Crossing state lines and looking mighty fine

After waking up from the power line sleep we biked ourselves out to the Alabama gulf coast. As usual- first stop was gas station coffee. We filled our water bottles with coffee and had ourselves a little breakfast picnic on the beach.






We hung out and took in the sun rays until we felt ready to cross the Alabama-Florida border ( ie after the opening time for the florabama bar where we were told by many folks that we needed to stop). We arrived at the florabama, met one of the owners, got the official tour and had one of their traditional cocktails before heading on to Florida.






One of our first Florida stops was a fabulous fruit stand where we found out Caley is actually pregnant!



The watermelon baby she gave birth to was sure refreshing and delicious.



After our fruit stand stop, we biked on to explore what florida had to offer. A couple days into florida we met this great bus at a gas station.



The folks in the bus asked us if we wanted to sign it ( we did). We got to taking and found out they have been on the road for 2 years picking up anyone on the highway who needs a ride. We met them toward the end of their journey with only 200 miles left to go. The couple driving the bus are about to have a child so are taking a break, but vow to be back on the road again in a couple years. We had never seen anything like this, and it was pretty inspiring.

Later that day, we made it out to defuniak springs and decided that after crossing 3 state lines in our fabulous pink outfits and given that our last shower was in Louisiana, it was probably time for a bath. We found a park with a lake, and after having a nice picnic we decided to jump on in. Here is a photo of our swimming hole.




As it turns out people are not supposed to swim in the lake. This iis how we met officer Bennett. He kindly informed us of this fact, gave us a free background check (something we needed for residency anyway) and directed us to a more appropriate lake for swimming.

We made it on down the road, and found ourselves some fairground bleachers to camp under. Fortunately for our purposes the rodeo was last week.

One thing that we have recently recognized is that we have become pretty darn good at loitering...Looks like we forgot to read the sign.





Despite all this loitering we managed to ride our bikes just outside of Tallahassee where another camp spot came to find us. The tabernacle church. They had a fun setup complete with a stage, plenty of seating, buses, a water spickett and statues of geese.



We woke up Saturday morning and rode our way through Tallahassee. We got to hop on a bike path with a lot of other Tallahassee bikers.

We stopped for pulled pork sandwiches at a county store midday and baked the rest of the afternoon away in the hot Florida sun, whew!




When we got to Greenville a cool down break was in order. While Tad and I were cooling down Caley was actually heating up with Ray Charles on the piano (he is actually from Greenville!).




That evening we took ourselves out to a country buffet in Madison, Fl and man was it th place to be on Saturday night. Fortunately we had used the ride over to get all dressed up.









We made lots of friends at the buffet, including another police officer. He kindly offered that we should camp in the towns four freedoms park. The spot is lovely complete with a stage (where we set up our tent) inspiring quotes and a soothing fountain. Here is our tent on stage:



We got another great surprise that a friend of ours, Randy is coming to join us for the last leg of our trip. We met him back in Arizona when he was headed the other way. We tried to convince him to turn around then bur were not successful. Having now touched the pacific, he has come to join us and we get to keep him for a few days, yay!




Yesterday is was real hot. So, we got to rediscover McDonald's ( and try every kind of smoothie they make- they are all delicious) and go for a midday swim in these springs.


We are currently drawing out the last few days of this adventure and trying to soak up every drop of biking, sweat, gas station coffee and most importantly each other. St Augustine watch out, we are coming for ya real soon :)

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Location:Fort White, Clori