There is more to life than increasing its speed. (Mahatma Gandhi)

 We are back in Miami, doing our Miami routines. Sipping coffee on the balcony before dawn. Morning bike rides by ourselves and with friends. Watching movies. And more movies. Doing the simple daily tasks and chores that keep one's life in order. And planning and organizing for upcoming trips.

Saturday we save for the EBC (Everglades Bicycle Club) group rides. (And the 16-18 EBC ride group. Some old friends. Some new ones. Fun group. More on them in future posts.)

It sounds like a relaxing schedule. And it would be if not for smartphones that beep, buzz, and beg for attention. And pop-up notes and chimes on tablets and computer screens that enumerate the emails and messages that are piling up.

It seemed worse this week. You see, when we got to Apalachicola (our last trip) we discovered that our phones (and everyone's who was not on Verizon) had little or no coverage. Our phones just had a red "X" on the little connection symbol. At first it was annoying. How were we supposed to live without working smartphones? I was used to dealing with messages as they came in. (Sort of.) Our link to the outside world was our hotel room's Wi-Fi connection.

But after a few days, our annoyance evaporated. We had accidentally traveled back to the 90s, back to the time before smartphones and instant connection to everyone. It was bliss.

We want all our gadgets. But I want what we found in Apalachicola.

So we're learning to love airplane mode.

Apalachicola Rundown

So far on this trip we've found some pretty scenic rides. My plan to do a tour of the whole panhandle using Apalachicola as our base was a total wash. It can be done, but it is just too complicated for a relaxing trip. But Apalachicola turns out to be a gem of an area for cycling. It has rides with different moods, different scenery, and different ambiance. (Which is very important to us.)

But what has us excited about the area are the rides we haven't done yet. Rides we will do on our next trip, on road bikes. Franklin County is one of those rare Florida places that has most of its land set aside as state and national forest or wildlife refuges and the like. It is one of the least populous counties in Florida. (And likely to stay that way.) The coastal highway is scenic and reasonably bike friendly. Because the Apalachicola River and protected environmental areas run through the center of the county, roads that lead away from the coast are few, have wide paved shoulders, and almost no traffic. We can't wait to take our road bikes out on these highways.

For instance, a ride to and from the tiny crossroads hamlet of Sumatra on highway 65. Not a stop sign or slow down in 25 miles or so. Road bike heaven.

Thanks to those who messaged asking about our hotel and other details. Our hotel is the Water Street Hotel and Marina. There are also standard motels in the area (the Best Western is newly refurbished), a lovely restored historic hotel downtown, and the River Inn, an older restored riverfront motel (all rooms face the water). So why are we at the Water Street and not at one of these others or in a beach rental? Because the Water Street Hotel and Marina is new construction, not a restored older building. Because each of its apartments has a large screened balcony on the river, furnished with comfortable patio furniture. Because the units have good wireless Internet. And because we enjoy watching the boats going up and down the river and listening to the wind in the marsh reeds. It's as simple as that.

Yep, we'll be back here soon. With road bikes.

Back to St. George Island

Clouds hovered in the east. It was really windy. We checked local weather. No worries. The clouds would come and go, but rain chances were low. The wind, on the other hand, was going to be with us all day.

We did a second ride to St. George Island. A lot of the first half of the ride was straight into the wind. Al joked that perhaps the definition of a headwind was when 9.2 mph seems like a reasonable pace. We got some respite from the wind each time we wandered down a side path exploring. Half-way through our ride on the island we found a store with some amazing just from the oven muffins and scones. After a coffee and pastry break, we headed to the northern end of the road. That's where we turned around.

Tailwind!! Amazing tailwind!!! We waved to cyclists pedaling into the wind as we rolled down the road at 22-28 mph on fat tires with almost no effort. This wasn't a sprint speed. This was cruising.

It didn't take that long to get back home to the hotel.

Miles: 51.7

Rest Day

An oyster boat heads out to the Apalachicola Bay.

Our apartment at our Apalachicola hotel has a kitchen. With a stove. And all these pots and pans and stuff. Today was a rest day. No long bike ride. We decided we had the time to cook a lovely dinner. And we could eat that dinner out on our balcony looking at the Apalachicola River.

Of course, the two of us hadn't actually cooked a meal in pots and pans on a stove in over 15 years. That's when we moved to Florida. We didn't bother moving the pots and pans to Florida. (Or buying any after moving here.) The stove in our Florida home is lovely, polished regularly but never used. Cook a shrimp dinner here in Apalachicola? How hard could it be?

So this afternoon we went to the store. Veggies? Check. Shrimp? Check. Rice? Check. Sauce fixings? Check.

Back in the kitchen, we got busy. After a little trial and error, all the parts of our dinner were ready to take to the table. (Yeah, the kitchen was a total mess.)

We carried it all out to the balcony, sat down at the table, and enjoyed the moment. We ate and watched the oyster, shrimp, and small recreational boats chug up and down the river below. We lingered over our meal. We watched the day end and night slip over the salt marsh.

Best rest day ever.

Carrabelle

The wind was blowing at a steady 20 mph from the east northeast. We were heading up the Big Bend Scenic Highway (highway 98) to Carrabelle. Which meant we had a headwind all the way there. On our slow bikes, it was hard work.

When we got to Carrabelle, we had to take a close look at the Carrabelle police station: a tiny blue phone booth standing on the corner near the center of town. (Hello, Dr. Who.)

We voted for a coffee break. We were in luck to find a small coffee shop downtown. The interior was amazing, the coffee strong (fifty cents a mug!), and the fresh baked pastries really, really good.

But the fun of the day was the ride. The ocean on one side, Tate's Hell State Forest on the other.

On the way home we had an awesome tailwind. We took a side trip down highway 65, a road that heads inland through the state forest and the Apalachicola River wildlife refuge. The coastal highway was beautiful, but the inland highway was road bike heaven. (Next trip we bring the road bikes!)

After a while we went back to the coastal highway and headed home. With that awesome tailwind all the way.

Miles: 63

Cape San Blas

Today we headed south, pedaling down highway 98, the scenic coastal highway, turning south down county road 30. Our destination was St. Joseph Peninsula State Park at the tip of Cape San Blas in neighboring Gulf County.

The ride would have been a snap on a road bike. But we were on our slow bikes so we were working a bit. This route was not as dramatically beautiful a ride as the ride out to St. George Island and the state park there. The highways skirted the huge St. Vincent 14 Mile wildlife refuge. And St. Joseph Peninsula State Park has awesome marshes, white sugar sand beaches, and a little marina with a colorful kayak rental.

Pedaling back to our hotel was "interesting". The wind had picked up considerably, and it was a headwind. Luckily, there were plenty of spots where photos just had to be taken so we had an abundance of little breaks all the way home!

Miles: 64.1

St. George Island

Today we had a really fun ride. We pedaled north from Apalachicola across the river to Eastpoint, then took highway 300 over the long, long bridge to St. George Island.

Once on the island, we turned north at the lighthouse.

Then we just headed north until we came to the state park.

We rode into the park, following the park road. The road was empty. The scenery beautiful.

The paved park road ended at the last beach facilities and a parking lot. Our mileage at that point was 24 miles.

That's where the pavement ends. The road beyond the gate was hard pack sand with muddy low spots. Some areas were dry, but you had to watch out for areas of soft sand.

We made it to the end of the trail. We had our snack there then turned around and rode back.

We just retraced our route to get home. Leaving St. George Island we got to ride one more time on that great long, long bridge to the mainland.

We got home in time to clean up, dress up, and go out for a great creole brunch.

Pavement miles: 48. Off-road miles: 9.