Cycle of a Lifetime: Day #2: Quincy, FL

Had a great night sleep at the Allison House Inn, followed by a breakfast of fresh fruit and fresh orange juice. Over breakfast, Stewart (the inn keeper) told us about Abraham K. Allison (the 6th Governor of Florida) and about the house itself. He also told us about the city of Quincy which has some of the largest private shareholders of Coca Cola Company which dates back roughly 100 years when some cola syrup makers from Georgia came to Quincy to try to raise money for a company that wanted to sell pop. Stewart pointed us in the right direction and we were on our way. We said good- bye to the Inn around 10:00 am, which we soon realized was a little too late to be beginning our day's trip. We encountered 95 degree temperatures shortly after leaving the Inn, The first 15 miles was along a classic winding country road without a car in sight for miles at a time (picture below). At one point Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to be an American" (one of my favorite songs) was playing on my iPhone and I felt like I was in a Ronald Reagan campaign commercial. At noon we stopped for a lunch in Chattahoochee consisting of milkshakes, sweet tea, cherry coke and salads (the only vegetarian option around). After lunch we crossed a bridge into Jackson County where the time changed to central time (picture below) Later in the day when our iPhone said it was 107 degrees we took shelter from the rising temperature under the shade of the "Welcome to Grand Ridge" sign for about an hour - munched on some power bars, and hydrated. At around 4:00 pm we realized that we were slightly dehydrated and completely out of water. As we checked our GPS looking for the nearest place to fill up our water bottles, my dad remembered that he had a disposable Poland Springs water bottle in his pannier - heated to about 100 degrees. Upon retrieving the water bottle from the bag, we successfully spilled most of it on the ground. We decided to continue biking, and after 30 minutes we saw a BP gas station sign in the distance. At the same moment we saw an incredible lightning strike along the horizon followed by ground- shaking thunder. We made a mad dash for the gas station to avoid the imminent rain. It rained for about an hour. While at the gas station, we exchanged stories with some locals and filled up our water bottles. Somehow our biking gear attracted all kinds of people who wanted to tell us biking, repelling or other adventure stories. We decided to bike the remaining 3 miles to our hotel despite the light rain (we got to test out our rain gear). We checked into the Comfort Inn in Marianna, FL and took well deserved showers. We got food for Shabbat at the Walmart across the street and some power bars and electrolyte powder mixes for this coming week.

In an eight hour period today we each had about 3 gallons of liquids - probably not enough given the temperature. At one point we talked about knocking on somebody's door to ask them to fill up our water bottles, but decided against it. All the people we have met have been extremely friendly so we would not hesitate to do that if necessary. On the flip side, the gun/bullet department at the Walmart was fairly extensive so we would probably approach the houses with extreme caution.

Saturday was a day of rest and relaxing near the pool.

Check out our route from Friday at this link: Quincy to Marianna

Thanks for coming along for the ride!