We left Pensacola as soon as we had finished our early morning breakfast in McDonalds and headed along Highway 292 towards Gulf Shores. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and by mid morning the traffic was heavy with locals heading for the beach. No hard shoulder meant it was a fraught cycle with so many trucks giving us little room to manoeuvre.

Just to clarify for people in the UK when I say ‘truck’ I refer to those vehicles with a flat bed at the rear, with 5 litre engines and oversized tyres. They’re everywhere – it’s the macho kind of thing to drive to go to Walmart and the shops. If I lived here I would obviously have one too and because it’s a macho kind of thing, my truck would be something like this 😃

Of course, I would always give cyclists their three feet minimum space just like the sign says:

We did have a break in our cycle along the busy highway as we suffered our third puncture of the tour. Now I know what you’re thinking – why didn’t he mention the other two. Well you see I had been banging on about the heat, I had been banging on and on about the spokes and I didn’t want to start on about the punctures. Just in case it put you off trying a cycling holiday like this for yourselves.

We had cycled 13,000 km across Canada and Australia with one single rear wheel puncture and today we had our third since leaving St Augustine.

Susan had a great idea though – why don’t we just pump it up again and go. Now I really don’t understand women’s logic at times but I was on the side of a busy road and didn’t feel like changing a tyre so I blew up the tyre and we cycled.

Of course, it started deflating within a mile, the steering went and I struggled to keep the bike straight. Women’s bl**dy logic I thought!

That’s when I saw heaven or at least ‘almost’ heaven – the golden m

Now I still don’t understand women’s logic but who can argue that there’s no better place to fix a puncture than with a strawberry smoothy by your side! Some people may even say this is a picture of two smoothies. 😂

Thankfully, the traffic subsided by late morning and we had a relatively pleasant cycle along the coast to Gulf Shores.  It was only 35 miles today and we had enough time to have a wander around a nearby Walmart to buy (in order of volume) beer, fried chicken, cakes and water. The diet of a cyclist.

Next day was another short cycle – 23 miles to Dauphin Island. It was too hot to go much further. Did I mention the heat? 😎 Maybe I did but did I mention that this is the last week of summer and we are having record temperatures. Today the heat index was 115f or 46c. It felt hotter to be honest.

We had take a 40 minute ferry to the island and the nice guy selling the tickets meant well when he told us there was no shelter from the sun on the boat.  Susan was polite and didn’t mention we sat out in it for 7 hours most days. I mean you kind of wonder how he thought I got a sunburnt face that looks like it’s been deep fried with the chips!

The ferry journey was pleasant enough even although I felt it was cheating – we were travelling west and not peddling.  Susan has no such morals and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  My demeanour picked up, however, when I mean a couple of cops from Indiana on Harleys.

We swapped cop stories.  I heard about the time he disarmed a man with a sawn off shotgun loaded with deer shot.  I told him about the performance management report I developed (sorry Iain and David I took full credit).  He told me about the time he arrested a Kung fu ninja who pepper sprayed him and tried to go for his gun. I told him about a couple of national policing policies I implemented.  Yes national!  I could tell I was impressing him as he could barely comprehend what I was telling him.  Honestly, it was like two old cops telling their war stories and we could have been there all day.

That night we stayed at the friendly but relatively ramshackle Harbour House Inn on Dauphin Island and ate outstanding prawn tacos at JTs Sunset Grill. As we ate Susan stared over the bay at the road causeway and the hump bridge we would have to cross in the morning.  I reassured her it would be easy but I could see the foreboding look on her face.

The following morning after a breakfast of biscuits and grits we were delayed by a heavy thunderstorm.  Before I continue I should explain that ‘biscuits’ are scones and grits are some corn pasta type thing that tastes as good/bad as it sounds.

Back to the bridge – as we cycled across the road causeway the sky was menacing.

It was even worse ahead:

Now I know what you’re thinking – what on earth is Susan concerned about that little 9% gradient hump in the distance.  I was more concerned about the potential rain and lightning and being exposed on the road.  It’s okay for those people in their trucks acting as faraday cages (I’m sure you all know what a faraday cage is).  Cop stories, science, this blog has it all.

Well after two short days cycling I was feeling strong today and thought we would get a good run at this hill.  We peddled and peddled and gathered up speed. We were flying along. Absolutely flying.  Then Susan shouted from the back ‘can we slow down please’. What? What? I shouted over the sound of the rushing wind.  ‘I had a dream last night I was catapulted over the edge’ she shouted back with anxiety in her voice.

Now let me explain. Every night before we go to bed we take a multi vitamin with minerals (good for old people) and two ibuprofen with sleep enhancer.  That’s just when we’re cycling of course!  I don’t know if we actually need the sleep enhancer but we do need the ibuprofen and it’s only for a few months.  The sleep enhancer bit though gives us lots of dreams and this night Susan dreamt of landing in the water and, as we raced along, the dream was becoming too real.

I wasn’t intending to slow down, of course, but the wind was taken out our sails because I found I couldn’t pedal fast whilst laughing.  So we struggled up the hill and at the top Susan agreed it wasn’t so bad after all.  Well the climb might have not been so bad but I certainly wasn’t wasting a 9% downhill on the other side 😀.

It was a short downhill and we only reached 40mph and just to show how considerate a person I am steered away from the edge.  I didn’t want to turn Susan’s drug fuelled dream into a prophecy!

That said I got my just deserts on our descent – our fourth puncture.  If it had happened three hundred yards earlier guess what would have likely happened – yup Susan may have been catapulted over the edge!

We can now fix a puncture in record time and we were soon cycling west away from the impending storms.  60 miles later we reached Ocean Springs.

Today, after another 35 miles along the Gulf Coast we are in Bay St Louis and that’s striking distance of New Orleans.  Oh did I mention another front spoke went today? Probably not because I’m bored of banging on about spokes.

So tomorrow it’s 55 miles with a broken spoke.  Last time at DeFuniak Springs we did 80 miles on a broken front spoke to Milton so it should be okay. But then again life doesn’t always work out as logically as it should. Does it?

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