It doesn’t take much to keep Terry and I happy and today it came in threes – an encounter with an Elvis impersonator, meeting some fellow Brits also cycling the Southern Tier and dogs. Yes, we were chased by our first dogs and it finally felt like we were home because no ride across the U.S. is complete without being hounded by some howling hounds.
“It all came together today, it feels like the ride has started proper,” smiled Terry, as we sat by the bar at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park this evening watching a rather portly middle-aged man launch into a Presley classic on the Teddy Mac Stage, while Teddy himself compered and assisted with the high notes.
We’d made it to the end of day three and that felt good because apparently the third day of a bike tour is when people are most likely to give up. They suddenly realise that in a moment of madness they’ve made a terrible mistake, pack up their panniers and go home – usually in the back of a pick-up.
It’s easy to understand why. On the first day there is the elation you’ve actually started after months, or possibly years, of planning. You’ve had a well meaning pat on the back from family and friends who can’t quite believe you’ve made it to the start, the adrenaline is flowing and you are off to conquer the world. You are unstoppable!
Day two and the endorphins are being squirted through your brain, hiding the pain of your aching legs and disguising the backache which has developed following your first night under canvas in years. ‘I can really do this’ you convince yourself and off you go again, far chippier in the saddle than you have any right to be.
Then comes day three. The well wishers and the body’s drug dealers have packed up shop and gone home. You are on your own and everything hurts. That lovely tail-wind is now blowing right into your face, you’ve discovered that climbing hills with panniers is nothing like sitting on a turbo-trainer and you’ve still got thousands and thousands of miles to go. Netflix, the sofa and a beer are just too alluring. Next year perhaps.
But for us it was the day everything came together. After a rather lacklustre breakfast at the Quality Inn we emerged into the heat (it peaked at 85F today) and slipped onto the 441, a very busy dual carriageway just outside the hotel. The initial signs weren’t good. Despite a hard shoulder the traffic was heavy, there was no shade and before long we came across a major accident where an SUV had run straight into the back of a lorry painting white lines on the newly surfaced and smooth roads. Not good.
But pretty soon the traffic thinned out and the riding on great country roads was good, despite taking a wrong turn which saw us heading into Fort White. At Ichetucknee Springs State Park we took a stop and before long we were both submerged in the crystal clear waters of the Blue Hole Spring, one of eight major springs that flow into the Ichetucknee River.
Maintaining a constant temperature of 72F all year round, it’s also known as Jug Spring by cave divers, its name coming from the underwater caverns hidden in the depths below the surface of the water. As we arrived, a dive instructor was getting kitted up with breathing apparatus and tanks, preparing to take two people through the cave system.
It’s the park’s only first magnitude spring, meaning the water flows at a rate greater than 100 cubic feet per second. In fact 76 million gallons of water a day flow from Blue Hole and swimming towards the mouth of the jug you could feel its strength as beneath the surface your toes jostled with the rich beds of swaying eel grass. It was incredibly refreshing on such a hot day.
It was only afterwards we saw a sign warning that alligators were present along the trails and waterways of the park and although they mainly ate turtles and other small animals they had been known to attack larger things like deer and er, humans. We figured the divers we’d seen would have been far too chewy, Terry too lean, which made me the likely dish of the day. Mind you, even underwater my lycra shorts looked pretty unappealling.
Stopping off at the nearby store for ice cream the woman serving us said there had been two or three groups doing the Southern Tier who had come through in the past few days, which was encouraging, since up until now we’d seen no other touring cyclists on the route.
A few miles on this was resolved as we met Thomas and Ben, from Walthamstow and Hemel Hempstead who had left San Diego on 6th Jan and were on track to finish on the Florida coast in a hugely impressive 38 days. They were travelling light and had been clocking up 90 miles a day. It was their first ever tour and they had loved the experience.
A few miles south of Wellborn we encountered our first dogs (up until now they’d all been behind fences, or tied up). As one and then two hounds began the chase there was no time to get the dog dazers out (electronic gizmos that emit a high frequency sound that pooches hate) so we asked more of our tired legs and tried – and succeeded – to outsprint them. From now on in the dazers would be primed and ready to go.
Wellborn turned out to be a very attractive small town with some historic wooden buildings and houses edged with wooden verandas. After finding the local store up on the main highway, we cycled back in and rested on benches in the shady porch of the Wellborn United Methodist Church, downed ice-cold Frappucinos, chewed the cud and put the world to rights.
As usual we stayed far too long and consequently, as the sun went down, we found ourselves cycling farther than we planned with little food and definitely not enough water, chasing the light to try and make our camp site in time.
But what marvellous cycling – gently rolling countryside with small farms and homesteads and every now and then a remaining patch of forested swamp untamed and wild would give you a glimpse of what the area would have looked like before it was drained.
With ten miles to go and the legs tiring I fired up some ‘Band of Horses’ on the phone and pretty soon got in the groove. For the first time since I arrived in the States I began to feel something like euphoria. The music, the low sun sparking through the live oaks, Terry cycling up ahead keeping such a steady rhythm, it was almost robotic – and it all brought back so many happy memories of the TransAm. Well that was until some kind of unknown insect collided with my knee and being as surprised as I was, dealt me a painful bite.
We arrived at the Suwannee River Camp Ground rather tired, but just in time to get our tents up in the fading light before braving the rather grim showers.
Then, finding the enormous heavy gas cyclinders we’d carted all the way from St Augustine didn’t fit our burners, we ditched plans for a meal of yummy supernoodles and wandered over to the music hall to join Elvis impersonator Teddy Mac and more than a hundred pensioners in full song for a karaoke evening.
The Spirit of Suwannee Music Park hosts numerous music events throughout the year in its extensive grounds, so you can just roll up in your RV, camp up and get on down. But every Thursday night is Karaoke in the Music Hall and they take it very seriously. There’s no drunken bawling to ‘I Will Survive’ here, so sirree!
Those taking part had put a considerable amount of work into their vocals and appearance and for some the Suwannee was just one of at least three venues they visited every week to strut their stuff and perfect their routine. The audience was good-natured and appreciative and we sat downing Bud Lights as the barman, a Tommy Lee Jones lookalike, served us food while throwing some groovy dance moves, which even including popping cash into the till as part of the routine. Certainly not your average Wetherspoons!
If you’re wondering if the Suwannee River is the same river made famous by Stephen Foster’s 1851 minstrel song ‘Swanee River’ (although its official title is ‘Old Folks at Home’) then you’d be right. But it turns out Foster never even visited the river, which now lay to our north. He just needed a river with two syllables. To add insult to injury he simplified the spelling because he was afraid people would mispronounce the ‘u’.
The song has since become the official state song of Florida although some of the lyrics have been revised. But tonight the old folks of the Suwannee River only had one singer on their minds and he wore tight fitting satin stage suits. We returned to our tents humming ‘Lonesome Tonight’ and deciding that, at last, the Southern Tier experience had really begun. Oh yeah.
Total Distance: 69.98 miles
Total Distance since Anastasia State Park: 196.98 miles
