I have been in great demand to lead an oyster tour, but my
schedule has been pretty full. This weekend the weather is not looking ideal,
it's just rain and more rain, but, we decided to go anyway. It has been a long
time since we have done a good oyster tour.
Not much action on this route up to Newberry and my friend
Larry's Alabama dream home. So I stopped at a couple of small churches and took
some photos as they're all pretty interesting. The weather has been extremely
hot the last month with temperatures running 10 degrees above normal putting
them into mid and upper 80's. This is great for tourist but bad for nature.
Wildflowers that should not be sprouting for another month or so are in
full bloom and I took the opportunity to have Fred pose with some of them.
Beautiful, but worrying about what's in store for our climate as we continue to
ignore the rising temperatures.
Arrived in Newberry and settled on the back porch to wait
Bill's arrival from Jacksonville. My ride was beautiful but he reports that his
started with rain.
Also arriving is Eric Johnson.
Never met Eric but we all, Eric bill and I, have a scooter acquaintance who
I've never met but have corresponded with in Key West. Michael was hit by a car
and has been recovering for some months now from his injuries. Eric found an identical
replacement scooter for Michael in Houston Texas. So, he coordinated the
purchase of it, flew to Houston on his on dime and is riding it back to key
West to deliver to Michael. He's doing 4 and 500 Mile days and we offered him
lodging for the evening. It's amazing when someone who is just an acquaintance
will go so far out of the way to help a friend in need. He rolled into Newberry
just behind Bill. After a light refreshment, we all loaded
back up and headed in the Newberry to the Mexican restaurant for an average
Mexican dinner. We were back to the trailer by 9 and everybody pretty much
turned in for the evening awaiting of tomorrow's adventures…..after a few
refreshment drinks.
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| Eric arriving with Michael's scooter |
DAY 2 MARCH 1
I had spent the night in Dave’s fifth wheel and Eric and
Bill slept in the trailer. I was up early, had cup of coffee, read some of my book
and went over to trailer about 7. Everybody was up and slowly moving towards
getting ready to go. We sent Eric on his way to Key West around 8. Bill and I loaded
up and headed out at 8:30. First stop was Alice’s restaurant in high springs
Florida where we joined up with Jim who had ridden up from his home in Hernando. There were two really great police officers having breakfast and one I think could
break me in half as he was extremely well-built. Nice guys and a great sense of
humor. Done with breakfast, we loaded up and headed off on our original
route to visit Ray Charles’s hometown in of Greenville, Florida. About halfway there, we stopped and did a weather
check. It was not looking good and decided that the best plan of action was to
head straight to The Lodge at Wakulla. Either way, we were going to get wet but
going direct was going to cut down on the amount of wet. The first hour after
we diverted, we were in dry conditions but once passing Perry, at about 40
miles before our destination, we ran into a strong line of thunderstorms. We
rode on slowly until we couldn't see the road and found a place to pull off and
hide under some trees. There's a long stretch of nothing on this part of the
highway 98 and that was the best we could do. And yes, we know you should not stand
under trees in a thunderstorm. After about 20 minutes on the side of the road we
loaded up again and we made our way on down the road. There was still some
pretty heavy rain but no lightening. After 10 to 15 miles we started getting
into better weather and soon we were pulling in to the Wakulla Springs State
Park. The lodge is from the 1930s and was a hunting lodge for Edwin Ball. Ball
was the brother-in-law of Dupont who’s third marriage was to Ball’s
sister. And people say, “people used to
never get divorced”. I had planned to spend a night here last year on the
return from California. Unfortunately, Fred, decided he wanted to ride in the
back of the truck home, so we passed on staying here.
We checked in and went our individual ways to try and dry
out. I walked around the grounds some and down one of the paths. Would be more
interesting if it was not raining. We got $35 coupons each with our rooms to
dine in the restaurant. We used one for lunch. In the evening we pooled the
other two for the dinner buffet. It was a pretty good buffet. Not one of those “one
of everything” kind. Just basics, prime rib which was good, fried large shrimp,
fresh vegetables, salad, grits, baked potatoes, and desert. They even had a
gentleman playing the grand piano. Our waitress, Sam, was very entertaining and
fun. Average age of the diner’s, Bill said, is “deceased” and she thought that
was a hoot. Sam’s future lies at the University of Florida in criminology. I
told her we had lunch with Jared Miller, the new sheriff of Wakulla county. So,
if she needed any help getting into the jail house, just give me a call. Jim
and I played a game of checkers. Too bad we couldn't remember how it's played,
but I won anyway. Helps a lot when your opponent has seriously color blind so I
could tell him my checkers were his and he was moving in the wrong place.
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| hiding from the rain |
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| me and sheriff Jared Miller |
DAY 3 MARCH 2
We were met with more rain this morning and chances of heavy
rain and thunderstorms. we had a planning meeting over breakfast to decide what
we were going to do. Staying at the lodge was our first choice but the only
rooms available we're more than we wanted to pay. The discussion then was
whether heading on to Apalachicola or retreating to Cedar Key or Steinhatchee.
Little did we know, that while this discussion was going on with thunder in the
background, there was a major hail storm just a few miles north of where we
were.
We turned a decision over to
Bill as he is the only one that had to get home on Monday to work. He decided
we should retreat and go east. so we all
went up to pack our bags and went out to load them on the scooters. Bill had
had a change of heart and decided we should continue to Apalachicola. I thought
this was a good idea but told him to check on hotel rooms before we committed. Our
favorite spot ,the Gibson hotel in Apalachicola, only had one room available
and the only other hotel was a rundown old Best Western it was asking $165 a
night. We went to our backup town of Carrabelle and found that the Moorings,
right on the water, had lots of rooms available at a mere $85 a night, so
that's where we headed. Fortunately, enroute when raindrops the size of water
glasses started falling we were close to Rocky, a brand new mini Walmart type
gas station that sells everything from gas to fishing gear and flip-flops that look
like fish. So we hid there until the the rain subsided. Wasn't long before it
was back to light rain and we were back on the road. Rolled into Carrabelle
around high noon got to our rooms and unloaded our gear. Bill and I split a
beer and we had Cheetos and potato chips for lunch waiting for the rain to
stop. A 2:30 we deemed it safe to continue to Lynn's Oyster House in Eastpoint.
We have been visiting Lynn forever and are anxious to get back and support them
after the hurricane, only to find out they were only closed for three weeks
despite losing the whole back end of the restaurant. Lynn had been evicted out
of her office and now it is turned into a dining room to make up for the lost
space. Oysters were small. The are locally raised on an oyster farm in the bay
and we were glad to support them. The place was packed. We found the only table
available and had to squeeze into that one. Plump with oysters gumbo and beer
we saddled up and headed for Apalachicola to get Jim some ice cream. Most of
Apalachicola had recovered from the hurricane and open except for the retail
space down along the riverfront. The River Inn and the famous Boss Oysters
we're still closed and looked as though there was no construction or recovery
going on at all. First stop for ice cream was quickly rejected when we saw signs
in the window saying if you don't speak English don't come here. We moved on
down the block to a more hospitable store and had some excellent gelato. We sat
outside in the sun watching people come by eating the gelato. Bill and I did a short
walk around town and then headed back to Carrabelle. As I went to get a beer
for Bill he and Jim went for a ride around town. We sat on the deck watching
the sunset and enjoying the momentary dry weather. At dark we walked across the
street to the Fisherman's Wife restaurant. Yesterday, at the lodge we met Jared
Miller, the new sheriff for Wakulla county and there he was again, having
dinner and with a different woman. The man seems to get around. Called it an
early evening and we all went to bed.
We had the hotel breakfast then headed east for home in a light rain. At Perry, Jim and I turned right and Bill continued east for Jacksonville. After fueling in Ingles, Jim turned east for home and I continued on south for St. Pete. All and all it was a great trip even with the rain.
