Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Apalachicola, FL

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According to the ride schedule, the optional ride on the layover day involved riding to the beach. Sounds good until you realize that riding to the beach involves riding back over the bridge and causeway, not once but twice. We opted to ride in the other direction, creating our own ride to the beach. The day before we saw our friend Bruce from Alexandria and he suggested that there might be an alternate route.

Before the ride we wandered over to a local bakery/coffee shop that was swamped with cyclists. After about 45 minutes our pancakes, eggs, etc. arrived. The locals were pretty disgusted when they walked in, took one look at the crowd, and left.

Vincent Island Shuttle
Now that the Florida DOT is putting shoulders on the roads, it's much less of a gamble when choosing a new route. There were good shoulders for most of the ride. Where there were no shoulders there was very little traffic. The ride out was about 20 miles. We ended the ride along a beach road at ends at the Vincent Island Ferry which shuttles visitors over to the island. Apparently one can also rent a beach cruiser bike to ride along the hard-packed beach once on the island. We had a snack and caught a glimpse of a bald eagle flying overhead.

It was a great return ride with a nice tailwind. We stopped at a shrimp shack for an afternoon snack before getting some supplies at the local grocery store. Dean and his friends mentioned a local seafood place, the Boss Oyster Restaurant. Like a good seafood restaurant, fried oysters weren't an option. They were done every other way imaginable, and I had some excellent flame-broiled oysters with carmelized onions and gouda cheese, backed potato and a salad. The place was packed and the service was a little slow, but to be expected when Bike Florida is in town.

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