Bail out, Bail out!

Posted by on 14, May 2018 in 2018 - Florida to Canada, Tilly the Tandem, USA

Bail out, Bail out!

Our hotel was right next to an airport and the aircraft almost took the roof off as they landed, especially as they were military propellor trainers which came it at full throttle to touch and go. Good fun to watch. So rather appropriately we decided to bail out of the Underground Railroad route. We’d not enjoyed the first couple of days and there was plenty more of that where that came from, so we decided to head East – to the coast and don’t spare the pedals!

The two hilly hot humid days had really worn me out – Linda seemed fine and I’m beginning to think all those people telling me “She’s not pedalling on the back” may be onto something!

Linda’s actually much better at coping with heat than me. I do get acclimatised to heat but anything over about 35 and I just don’t seem able to cool down and trying to cycle for long periods in it just exhausts me.

The coastal weather was cooler on our forecasts for the next month with the interior heading up to 39C it wasn’t a hard choice to head East. At least if you’re at the coast you may get a coastal wind or you can just sit in the sea!

So after a bit of a rest we set off towards Enterpise and on to Andalusia where we cycled into the town square and cried “Great Scott!” as the town hall square looked just like the one from Back to the Future complete with cinema and Dairy Queen Ice cream parlour – where we indulged in an 8500 calorie milkshake (OK I may have exaggerated there) and an ice cream sundae that the staff insisted on turning upside down and right way up again before presenting it to us!

Our accommodation for the night was with warmshowers hosts Guy and Pam – fellow Tandem tourers who have done so many miles it makes us look like we’ve just popped to the shops a couple of times. We had an absolutley fabulous evening and some gorgeous food with them in their lovely home which had plenty of tandems!

I’ve said before how the trains have vanished from the south and you only occasionally see a freight train but there are loads of railway tracks criss crossing the state rather sadly all overgrown. I think some still run trains occasionally but the track in Andalusia was unused and the old station, and the new station alike were no longer used. The old station is now a museum with a couple of carriages outside and the old post office. The railways had built these towns, and now they’d died. I love trains so find this quite sad – but I’m weird and a geek so what do you expect?

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