over the first bridge and Dad popped a tire on the rough cut asphalt.  While he swapped it out for another I checked my odometer and saw I had rolled over a thousand miles!  This included one ride before we left on the trip, but we should crest a thousand for the trip on tomorrow’s ride.

We left the traffic of the bridges only to meet up with the 4pm rush hour traffic of Pace, FL.  There was a shoulder on the road, but it didn’t stop a school bus from driving aggressively and cutting us off several times.  We eventually made it to Milton and for the first time since our first night of the trip when we stayed in Flatonia, we found a reasonably priced motel.  We cleaned our chains, ate microwaved potatoes, a pepper, a pear and some Fig Newtons and called it a night.  We have a long ride coming up tomorrow.

Today’s Quick Stats:

Bike              Distance (mi)    Average Speed (mph)

MiniWini            88.56                   15.9

Sti(ck/g)           88.57                  16.0

Stampedes: 2

Roadside Pees: 1