Day 35 – Gamble on the Rain

Monday, November 24th

Near Tillman’s Corner, AL to Waveland, MS

As soon as we returned from dinner last night, I laid down to rest my legs and passed out.  Dad stayed up for a bit, but fell asleep in the middle of trying to turn the TV off.  Yeah, who knew we were THAT tired.  When I woke this morning, my legs and even my hands hurt.  All the weather reports predicted a day full of rain and though we almost hoped for a weather-induced break, we packed up just in case the weathermen had it wrong.  Which of course, they did.

We planned on taking a Northerly route, heading North on SR 63 then West on SR 26, but since the next motel on this route was over 100 miles away, it seemed smarter to take 90 West along the coast where passed through plenty of beach towns with multiple motels to choose from, should we get caught in the rain.  We weren’t sure we’d be able to ride over all the bridges on 90 (Pascagoula Bay, Biloxi Bay, St. Louis Bay) but Dad found a trip journal at crazyguyonabike.com that followed 90 heading East from Bay St. Louis to Mobile, so we decided to give it a try.  Thus, our new plan became: ride until the rain comes.

We hoped we could make at least 20 miles or so, since some progress would be better than none, so we set off down Hwy 90 which, through Alabama, comes with a shoulder that is mostly covered with rumble strip.  Only a fourth of the shoulder, the six inches just to the right of the while line, was rideable.   A genuine surprise to us though: the drivers acted politely and maturely, giving us room as they passed without honking.  Amazed at the courteousness, we rolled into Mississippi and onto a stretch of Hwy 90 neglected for years.  The pavement was cracked at regular intervals and the shoulder – though the enticing width of an entire extra lane – was deteriorated, cheaply-laid chip seal rife with patches of loose gravel.  I’m sure the drivers didn’t understand why we rode on the road with the vast shoulder at hand, but when we tried riding the weed-encroached shoulder, it rattled us and stole 5-7 mph off our on-road speeds.

We also got to fight a headwind, and after yesterday’s glorious tailwind, Dad devised Kent’s Theorem: Nature discourages compliments.  Feel free to recreate that observation at home.

We kept riding and at about 15-20 miles, we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom.  They had a 2 for $2 special on King Size Hershey products, so we excitedly picked out two Reese’s packs (naturally) and bought a root beer as well.  We checked the air in our tires, then while Dad worked a bit on cleaning his chain, I laid back on my bike seat and almost took a nap.  I caught a few people watching me and I think they couldn’t believe I was that comfortable, which made me grin.  Have I mentioned I love these bikes?

We crossed the two bridges between Pascagoula and Gautier; after yesterday’s climb they were tough, but not intimidating.  We though about stopping for a snack, but the traffic along Hwy 90 in each town discouraged us, so we pressed on to Ocean Springs.

Heading West, the bridge between Ocean Springs and Biloxi looks simple – just a little hump, it’ll be tough, but nothing you can’t handle.  But then when you crest that hump, you see this:

We pushed up the bridge and celebrated at the top:

Next to the big, beautiful cross-bay bridge stood the supports of an older, smaller bridge.  I don’t know the story of what happened to this bridge, but here are some pictures:

Along Hwy 90 from Biloxi to Pass Christian, they are doing some form of construction over about 40% of the road.  Unfortunately, the road crews have coned off one of the two lanes over 80% of the stretch.  We tried riding in the lane with traffic, but tended to upset some drivers (even though we rode at over 20 mph and, in most places, traffic could hardly go faster than about 30).  We tried riding on the sidewalk along the beach, but ran into problems with leftover debris from hurricane cleanup:

Eventually the sidewalk completely disappeared and we thought about switching to the sidewalk along the Westbound lane of 90.  It looked like a newly installed sidewalk, but the designers occasionally chose to keep the curbs instead of installing ramps at street intersections.  With the inconsistencies, it turned out to be safer and simpler to stay on the road.

We started riding in the coned-off lane in places not actively under construction, which actually worked pretty well.  Traffic could pass us easily and with plenty of room and most drivers were paying enough attention to us and the road ahead to anticipate when we would need to merge back into traffic to pass a construction obstruction.

I say “most” because at one point, the cones opened up to the left lane, and a few meters down, gradually funneled traffic from the right lane into the left one.  We had to merge back into traffic and in the space where both lanes were open, we had some cars zip around us before the cones narrowed.  Those that had been watching us knew we were aiming to ride behind the cones blocking the right lane, but saw we had to ride with traffic to get around some of them first.  One girl in an SUV pulled up behind me, honked and passed me while we were both in the left lane.  She almost ran me into one of the cones (these are the skinny 3ft-tall type), but I squeezed between the cone and her car with a couple of inches on either side.  I moved into the right lane and threw her a gesture.  Dad laughed and commented jokingly, “That wasn’t very lady-like.”  I agreed and said “Neither was her behavior.”  I guess I should start soul-searching when my life is worth less than two seconds of someone else’s time.  Really, that’s literally all the time she would have had to wait.  Sucks to be me.

We stopped at a Waffle House somewhere outside of Gulfport for lunch and studied the map.  Based on our progress and the look of the skies, we figured we could make it to Slidell, MS and thankfully, my sister was available to help us hunt down a motel.  (Did I mention she’s awesome?)

We got back on the road and crossed another huge bridge into Bay St. Louis.  This one had a bike lane on the Eastbound side, but the Westbound bikers aren’t given much notice, so we kinda missed our turn on that one.  Riding over the bridge wasn’t bad though.  From the speed we gained coming off the bridge, we flew through Bay St. Louis.  As we passed through Waveland, the skies began to darken, so I kept a lookout for motels as dad kept an eye on the clouds.  When he felt a sprinkle, we decided to pull into a gas station for shelter.  While turning into the station, we passed a small feed store with several employees sitting on the porch enjoying the afternoon.  They cheered and yelled at us “Where you coming from?”  We replied “Florida” and they cheered some more.

After buying some fried chicken and drinks at the gas station, we sat at one of the tables inside to eat and rethink our options.  It started raining and the clouds rolled in as a dark, solid bank spreading West as far as we could see, so we called it a day and headed back to Waveland.  We checked a few motels but ended up staying at the Travelers Lodge Inn and made dinner from what we could find at the nearby Dollar Tree.  Hopefully the rain won’t stay overnight.

Today’s Quick Stats:

Bike              Distance (mi)    Average Speed (mph)     Trip Odometer

MiniWini            86.60                    16.9                          2417.7

Sti(ck/g)           85.25                    17.1                             –

Stampedes: 2

Roadside Pees: 2