State 38 of 50  

 

 

    Florida

 

Capital: Tallahassee

Population: 15,980,000 (ranked 4th of 50 states)

Area: 170,300 kmē (ranked 22nd of 50 states)

 

 

 

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Ride Report

This state: 261 kms     Journey to date: 21,071 kms

Scroll down below the route map for this state's ride report and photos

 

 

Ride Report

When you think of Florida you conjure up images of beaches, alligators, everglades, causeways, criminals wearing white suits and gold medallions and tans. The reality was a little different caused by an impending hurricane dominating the airwaves, called Hurricane Ike. At the time of writing this log in a place called DeFuniak Springs it is sitting out in the Gulf of Mexico, having whacked Cuba with 80 deaths, and is expected to make landfall over Galveston and Houston TX in a day and a half. The collateral fallout being very very bad weather in the whole of the coastal area from the Florida panhandle through Mississippi, Louisiana and beyond. I'm in the Florida panhandle and wondering what to do. The original plan was to pop down and ride along the Gulf shore as far as Pensacola and then find a way through to New Orleans, ride over the longest causeway in the US over Lake Ponchartrain, pootle through the bayous below New Orleans and then head north to Texas.

Funnily enough that's exactly what this 1 in 30 years hurricane plans to do. Residents of Galveston are being evacuated. People are gridlocking interstates as they get out of the coastal areas and Walmart have sold out of plywood.

Therefore I put it to the Twisting Throttle committee that maybe we should get the Ike out of there and visit New Orleans at a less risky time.

So my report of Florida is just the western tip of the panhandle but at least I did see the Gulf of Mexico before it turned to custard.

I calculated I needed to out-run Ike and do a seriously big day in the saddle to be a day ahead of it. I aim to leave DeFuniak Springs at 6:30am and reach the Texas border at 6:30pm after 1,000 kms virtually all on the inter-state.

But here are the photos I did manage to snap off. Not a great selection but I had other things on my mind.