Day 43. 2,671 Miles. Four Syllable Cities.

Posted on March 26, 2021 by anthonycaferro

“Somebody’s always got to be on the job because there’s always a job out there to do.” -Gil Scott-Heron

My consciousness is on full tilt this glamorous morning at East Bank Campground. The side effect of which is a monster headache. Like a weekend bender sort of headache. It’s actually a hydration issue. I got caught up in bike mechanics last night and didn’t drink nearly enough water. My head is pounding. I run through my cures: coffee, massive water intake, food, exercise, toothbrushing. None of it helps. I struggle through it and try to enjoy the campground oatmeal in front of me. What a wonderful campground this is. Shoutout to the US Army Corp of Engineers. And to the campground attendant and his “FBI (firm believer in) Jesus hat. He was a very nice man and I got no problem with his love of Yeshua, but couldn’t anyone put FBI in front of anything and make it work? FBI satanism, FBI necrophilia… the list is endless on how far one could take it. And for that it should not be allowed. No thank you. Damon is complimenting the campground bathrooms. The same one I took a massive a shit in — well before sunrise. Handicapped stall too. Thank god for handicapped people, they allow for gigantic sized spaces and so I get this massive shitter all to myself. It feels like an HGTV show or something.

The sun comes up and I’m popping ibuprofen into my tricked-out oatmeal as Damon explains how he just in there with “an expressive shitter” next to him, in the smaller non-handicapped stall. Damon uses the words emotive; tells me about all sorts grunts and groans. I don’t know why.

My slow leak issue is not resolved. It’s hottern hell. You’re gonna notice less words and less polishing because I’m doing a lot more work right now. The every ten mile pump up is now every six or seven miles. We cruise south through Chatahoochie. The town not the song. Also, no hoochies with whom to chat.

We leave the 90 for most of the day, making our way to Tallahassee on rural roads. It’s a nice safe haven from noise. My headache appreciates it. My slow leak too. My body is feeling on point but my mind is not. I haven’t found anything in my tire and have no idea why I keep going flat and it’s fucking with me. It makes it harder to ride too. I can’t keep checking and I can only implement the simplest, most direct solution in front of me: 100 pumps. Ride for an hour or so, repeat. Yup, that’s what I’m doing.

Fifty some miles later and we’re coming into Florida’s Capitol. I find a bike shop. $10 later and all my concerns are gone. They find the wire I could not. Maybe I’ve lost my mind due to dehydration but I seriously checked it over and over and over again. Time and again. The last two days. I don’t wanna think too much about it. I’m just ecstatic for resolution. I talk touring with the guys in the shop for a bit. Thanks University Bicycle. Damon books a cheap motel because our bike only camping fell though. Thanks Damon.

The heat is on, Steve Frye. Ferreals though. Damn near 90° F. I’m chilling outside of a very unique-to-Florida store slash taproom combination place we just happened upon. I’m not really chilling, cause it’s hot. There’s a patio. There’s also two TVs on the patio for me to ignore. Here we are. Tallahassee. Florida State University. What I can’t ignore is the spring break scenery going around this little Florida State campus strip of bars and restaurants. I’m talking about women younger than I am. Too young probably. Maybe. Age ain’t real. Time doesn’t exist and time travel is only a Hollywood hoax. So maybe not. Yeah, not at all. But yeah, the scenery is popping and it pairs perfectly with this refreshing Belgian trippel I’m idulging in after a long and hot and hard day on the bike. Butts in jean shorts galore. Also short black tight dresses. Literally that’s the dress code. And it’s strict. One after another. Thank you America. Or Jesus. Or whoever. Damon knows what I’m typing and chimes in “I shoulda went to Florida state. What the fuck was I thinking bro.”

We finish the beers and head up the block only to find the actual corner bar we were originally heading to is a absolutely mobbed with twenty one and twenty two year olds. A massive amount of people, on some “I’ll take two covid nineteens to go, please” shit. I’m fairly certain Harmony Korinne is filming this scene. Or that he already has and Now I’m looking for James Franco or Selena Gomes. Instead, I come back to the reality where Damon and I eat an entire vegan pizza. Plus another beer, which is really like a salad. And also I have a salad, which is nothing like a beer. It all equals sleeping.

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Day 42. 2,623 Miles. Flats and Flat Earth.

Posted on March 25, 2021 by anthonycaferro

I don’t feel any younger when I wake up. Older in fact. Always, really. My shoulder is killing me. In my professional emergency medical opinion, it’s the result of something somewhere somehow. It really hurts too. To add insult to injury, my bicycle — beautifully leaning against the table next to me — now has a flat back tire. What the fuck? I pull the wheel off, can’t figure out the cause. New tube. In the process I figure out my cone is quite loose. I tighten it up as best I can with an adjustable and feel fortunate to have found that before it got much worse. Kinda need you back wheel, hang in there pal.

Now pulling inland away from the gulf coast, we’ve got partly cloudy skies and a hefty wind out of the south. Roaring twenties. Mid to upper miles per hour twenty somethings. I sound like a pilot or a weatherman. Florida US-90 has that same Texas US-90 appeal to me. As I’m thinking this, in cue Damon says “Yo, I’ll take Florida 90 over Texas 90 all day bro”. Hmm. Ok then. To each his own.

This wind is half and half on my right side of and in my face. The wind never gives us a break. Not one. I’m doing my best to push along miles and gain momentum over what has become a more rolling terrain than there’s been in quite a while. The environment has changed once again. Hills and tiny cute climbs and descents. You go Florida! Distracted drivers operating death machines are passing me at a furious rate and much closer in fact. A fucking sheriff’s car passes a foot away from me! I can hear it when they are super close. I let out loud a sounds as they narrowly let me live in peace.

The flag fanaticism of Texas is back too. Louisiana and Mississippi were pretty solidly flying a singular American flag. While I do like me some flags, the “one flag at a time” display is my fave. Keep it simple stupid. Florida likes them in bunches. They fly a lot of ones with expiration dates. I fight a headwind downhill at 12mph and think about how strange it is that there’s legitimately less flat earth and yet more flat earthers round these parts. The thought is interrupted by an actual flat. Science damnit. Not again. Kind of a slow leak. I find the hole and patch it outside a gas station.

15 miles later and I’m half flat again. Super softie. Fuck. This explains why I’m feeling so strong at the start and so weak toward the end of each chunk of miles. Lower and lower pressure. The 85° heat and humidity has me exhausted and I don’t feel like patching or anything. And I’m not gonna apologize for not using the metric system to anyone either. I just put 80 hand pumps in the slow leaking tube. We make our merry way up the 90 to a place called Marianna. As far as I can tell Marianna isn’t much. Really a pretty shitty town outside of a very Havana-like United States Post Office building. Godless commie bastards… the USPS, not the Cubans. I love them both either way.

Further up the 90, I am now completely employing the “stop every 12 miles and give it 100 hand pumps” technique. There’s a long history of this cultural strategy, all of it in coded oral tradition until just now. Whoops. It all adds up to some good old fashioned time traveling into the Eastern time zone and Chattahoochie Florida. We immediately turn north off of the 90 instead. Like flipping from FOX to CNN or something, I make a hard left and into Georgia – our ninth state of the ride!

Two miles up and $14 later and we’re set up luxuriously at East Bank Campground. It is maintained by the US Army Corp of Engineers and is a magnificent campground. It is worth the detour to pop up the portable penthouse right on the shores of Lake Seminole. I’m gonna enjoy it instead of writing about it now. Good night.

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Day 41. 2,551 Miles. Let’s Get Wet.

Posted on March 24, 2021 by anthonycaferro

We’re just babies, man.

In some alternate reality, gentleman volunteer Juan Ponce de Leon — who despite historical inaccuracies was never searching for a fountain of youth — finds such a thing and is stuck in a time loop, repeating his life up until that glorious moment he takes a refreshing outdoor bath. Can one get better at living forever?

In another reality I ride my bicycle to Ponce de Leon Springs, an aquifer-fed spring which is a continual 68° Fahrenheit no matter what. It’s a cool, cloudy late afternoon and I pay the $2. After a day of riding in the rain, I take the first dip of the tour alongside some fish and possibly an alligator. All of this, the bike, the spring, the lush green — it’s a recipe for time traveling back to Dave hooking up last night’s shrimp with some eggs for breakfast.

He and I are up early eating together. I’m thinking how I really love using last nights dinner as breakfast and then Dave mentions the exact phenomena in a Florida panhandle manner of speaking. Dave mentions that he usually intermittently fasts even though he loves breakfast food; he will eat breakfast for dinner. Me too. Dave and I are kinda the same, except that he’s retired and I’m not and he’s married and I’m not and he’s a father and I’m now. So maybe we’re not the same. We definitely both love seafood and the shrimp and eggs and peppers is bomb. Thanks Dave and Stacy.

After thanking Stacy and Dave for all their hospitality, Damon and I roll out from the barn under a few sprinkles — back along US Route 90 for yet another few more days now. Right now. Good old 90. And now right now those sprinkles have made the water procreation and have exponentially increased into a traditional Florida late-morning-pouring. It’s coming down steadily after only a mile or two and it doesn’t let up for the remainder of the am. There goes the official no hitter.

Riding in the rain is a tradition carried forward by bicycle tourists over the ages. It is the Spoke Gods coming for their due. They must soak us and we must ride in it. My armpit-zippered magic raincoat is utterly powerless in stopping this rain. I move faster — getting up to a steady 15 mph into this rain and headwind. Nice shoulder, Florida. Damon falls behind early, I suspect he’s still feeling down and this is definitely the first time he’s had to endure this sort of ride — it can be debilitating if you let it.

Riding in the rain on tour is a preference, I suppose. I imagine some would just sit inside a hotel room. Or stay a second night at a warm showers host. Or hang out under a covered picnic table, waiting for the radar to clear up a bit. I’ve done a little of that here and there, though I typically ride. I stay out of lightning but I’ve come to enjoy the rain. I find the key is a return to childhood-like frame of mind. Like splashing around in puddles during a downpour at some single digit age and not giving a flying fuck how wet you get. That sorta mindset. Adulthood seduces us into bourgeois umbrellas or canceling plans or running out of cars and into buildings — all over what, fear of some wicked-witch style death? Six million ways to die, this ain’t one, my pretty. I take solace in the rain and while I’d rather shower in the sunshine, I accept the wetness with open arms. I am one with the moisture. Humidity gawd. I’ve got the latest episode of the Stretch & Bobbito radio show blasting as loud as it can go.

Im freezing my ass off. Like the rent, the AC is too damn high. Why is it even on? I’m in this Crestview Florida coffee house taking a break out of the rain with a very large “medium” latte. Damon is not feeling well and is a few miles behind me and so I’m on a couch reading maps, sipping the coffee and shivering my ass off. It’s warmer outside in the rain. Damon is at the Burger King on 90. I’m done with hanging anywhere near any of that bullshit just because they have vegan whoppers. He’s my dude but this is more my speed. Fuck a multinational corporation selling us hologram foods. Shits not very king-like in my view. By the time we regroup and get moving, the rain has let up a bit. Just a few sprinkles, and even the sun is trying to overtake a few clouds.

Twenty eight miles up with only a few showers and we make it to DeFuniak Springs. With a big F. Capital F, I mean. A little Yoda-like, this place is. There’s gotta be 30 different church signs welcoming us into town, each only 10 feet apart. There’s a sign for sanctuary. Then we find sanctuary. Our form of it.

It’s not an official campground but it’s still almost a perfect campground, especially in rain. I’ve heard we can set up here without a problem. There’s restrooms and water and electric and amphitheater coverage, all around the perfectly circular Lake DeFuniak. We’ve got 60 plus miles knocked out on the day. Peanut butter banana burritos are consumed. Another avian photo shoot pops up. I share a couple words with a pretty odd local walking around doing Tourette’s like shit, though I’m pretty sure he’s not afflicted with that specific syndrome. The weather is now looking quite good for the remainder of the evening; bail on this Dagobah system, we do. On to a place on the map called Ponce de Leon, population 598.

Twelve miles later and Ponce de Leon is now home to 600 humans. I’m handing a couple Washingtons to the homie at the gate of Ponce de Leon Springs State Park and hoping we can sleep in a park that doesn’t have campsites. I geek out over the springs regardless and take aim at my first swim in a natural body of water this trip! It’s definitely refreshing though I would have preferred to see the alligators sign first.

Nonetheless neither I nor my dude Juan P of L were looking for a fountain of youth, though I’m elated to discover this spot along the expedition.

And like that, I am youth incarnate.

It all sorta crashes down when the front gate homie walks over to tell me he’s closing the gate. He doesn’t say no camping but it’s sorta implied. This place is a small state park and seems to be fenced in; the front gate is certainly of the formidable variety. We could have tried to hide, though we’re the only ones here. I bet the 1st, 3rd and 7th governor of Puerto Rico would let us stay. We pack up and roll out as the sun sets. Damon is feeling better but I can tell he wants to just grab the only motel nearby rather than stake out another spot to tent, so we’re now basked in the blue light of the Ponce de Leon Motel. I intend to sleep like a baby. Or maybe a baby Yoda.

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