wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
For all you guys riding fall colors or snowy passes, I just wanted to let you know that we have a little time left in our year-round riding season down here. Took Mrs. Me out today on her first motorcycle day trip. We went from Panama City south to Cape San Blas and then St. George Island. If you look at a map of Florida, this ride was along the coast of the thick part of the panhandle.
We left about noonish and stopped for lunch, then stopped again at Wally World to get her some earplugs in sporting goods. (I like the plastic shooter's plugs rather than the squishy foam things.) By that time it was a bit after 2:00. Headed south, which is East 98, across Tyndall AFB, which includes a 10.5-mile straight that is billiard-table flat. Boring, but the only way through.
The route:
Across Tyndall one arrives in Mexico Beach, a nearly forgotten red-headed stepchild of a community on the wrong side of the county to get the real tourists. It's all still mom-and-pop motels and diners or single-family houses on short-term rentals, although a couple of larger multi-unit developments have started up. (No high-rises here, and I think they don't allow them.) As you pass through Mexico Beach the north end of Cape San Blas rises out of the water on the horizon. In this pic, it's that "island" cross the water. It's about 3-1/2 miles away here, but to get there would be a trip of nearly 35 miles around the bay it encloses. The pic is actually a composite stitched from 3 frames.
Same location, looking back the way we came:
South of Port St. Joe, you turn off 98 and take SR 30A along the bay. Very narrow 2-lane, with trees almost right against the pavement, no usable shoulder as the ground slopes off the road sharply. I wanted a picture, but I literally could not get off the road to stop. All I could think of through this stretch was all the deer strikes lately.
You reach a point where the highway turns left (East) or you can turn off to the cape. We took the cape turn, and stopped at an inlet called Eagle Harbor. The land bridge here is less than 200 yards wide according to Google Earth's ruler tool. As you ride up the cape, the Gulf of Mexico is immediately to your left, but hidden by the dune that runs between the beach and the highway. To see the gulf you must stop and walk. Here's a couple of shots of the bay side at Eagle Harbor, and a link to a Quicktime-360 I made from the walkway across the dune. That one is only 4.6 MB, but if you want to see one in high enough resolution to take full screen, download it from the other link for a 19 MB version. I tried to get it smaller but it just got unviewable.
Clicky for 360 view. For high-res, right-click here and pick save as. The IE Quicktime viewer won't go full-screen as far as I can figure out.
This time of year we get Monarchs moving through on their migration from . . . well, I don't know exactly. They come from points north and are headed for South America.
We continued up the cape into the state park at the end of it. Here's a couple of views of some park areas. The first is a pair of frames stitched, and the next is 3 frames. My point-and-shoot just won't go wide enough for what I want to see. The 3rd one is a single frame, and there was a large bird in the view that disappeared in the time it took the camera to decide it was OK to actually take the picture. But looking at the marsh, you kinda have to think "reptiles." I saw a 5 or 6-foot snake coiled up in the road, but Jan wouldn't let me stop to take its picture. I don't know if she doesn't like snakes, or if the sign at that point of the road warning of alligators put her off. (The gator sign actually says, for real, "Do not feed the alligators." Do they really have to tell people that?)
At a point about 9 miles from the end of the cape we reached a gate across the road as we went by the cabins you can rent in the park, so we turned back south and left the cape, heading east to St. George Island, just east of Apalachicola. This is the only pic I took on the island, not much to see, really, just a place for Tallahassee folks to keep weekend houses, what inland people would do as lake houses.
There's another state park here on the east end of the island, but it's same-ol' same-ol' as where we just went, and it was getting late, so time to head home. We saw a beautiful sunset from the bridge off St. George Island, but I wasn't going to stop on the bridge for a picture. By the time I got to the mainland with a water view, this is what was left, looking west on 98 towards the bridge across Apalachicola Bay.
This last pic was from just south of the First Methodist Church in Port St. Joe, the last bit of sunset color, with just a sliver of moon showing in the sky. (Moonset?) Severely Photoshopped to de-silhouette the foreground.
Google Maps puts my ride at 185 miles, the bike read 197, but there were one or two double-backs. (Not 12 miles' worth, though.) By far Jan's biggest day on a bike, and my 2nd longest. Several times near the end of the ride I felt her weight the pegs and squirm to shift on the seat. I'd ask if she needed to stop and stretch, and she'd say, "I'm OK" every time. So we kept going.
I'll get myself a new longest ride next week when I ride with my brother to Barber Motorsports Park for the AHRMA historics bike weekend. (I'll have plenty of chances to stretch on that trip because his VTR 1000 only holds 100 miles' worth of gas.) Hope to see some friends there, give a shout out if you're gonna be there!
We left about noonish and stopped for lunch, then stopped again at Wally World to get her some earplugs in sporting goods. (I like the plastic shooter's plugs rather than the squishy foam things.) By that time it was a bit after 2:00. Headed south, which is East 98, across Tyndall AFB, which includes a 10.5-mile straight that is billiard-table flat. Boring, but the only way through.
The route:
Across Tyndall one arrives in Mexico Beach, a nearly forgotten red-headed stepchild of a community on the wrong side of the county to get the real tourists. It's all still mom-and-pop motels and diners or single-family houses on short-term rentals, although a couple of larger multi-unit developments have started up. (No high-rises here, and I think they don't allow them.) As you pass through Mexico Beach the north end of Cape San Blas rises out of the water on the horizon. In this pic, it's that "island" cross the water. It's about 3-1/2 miles away here, but to get there would be a trip of nearly 35 miles around the bay it encloses. The pic is actually a composite stitched from 3 frames.
Same location, looking back the way we came:
South of Port St. Joe, you turn off 98 and take SR 30A along the bay. Very narrow 2-lane, with trees almost right against the pavement, no usable shoulder as the ground slopes off the road sharply. I wanted a picture, but I literally could not get off the road to stop. All I could think of through this stretch was all the deer strikes lately.
You reach a point where the highway turns left (East) or you can turn off to the cape. We took the cape turn, and stopped at an inlet called Eagle Harbor. The land bridge here is less than 200 yards wide according to Google Earth's ruler tool. As you ride up the cape, the Gulf of Mexico is immediately to your left, but hidden by the dune that runs between the beach and the highway. To see the gulf you must stop and walk. Here's a couple of shots of the bay side at Eagle Harbor, and a link to a Quicktime-360 I made from the walkway across the dune. That one is only 4.6 MB, but if you want to see one in high enough resolution to take full screen, download it from the other link for a 19 MB version. I tried to get it smaller but it just got unviewable.
Clicky for 360 view. For high-res, right-click here and pick save as. The IE Quicktime viewer won't go full-screen as far as I can figure out.
This time of year we get Monarchs moving through on their migration from . . . well, I don't know exactly. They come from points north and are headed for South America.
We continued up the cape into the state park at the end of it. Here's a couple of views of some park areas. The first is a pair of frames stitched, and the next is 3 frames. My point-and-shoot just won't go wide enough for what I want to see. The 3rd one is a single frame, and there was a large bird in the view that disappeared in the time it took the camera to decide it was OK to actually take the picture. But looking at the marsh, you kinda have to think "reptiles." I saw a 5 or 6-foot snake coiled up in the road, but Jan wouldn't let me stop to take its picture. I don't know if she doesn't like snakes, or if the sign at that point of the road warning of alligators put her off. (The gator sign actually says, for real, "Do not feed the alligators." Do they really have to tell people that?)
At a point about 9 miles from the end of the cape we reached a gate across the road as we went by the cabins you can rent in the park, so we turned back south and left the cape, heading east to St. George Island, just east of Apalachicola. This is the only pic I took on the island, not much to see, really, just a place for Tallahassee folks to keep weekend houses, what inland people would do as lake houses.
There's another state park here on the east end of the island, but it's same-ol' same-ol' as where we just went, and it was getting late, so time to head home. We saw a beautiful sunset from the bridge off St. George Island, but I wasn't going to stop on the bridge for a picture. By the time I got to the mainland with a water view, this is what was left, looking west on 98 towards the bridge across Apalachicola Bay.
This last pic was from just south of the First Methodist Church in Port St. Joe, the last bit of sunset color, with just a sliver of moon showing in the sky. (Moonset?) Severely Photoshopped to de-silhouette the foreground.
Google Maps puts my ride at 185 miles, the bike read 197, but there were one or two double-backs. (Not 12 miles' worth, though.) By far Jan's biggest day on a bike, and my 2nd longest. Several times near the end of the ride I felt her weight the pegs and squirm to shift on the seat. I'd ask if she needed to stop and stretch, and she'd say, "I'm OK" every time. So we kept going.
I'll get myself a new longest ride next week when I ride with my brother to Barber Motorsports Park for the AHRMA historics bike weekend. (I'll have plenty of chances to stretch on that trip because his VTR 1000 only holds 100 miles' worth of gas.) Hope to see some friends there, give a shout out if you're gonna be there!
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