Day 44: April 17, Pensacola FL to Andalusia AL

We are cutting North towards Atlanta, where we hope to arrive on Monday, so today we headed back into Alabama. But first we went out to breakfast with Jeb, a tradition of his so that he can swap biking stories with the cyclists he hosts in the Methodist Church. It’s fun to be able to sit down with other people who have done trips like this because they understand what it is to live on your bike in a way that is hard to describe to others. We enjoyed another one of our giant breakfasts at the cafe across the street with Jeb, and just before 9am we peddled out for another day of riding.

Before we turned to the North we had to go East for about 45 miles, and low and behold, we headed directly into yet another aggressive headwind. We assume that somehow karma will even itself out and the world will do something really nice for us one of these days, since we’re putting in so much time with these freaking headwinds. It was slow going, and it was 2pm of basically non-stop riding by the time we turned North.

We went through miles of pine forest in Florida and back into Alabama which was really beautiful, and we had a shoulder for about half the day but not the other. Going this way took us off our Adventure Cycling Associationmaps, so we are now in the land that’s not used to seeing cyclists all fully loaded up with their gear. At one gas station this very nice and toothless gentlemen came up to us and inquired what on earth we were doing, and when we told him, he said “Damn, y’all are gonna be in the book of World Records!” We hope he’s right.

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Pam, one of our hosts for the evening, regaling us with stories from their cycling adventures

Our home for the evening is very homey, another Warm Showers set up with Pam and Guy W. in Andalusia, AL. It turned out to be a very long day of riding, 95 miles in total, and we were really tired when we rolled up to their house. Pam and Guy are bikers themselves, so they know exactly what we wanted: a beer, snacks, a shower and then a hot and delicious meal. They’re a great couple who love to laugh and share stories from the road, and they also have the world’s largest variety of chocolate sauces that we heaped on ice cream afterwards. We spent a really fun evening cracking up with these two, who provided the most comfortable home we could have asked for for the night. Big thanks to Pam and Guy!

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Pam and Guy, shown here with the amazing breakfast spread the fixed for us in the morning including HOMEMADE BISCUITS.