Longest Day

Tallahassee to Apalachicola 83 miles

Today was a full 12 hours on the road. I decided to ride with Tiffany, Mark, and Coleman who were sweeping. We started out around 7am from Tally. The morning was very relaxing because chore groups switched and my group is now dinner crew. Dinner crew doesn't have much to do in the mornings, which let's me "sleep in" until our wake up call at 5:30. I enjoy sleeping for the extra 10 minutes! We started off with lots of downhills as removed out of town. We were even able to use a bike path for the first 12 miles of the route. We pushed on, getting closer and closer to the coast. We had to rush out of first lunh because one of our team members fell and needed the first aid kit. He was fine, but luckily we have an EMT on our team to patch up all of the scrapes and cuts. By mile 40 we were tired and stopped at a butcher shop. We tried to get dinner donations, but instead got fresh made sandwiches for the four of us. They were wonderful and we had a nice talk with the owners and a few patrons. The owner even filled our bottles for us. Shortly after the shop we hit our first bridge. When I think of bridges in Michigan I think of flat ones. You know, kind of like the ones that crisscross the Grand River. Flat. No one told Florida that you can make flat bridges. Nope. Just left them out of that conversation! Because bridges are pretty much our mountains. You may say that's exaggeration, but this is coming from a group that calls the 3 mile sandy stretch from day 2 "the desert." That's a bit exaggerated. This, not so much. We crossed the first of 3 bridges, a behemoth of a bridge. We struggled to the top, only to see an even bigger part of he bridge rising from nowhere. It loomed over us, imposing and scary. We struggled up in our lowest gear and finally made it to the top. I hit my trip top sped of 34 mph on the way down. We rode on, through windy beaches and less windy forests. It is amazing to see the devastation caused by hurricanes. There are lots with nothing but a foundation left, others that were obviously damaged in storms. We pushed on to second lunch where I met a very nice state trooper who told me that there were real bathrooms in only 4 miles. He is originally from southern CA so we talked a little about areas where our trip would be going through.  We made it to mile 77 and then took a rest in what turned out to be the perfect stopping spot. A pod of dolphins was hunting fish less than 20 yards from shore. We watched them jump around and surface for a long time. Corey joined us for the last 6 miles back to the church. We crossed our last bridge, which was flat, but super, super long. Arriving at the host at 7pm, we rushed to take our hose showers. We were too late for the donated pizza, but I had a very good shrimp dinner donated by a local seafood restaurant. I threw my laundry in the pile, told 3 people to wake me when it was back and went to sleep. Alyssa woke me around 9:30, but the laundry was still dirty. Apparently, laundrymats in the middle of nowhere close at 9pm :( I threw everything back in my bin and collapsed back onto my thermarest for the best night of sleep I have had yet on this trip!