There’s an old proverb which says he who takes pictures of junkyards shouldn’t be surprised when they attract the unwanted attention of junkyard dogs. I should know better really, but I just can’t resist the lure of scrap cars and that down at heel muscle car with its bonnet up looked very much like a Boss Mustang to me.
As the growling hound came running at the fence and I started pedalling smartly away, I could see Terry up ahead giving me one of those knowing glances which said: “Why don’t you ever learn”?
Fortunately on this occasion all the dog could do was bark and I had a lucky escape.
We’d left the Brahman Motel just after 7am. It was so early the sun hadn’t come up and we needed our lights to cut through the darkness. Our swift departure was was on two counts – one to escape all pervasive smoke of the room and the second to make the 25 miles to Tallahassee in time for breakfast.
Fortunately, we were only on the dreaded 90 for a couple of miles before the Adventure Cycling Association route map took us down the Old St Augustine Road, which was far more like the type of roads we’d hoped to encounter on our ride through rural Florida. As soon as the sun came up so did the temperature. With some hills thrown in for good measure I was certainly building up a sweat despite the shady canopy. But we’d have taken a road like this, which was much more similar to riding in the UK, above the 90 anyday.
After cycling over the I10 Interstate with its traffic moving at Interstellar speeds compared to us, we rode through the tiny community of Lloyd which looked to be very poor with people living in little more than shacks surrounded by old cars and abandoned household bric a brac.
There looked to be some work going on to restore or retain some of the more historic buildings such as the Laffitte Store, built around 1912. It didn’t look like it had seen a customer in a long time, but it was now under the ownership of the Lloyd Community Preservation Trust, so perhaps there was some hope for its future.
Less could be said of some of the local churches. St Clement’s Chapel built in 1890 had originally stood in Lloyd, but a decling congregation and the need for extensive repairs saw it close in 1958 and a year later it was moved to Tallahassee and renovated.
“Lloyd seemed to be yet another example of what had once been a thriving community undergoing a long and lingering decline.”
The town’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1870 and closed in 2011. The building was demolished, but the owner had built a tiny replica, which we originally thought was a large dog kennel (we are so well tuned to look out for dogs!) which sits by the road as a reminder to the town’s past. Lloyd seemed to be yet another example of what had once been a thriving community undergoing a long and lingering decline.
We arrived in Tallahassee at about 9.30am. Being Florida’s State Capitol we’d expected it to be a bustling metropolis but, despite it being Saturday morning, everything seemed to be closed. The only exception seemed to be the impressive building of the Supreme Court where law students from all over the state were descending to put their studies into practice.
We spent half hour or so trying to find somewhere, indeed anywhere, that was open and served breakfast. It was made all the more frustrating because it was hilly and we were hungry. Eventually we found ourselves in the university quarter sitting eating breakfast bagels and drinking coffee surrounded by crowds of young women. This seemed to be the place to hang out on a Saturday morning in Tallahassee, but we certainly weren’t their usual clients.
We hopped back on the 90 for a short time before cutting onto quieter roads again and arriving in Quincy, the county seat of Gadsden County and etablished in 1828. Passing through we saw a black woman, probably around our age in her 50s, standing by the side of the road. She didn’t seem to have any particular purpose for being there and we weren’t sure if she was waiting for someone, but she told us how her home had been ripped apart by Hurricane Michael and she’d had to remain living there for weeks after it hit because she was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. It was a rather confusing story, but an introduction to the devastation thay had hit the Florida Panhandle less than six months earlier.
“One of the many advantages of lycra is that you can’t hide a weapon without it being blindingly obvious”.
This part of Florida appeared to be a peaceful area, but a little later down the road at a gas station the cashier warned us this was a ‘rough neighbourhood’ after we asked for the key to use the toilets. It turned out a armed gang had hidden in there just the week before before emerging to rob the place as well as the Subway store nearby. He said another local gas station had also been hit with the woman cashier having a gun pulled against her head. She quit right afterwards.
One of the many advantages of lycra is that you can’t hide a weapon without it being blindingly obvious so he handed over the key to the loos without any issue. Besides which it would take two pretty hapless criminals to attempt a getaway on fully laden touring bikes.
Later, as we drove past a police station there was an additional clue that perhaps this area wasn’t quite as trouble free as we imagined. Parked beside the building next to the sheriff’s patrol cars, was what could only be described as an armoured personal carrier complete with night scan equipment and bearing the words ‘Sheriff Gadsden County Special Response Team’ on the side.
Leaving Quincy we saw the first the first physical signs of some of the devastation caused by Hurricane Michael with the roof of the Quincy High School covered in blue tarpaulin. There was further damage in Gretna with the Baptist Church roof taking a hit and evidence of homes completely destroyed by falling trees.
Amazingly the delicate weather-boarded structure of the Old Gretna School House seemed to survived unscathed. Dating from 1908, but actually looking much older, the two-storey building with three rooms downstairs and one large room and stage upstairs, was used as a school until 1935. Since then it has served as a health centre, town hall, community centre and for church-related activities. How it avoided being wrecked was beyond – we dared not lean our bikes against it for fear of sending it crashing down.
We rescued our first turtle today as it dawdled across the road, picked up some new (and smaller) gas cyclinders from Wallmart and spent a lot of time discussing whether we are going to make it to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.
Our original plan had been to cycle to Baton Rouge, leave our bikes at an air B n B and then get a greyhound down to the Big Easy, but with our later start this just wasn’t going to be possible. One alternative is to cycle into New Orleans from the east side, but we’ve no idea what the roads are like so we are spending our spare time scanning blogs to see who else has attempted it. Experience has told us that going AWOL off the ACA maps never ends well, but staying on them hasn’t been that great so far either!
To get in the mood for going off piste we went way off route to find the excellent Triple C’s Campground and RV park south of Chattahoochee. Here we pitched our tents in a wooden sheltered area designed specifically for them and Terry used our new gas bottles to whip up a delicious meal of glass noodles and rice ramen flavoured with coconut milk and peanut topping.
As Terry remarked “You know you are tired when a mixture of two type of four minute noodles taste good!” But there’s nothing like outdoor cooking to make you appreciate even the simplest of foods and we ate them outside in one of the camp shelters while sorting out the next day’s route. To put the icing on the cake, Rhonda from the camp office brought over some teabags and chocolate. Perfect.
Today’s miles: 72.16
Miles since Anastasia State Park: 333.81
