Ride Day 48

After a few days rest waiting for storms to clear out I finally hit the road early this morning. It felt good. I left Vancleave unsure if I was on the right roads. Mississippi finds road signs are not important so they just do not put any up. That is fine if you live in the area but otherwise it is a royal pain in the ass. I had to guess which road to take and it was irritating. I was lucky and chose wisely but it was just blind luck. After about fifteen miles of wondering if I was on the wrong road I found out by way of an address on a church that yes I was on the correct road. The road wound through a gigantic swamp on both sides of the road. I saw lots of turtles and along the road were lots of roadkill snakes, rattlers, cottonmouths and several other less dangerous types. There were lots of birds wading in the swamps and some of the trees were beautiful huge oaks, cyprus, pines and others. One of the oaks was one of the largest that I have ever seen. The riding was easy after the rest. Even my butt felt fine all day. I rode about 85 miles from Vancleave Mississippi to Dauphin Island Alabama. There frequently was no room on the heavily traveled road for a bike but all the drivers were fine and gave me a wide berth today despite the narrow roads. I took a few pics but not many. Ten miles of the ride was on a bridge. When I arrived at the island I set up camp then toured around the island all afternoon, even snuck in a few beers. I wanted to swim in the warm gulf saltwater and it was very nice. There were lots of people fishing and they were catching spanish macks and drum and I saw one speckled trout caught. I wanted to fish myself but could not afford the out of state rip off cost so I just watched today. The bar was called Pelican Pub and there were no Obama supporters in it. We talked about politics and the usual world problem solving things. I was the only non local in the place but we had a good time. Tomorrow I take a ferry over to the other side of the bay and will be in Florida in about an hour. Then it is about 400 miles to the East coast and the end of my cross country ride. I almost wish it was further so I could just keep riding...more later