Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Wednesday, May 9, 2018.    Jacksonville AL - Rome GA

We ate breakfast in the hotel room. Our usual—oatmeal, nuts, fruit (strawberry) and coffee. Hap got a muffin from the breakfast room. For the ride today we have beautiful weather, 80’s sunny with not much wind. Actually for this trip so far (expect a change soon!) we have had great weather. Mostly sunny, not too hot and not much wind. We are hoping this keeps up, but also expect something different! We got a fairly early start for us, 9:00a. Not too bad for the ol’ folks. Today’s plan is to ride to Rome GA mostly on the Chief LaDiga Trail. This is a trail that is 33 miles long. It connects with the Silver Comet Trail on the Georgia border to make a 90 mile trail that goes all the way to just west of Atlanta. We are riding it from Weaver, AL to Cedartown GA. A total of about 40 miles on trail for the day. Not bad! 

After leaving the hotel we retraced our steps (or pedals)back to the trail. We enjoy exploring bike trails on our travels. It’s interesting to see what states (or countries, we have also found trails in France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand) are doing with trail systems. About ten miles into the ride we rode through the Jacksonville College campus. We came to a section of trail that said “Men Working”. We noticed what looked like a lot of damage to several buildings including roofs off, trees down. I looked online (don’t ya love google?), and saw that there was a tornado through this area in March 2018. Wow, we saw a lot of damage. I can’t imagine how scary something like that would be. What a mess. 

The trail was great. It was nice to ride away from traffic. We saw a lot of people enjoying the trail. We stopped for a cold drink break in Piedmont. It was really nice to sit on a nice bench in the shade! On these trips you learn to love the little things. We stopped again for a bath room break and had one of those weird things happen. As we were leaning the bikes against the wall and going inside, a girl walked around the building and sat by our bikes. She just looked alittle strange/maybe druggee not sure. She just kind of stared at us. I stayed by the bikes while Hap went inside. I looked around the building and noticed a pickup truck with the motor running just behind the building. When I looked back at the bikes the girl was gone. Mmmm..... weird. When Hap came out, I went in and used the bathroom. When we left the girl wasn’t there. Just seemed weird to me. 

When we crossed the Georgia border line the trail changed into the Silver Comet Trail. The trail was a lot wider and nicer. We rode a total of fourth miles on trail today. We got off of the trail in Cedartown GA and headed north towards Rome GA. Before we left town, we stopped for our annual Big Mac (it’s a long story, ask me sometime!). When we left Cedartown we got on low traffic country roads that were awesome. In fact one road, I’ve named my favorite new road. Booger Hollow. It was smooth, curvy, rolly hills (you know the fun kind). I would love to come back a ride either our tandem or my light carbon fiber bike. What fun! 

Just before Rome, we had to get on State Route 27 with a lot of traffic. It was a four lane divided highway. There was a lot of traffic but everyone gave us plenty of room. In Rome, we were on a two lane road when a pick up truck passed us. Just ahead of us he pulled over and got out of his truck. Uh Oh, looks like trouble. Just as we passed he was waving and pointing. I yelled at Hap NOT to stop. But then I looked at the driver, it was a youngish guy, who was smiling and waving. Definitely not threatening so we stopped. He said he was also a cyclist. He just wanted to know the usual stuff. He also asked if we needed anything. He told us where a bike shop was and where a good brewery was. Good info! 

The plan for the next two days is to stay in Rome and play pickleball. I have been in contact with the local pickleball ambassador, Mark. He said they play every am at a local park. We made plans with Mark to meet at the park tomorrow, play pickleball and then go to lunch. We had some trouble finding a place to stay. Of course there are no campgrounds that allow us riff raff people (tents). It took me a lot of time to finally find a hotel that was available for two nights. We decided that there must be a lot happening in Rome GA this week. We rode into Rome, found the hotel (only a couple of “do overs”), took showers and walked next door to Appleby’s for dinner. This has been the best day of our trip so far. I think the combination of good weather, low traffic, my back feeling better and playing pickleball tomorrow has made for an awesome day! We are blessed! 

 
                               Bridge up!

 
                               Not sure we all fit

Power break

Dead end road. That’s why we bring the paper maps 

Chief Ladiga Trail. A 40 mile trail day! 

Working on the trail 

Entering Georgia

Another “ANNUAL” Big Mac

This guy flagged us down. Haps buddy

Snake on the road. Copperhead?

Tuesday, May 8, 2018. Jacksonville AL

Saturday, May 5, 2018.         Birmingham AL

Today was the first overcast/rainy looking day we’ve had since we got to Florida almost two weeks ago. There is a chance of rain but not until later tonight. Even so, we still put our rain covers on the panniers. Just in case! One good thing about our raincovers, they are bright and have reflectors on them! We also have been using flashing lights in the front and back all of the time. So everyone should be able to see us. No excuses! 

We ate breakfast at the hotel. As it turns out the RV park that I called to see if we could stay there was just across the street. They said they stopped allowing tents last summer. Translated means we don’t want the riff raff. After talking with Jack and Susan, our friends in Birmingham

Whose house we are headed for, we decided to take a different path than the one we picked. We let the locals handle the route today. Good thing! It was a great route. We didn’t ride on any really busy highways. We started out on a back country two lane road and ended on a State highway that wasn’t that busy. The ride was shorter today. Jack told us the last few miles to their house was a four lane busy highway with no shoulder. He said he would pick us up at the Dairy Queen. Now there’s an idea! 

We ended up only stopping a couple of times. The ride went by pretty quick. There were some rolling hills, but nothin big. We made one stop for some chocolate milk to go with the banana bread I bought the night before. And to finish off the beef brisket also from the night before. I made us some pita sandwiches with the brisket. Mmmm gooood. 

The only snag in the day was one do over getting into Chelsea where we were meeting Jack. My phone didn’t have any service but the GPS on my phone made it look like we turned left. Hap’s Etrex 20 GPS said to turn right. Mmmm.....what to do???? Let’s go over there and ask that nice policeman. We did and guess who was right? Don’t you hate it when that happens? After turning right, the DQ was just around the corner and Jack was already there. Jack and Susan own Tandems Limited. And they know all there is to know about tandems. There are several models on their floor that we are going to do a test ride on. Not sure why we need to add another bike to our stable but hey it’s a TANDEM! So we’ll see what happens. Susan made some amazing Creole, salad and fruit for dinner. A good day! 

Sunday May 6, 2018

What do we do with a day off? Go for a little bike ride of course! Jack and Susan have a ride every Sunday with a group so we joined them.  It was fun to ride without all that baggage. It’s a lot easier riding without all the weight. We rode about 37 miles with everyone. The terrain reminded us of Ohio. Rolling hills, trees and some farmland. What a great ride. After the ride we all went to Johnny Rays Barbeque. Apparently barbeque is a local fav. We had some good food and good times with new friends. After we got back to Jack and Susan’s it was time to test ride a new tandem. They own Tandems Limited (www.tandemsltd.com) in Birmingham AL. The shop is in their home. Jack and Susan have been in the tandem business since the mid 70’s (I think). They are tandem experts! We bought our Santana Arriva in 1985 and a Santana Noventa in 1994. So it’s time! They have a lot of tandems (and recumbents) in their shop. Jack set up a couple of them for our test ride. The first question we had was answered as soon as we got on one of the new Santana’s. That was “do we need a new tandem”? YES YES! Both Jack and Susan have so much knowledge about tandems. They are experts for sure. It was so much fun to talk with them about how the bikes were built, what was right for us (a new touring model for sure) and on and on. We want a tandem for touring, one that can hold up to long, miles on the road. I’ll let you 

know which one we pick. After our test ride, we went to some friends of Jack’s for a get together.


What a fun day. 

Jack and Hap getting a Santana Sovereign ready for a test ride! 

                                                     

Is this our new tandem? Commotion Speedster

Jack and Susan Goertz 

Monday, May 7, 2018.  Birmingham AL - Lakeside Landing Cropwell AL

Before we left, we decided to ride the tandem again that we test rode yesterday, Commotion Speedster. Maybe we have a winner??? Not sure yet. It’s going to take a little more thought. It’s a big decision. And we don’t want to mess it up. By the time we got away, it was late morning and really heating up. Susan rode part of the way with us and was our tour guide. It’s nice to have someone with you who knows where they are going. The route had a fair amount of traffic and lots of rolling hills, but nothing big. After leaving Susan we stopped at Rusty’s Barbeque for lunch. It was nice to be out of the heat. You don’t realize how hot it is until you step inside the air conditioning. Several people stopped to chat about our ride. That’s the best part of these rides, meeting new people. After lunch we had more of the same, rolling hills, some farmland, some wooded areas. There was some traffic but everyone gave us room. Temps were close to 90 by the time we got to the campground. We set up camp, showered and fixed Mac and Cheese with salmon for dinner. Our campsite was near the lake, so after dinner we took alittle walk. One thing we noticed was how big the campers were. Huge monsters. Everyone had their big screen tv’s on both inside and out. We tried to see FOX news on one but that didn’t work very well. Oh well, we were tired anyway. It didn’t take long to fall asleep.

The bikes in the “garage” for the nite 

Home sweet tent 

Campsite at Lakeside Landings 

Tuesday, May 8, 2018.    Cropwell AL - Jacksonville AL

The plan we to get to a campground further down the road today. But the sign “DEAD END” changed our route a bit, and added some miles. Or bonus miles we like to call them. Before leaving the campground we had “breakfast” in the gas station. We started out on a busy highway, but only had to go a couple miles before turning onto lower traffic roads. The terrain was pretty much like yesterday. Lots of rolling hills, through farmland and some forest areas. We were happily riding along falling Hap’s GPS (Etrex 20) when we turned onto a road with a DEAD 

END sign. Uh oh!! We were in the middle of nowhere AL. I had no service on my phone so we couldn’t use our backup plan. A man drove up in a pick up truck so we flagged him down and asked if this road was really a DEAD END. He said yes, you have to go back out to State Highway 77 and go around. We thanked him and rechecked to make sure we were still falling our “line” on the GPS. Yep this is the right way! I pulled out our next back up, paper maps. Yes, that’s right actual maps made out of paper. We decided that we needed to head north and try to find our way around the DEAD END. Needless to say, we finally found it, several miles off course. But as Hap always says, “At least we’re going in the right direction now”. We finally made it back to civilization and stopped at a Waffle House for lunch. Our goal for the day was supposed to be a campground on Chief Ladiga Trail. We try to ride on trails if we can find them. It’s fun to see what is out there for bike trails. We found the trail in Weaver, AL and headed northeast towards 
Jacksonville. When we got to Jacksonville we both decided we were ready to stop. I looked for campgrounds but couldn’t find one. Where is a campground when you need it? We found a hotel not too far off the trail. Tomorrow we are headed for Rome GA to spend a couple of days planing pickleball. I have been talking with Mark on Facebook about playing with their group in Rome. We are looking forward to some good pickleball. 

“Happy” riding 

Mmmm how does it all fit? 

Cliff bar break

Let’s see, why do we bring these PAPER maps? 

We just need to turn right to Jacksonville............ you can’t get there from here! 

Friday, May 4. Clanton AL Part 2

Auburn AL - Wetumpka AL
First out of the gate leaving Auburn, we thought we had a plan but...... that road should be right there! But it’s not, so we turned around and fumbled around, rode through an industrial area, out the other side, nobody stopped us and there’s the road we need. How about that? Just like we knew what we were doing! But then......uh oh one of the dreaded DETOUR ROAD CLOSED sign. Bridge out! Dang it! Great we get some bonus miles! And they are up hill! Finally managed to find our way to State Route 14. It looked like a good road to us. But then it looked like a good road to every one else too! And their brothers!! Once again a two lane state highway with a little shoulder with rumble strips on it. The traffic was patient though. We just had to pay attention! We stopped for lunch at ELMER’s. The parking lot was packed thats always a good sign. It had all homemade food. What a great place to eat. Everyone was so friendly. Several people stopped to talk about our trip and what were we doing? After lunch, we headed back out on Route 14. The closer we got to Wetumpka, the busier it got. For the most part everyone was patient and gave us room. But I still didn’t trust them. I watched them all the way past us in my mirror. There was a lot of climbing also. Between the climbing, the traffic and the heat we were pooped by the time we got to town. Once again about 4-5:00 the traffic really picked up even more. Just before Wetumpka there was a huge intersection with a busy highway. We got in the turn lane and then I realized I couldn’t see in my mirror again. It was gone, oh no.... We turned around and went back to where we had just stopped (not too far) and sure enough it was laying right there. I think my mirror likes me! We rode through Wetumpka, which is a bustling river town. While stopped at a traffic light, a guy walked over and said he worked at the Chamber of Commerce. He asked all the questions and pointed us toward Fort Toulouse Jackson State Park just south of town. The road we needed to be on was a super busy four lane divided highway. We found a side walk and rode as far as we could. Luckily it ended where we had to turn off to the park. The campground was really nice. It had all we need! A shower, picnic table, and flat grassy site for our tent. We had a spinach salad, with salmon, avacodo, tomato, cucumber, and nuts. Pineapple for dessert. Excellent dinner!

Wetumpka AL - Clanton AL
Today the ride was all on two lane narrow highway again. We started with a sandwich from Dunkin Donuts. Who knew they had sandwiches. I tried one of their donuts but we weren’t impressed! We planned a shorter route today, because we couldn’t find a campground where we needed one. In fact there wasn’t one anywhere around. But after the last few days neither of us minded the shorter day. We had a few hills to deal with but not many. Mostly the story of the day was the traffic and the heat. Temps are in the high 80’s and very sunny. We stopped at a Dollar Store for a cold drink and a snack before getting back into the traffic. Tomorrow’s ride should be interesting going into Birmingham. We had a Whataburger for lunch. For dinner we are headed to the Peach Grove Barbeque. And then a great nights sleep at the Best Western! Good night!
                                                 

DETOUR! UH OH!

                                         

Elmer’s for lunch!

                                      

Mmmm Good!

Fort Toulouse Jackson Campground 

                                                    

Diane’s famous salad

                                   

Fort Toulouse Jackson Campsite 

Road “Shoulder” with rumble strips 

See Hap there’s NO traffic........ 

Friday, May 4, 2018. Clanton AL

Whew, it’s been quite a ride since I wrote last Monday. We are in Clanton AL today. Tomorrow we will riding into Birmingham to go to Tandems Limited and try out some new tandems. But I’ll back track to the last few days of riding.

Blakely, Georgia- Eufaula, Alabama
We changed the route for today. Instead of riding to Omaha GA, we went to Eufaula instead. We didn’t see any reason to ride north to Omaha. And we thought the Eufaula Campground sounded like a nice one. I usually call ahead to make sure that we have “spot” because we’ve seen THAT channel before. When you are on a bicycle and you get to a campground that says they are “spots” we have a problem. It’s easy to drive somewhere but not so on a bike. So off we went to Eufaula Campground. The route for today was mostly flat, not much wind and sunny. Temps in the high 80’s. Not much traffic to speak of. Overall a nice ride. We stopped for lunch in Fort Gaines and ate some turkey and cheese wraps that I made from turkey left over from last night. We saw churches that had NO trespassing signs on them. That’s different. They were all closed up, hopefully they built a new church somewhere. Fort Gaines was founded in 1814 so that started a discussion about the song that goes something like “in 1814 we took a little trip along with Col Jackson down the mighty mississip”........ After that Hap sang the song the rest of the day. It was amazing that he knew most of the words. Or maybe that’s just sad! In Eufaula we had a little adventure trying to find the Piggly Wiggly in a lot of traffic. Finally we found it, got groceries and left. When pulled out into a busy road, I tried to check my mirror and realized I couldn’t see behind me! I panicked for a moment because I knew cars were coming. My mirror was missing. I can’t ride without a mirror, so we turned around and sure enough it was laying on the ground by the Piggly Wiggly. We rode a bike trail out to the campground. What we thought was a nice campground, was a disappointment. Oh well. We set up camp, did some laundry and ate stir fry that I made. Good stuff! A man and women walking by and asked the usual where you going, how far in a day etc. Hap asked him what he thought about taking down the Confederate statues. Well that started a huge discussion. We asked the right guy! He viewed the Confederate generals as traitors. Also, the Confederate flag was only flown by Gov Wallace. So he viewed the Confederate flag as a hate flag. Interesting discussion! We had a good nights sleep in our “condo”. I always sleep well in the condo!

Eufaula, AL - Auburn AL

We got up and went over to the Subway for a breakfast sandwich and coffee. This was a crazy day of riding. We are off the route we planned and using Google maps and the Etrex 20 GPS for routing. We started out on some nice, low traffic roads. And all of a sudden the nice rode turned into a hard packed dirt road. Then we discovered hidden sand pockets that the front wheels sunk into. I fell over three times trying to go forward. I decided if the front wheel started sliding to just let the bike fall and step off the bike. That technique seemed to work. I never actually fell. The bike survived the ordeal. We ended up on six miles of dirt, and sand before we got on a paved road. Then we got on a narrow two lane state highway that had no shoulders and had a few cars. We found another dirt side road and were debating about whether to ride on it. According to our GPS we would have about two miles of dirt. A man on a four wheeler rode up the road. We asked him and he said, oh no this road is EIGHT miles of dirt. NOPE not goin that way! Thank you!! We got back out on the paved highway, thinking the traffic wasn’t so bad. We stopped in Hurtsboro for lunch. The lunch stop was very busy. Everyone was so nice while we were waiting. Several asked where we were going. It’s fun sometimes to watch people’s expression when you say you are riding to Ohio. Everyone was pretty patient. We had a little trouble understanding the people talking. Between the different dialect and our hearing it was interesting! We met Robert outside. After the usual questions, he said we must be getting a lot of exercise. He told us his wife had just run her first 5k. He was thinking about whether he should do

one and of course we said yes! About 4:00 the traffic started to pick up. We were getting close to Auburn.  Just before we got to Auburn we had a huge hill to climb (of course). While I was trying to climb it a white Mercedes car came zooming up behind me. I just saw it out of the corner of my mirror. Scared me and I ran off the edge of the road. Then she zoomed around us. Whew! We all made it. Just before getting to the motel, we saw a white Mercedes in an accident by the hotel. Noone was hurt thank goodness. But maybe a little blind justice?? We ended up riding a lot further than we anticipated but you’ll have that!  To be continued............see part 2!

Church with no trespassing sign

Flat riding

Lake Eufaula

Lake Eufaula Campground 

Breakfast at Subway 

Uh oh.. how far can it be? 

                                                 

3 miles later........

                                              

Hey Hap can you see that blind sand? 

                                    

Never mind...... oops x 3! 

Five miles later 

                                                

Hurtsboro AL lunch stop 

                                                

How do you like shoulder with rumble strips? 

Dinner 

Ahhhhhhhh.. that’s better! 

Monday, April 28, 2018. Blakely GA

Monday, April 30, 2018.     Blakely GA

So here we are in Blakely GA, a two day ride from Tallahassee, FL. Like I said we had already decided NOT to ride in Florida anymore than necessary. We rented a van from Naples, and drove to Tallahassee on Saturday, April 28. Per usual things didn’t go exactly as scripted. I got a two day rental with Enterprise for $58, a great rate with NO drop fee. Woo hoo! When we picked up the van, the guy working there, took us out to the van and used a hand held machine to do the paying part. He said he would email a receipt. I didn’t think anything of that, since we’ve done that many times. We had already discussed the price. Imagine our surprise when we looked at our VISA charges Saturday nite and saw a charge for $325! Mmmm, how did that happen? We decided to figure that out when we turned the van in at the Tallahassee airport. Sunday am as we were driving to the airport, maybe a mile from there. We were stopped at a large intersection, and all of a sudden a red shiny car, came flying up the right SHOULDER and almost hit our right fender and mirror. He was that close! He then cut over two lanes in front of two other cars, turned left and did a U turn and went the other way. He was flying!!! Glad no one got hurt. We decided he must be running from someone. CRAZY! 

We got to the airport, in one piece and dropped off the van. I went inside to pay. The guy at the Enterprise desk, looked at my reservation and said what the heck?? I have no idea what he did, but let me take care of that. Since we dropped the van in one day and not two. He prorated the charge. It ended up costing $37! Cha Ching.......thanks Enterprise!

We got the bikes out, put the bags on and cautiously left the airport, while watching for a RED crazy man. There was a nice bike lane and shoulders getting away from the airport and Tallahassee. We didn’t have any issues with cars at all. The ride was actually very nice, wide shoulders, low traffic, a few rolling hills and a light side wind. We stopped for lunch at the place in Quincy, FL, a Hardees. Big mistake. How can you mess up a hamburger? After leaving “lunch” we rode on toward our goal, Three River State Park. But before we got there we realized We forgot our Swiss Army knife that has our wine opener. That’s a foul! We had bought a bottle of wine in Naples and only wanted to carry it one day. We stopped in Chattahooche FL to buy it and get dinner supplies to take to the State Park. For dinner we planned to have a freeze dried dinner, chicken and dumplings. So I wanted some veges and fruit to go with it. The first stop was the convenience store (no grocery store!), but when I saw a can of green beans for $3.49, I decided that the Dollar Store would be better. I have certain limits when it comes to buying stuff at gas stations and stores. The price for small bottles of milk just drive me crazy. So whenever I come out of a store Hap says, so did you meet your limit? We ended up with green beans, peaches and chocolate milk. No wine opener..... As we went on down the road toward the State park we went through another little berg that I didn’t even know was a town. Guess what was there?? Yep, a Piggly Wiggly. This time I found my wine opener and was able to get more fresh fruit.

We finally got to the state park. I had already talked to a Ranger Rick. I like to call a campground before we get there, just to make sure we have a spot. There is nothing more irritating than riding all day, getting to where you think you are done and them not able to find a place for you. Most of the time they can fit you in, but I’m not taking any chances. 

At the campground, we found the office was closed, but Ranger Rick was still there just getting ready to leave. He said the office is closed and I can’t check you in. (Uh oh). But there is an empty spot, just come in the am and check in. The office opens at 9am. Perfect! Thanks Ranger Rick. The state park was really nice. Clean showers, bonus for the extra hooks in the shower and 
the seat to put my stuff on. Don’t ya hate it when you have no place for all your stuff! We 

“cooked” dinner, took showers and tried to watch a movie. Although I didn’t see a lot of it. Hap said it was good though! 

We woke up to a beautiful sunny warm day. Our neighbor, Mike, came over to say hi. The best part of these trips is the people we meet. For breakfast we had oatmeal, almonds, bananas and peaches. And of course coffee. I have a few rules on these rides and the first one is We have to have coffee within ten miles of a ride. While we were talking to Mike the lady from the park office came over and said you need to check in because the office closed ten minutes ago. What? It was 9:40am. We said we thought you opened at 9:00. She said I do and I close at 9:30.

Oops, that would’ve been good info from Ranger Rick. 

We started the day with about a mile climb out of the park. But it was a gradual climb, not bad. We mostly rode north today toward Blakely GA. The road was amazing. Low traffic, light wind and warm sunshine. What more could you want? We stopped for a break and had an apple with peanut butter. There were a few rolling hills but nothing major. We rode through a lot of farmland. Wheat, corn and I think cotton. At least that’s what we thought it was. There were large empty fields with little pieces of cotton laying around. There were no services all day, except for one gas station. We both got sandwiches, mine was frozen in the middle and Hap’s was well not good. The milk we bought was outdated. Not our best choice for lunch. But it was food what can you do? 

It seemed like a long day in the saddle today. But all in all it was a perfect cycling day. We both were alittle tired at the end, but still movin forward. Tonight’s dinner is one of my famous salads with turkey, salmon, avacado, tomato, strawberries. For desert? Strawberry shortcake. How can you beat that! 

Home sweet tent!

Lake Seminole

Apple peanut butter break

Lunch FAIL!

Dinner!