Sunday February 8, 2015

The sun was warm as we left Chattahoochee, the forecast was for a high of 17 degrees and it reached 23 degrees, it was a lovely ride.

Yesterday we had the climb into the Town of Chattahoochee, this morning we had a great sweeping downhill to take us into the valley below. It was a little chilly going into the wind, but a lovely way to start the ride.

We left Chattahoochee at 9:00 am, we had only gone about 2 kilometres when we crossed the Apalachicola River and also crossed into the Central Time Zone. We gained an hour.

From the bridge we could see the Jim Woodruff Dam, it is a hydroelectric dam and is on the borders of Florida and Georgia.

The route carried us along Highway 90, which parallels Interstate 10. It was very quiet and all the cars passed us with lots of room to spare. I think the 3 foot law is in place in Florida.

We went through some small settlements which looked to consist of trailer parks in woods or cabins in woods, very scary looking places. Other areas had bigger houses and more development. The Town of Marianna was a lovely place with many historic homes. There area about 18 historic homes in the Town. This one was called the MacKinnon House and was built after the Civil War on the site of a house burned during the Battle of Marianna. It is now an attorney’s office.

About 10 kms outside of Chipley we spotted a couple of touring cyclists with their bikes on the ground. We stopped to see if they needed help and then spotted their young son, Reese. These intrepid cyclists are cycling the Southern Tier with their four year old son. Rather them than me, I sometimes find it difficult to entertain myself on my bike let alone having to keep a four year old happy.

We will no doubt see them again along the way.  Although they are not doing the mileage that we are doing, they are stopping in DeFuniak Springs tomorrow and that is where we will be tomorrow night.  They passed us as we were checking out one of the motels in Chipley, there overnight stop was going to be in Bonifay.

We are staying at a Super8 in Chipley, the night-time temperatures are warming up a little, so we should be able to start camping soon.  The only problem now is, I have got  used to sleeping in a bed at night, I am not really looking forward to camping again.  We are managing to stay within our budget at the moment, but we should really be saving the hotel stays for when we need them (bad weather etc) and not use them all the time.