Day #4 March 16, 2011 - Fountain, FL to Miramar, FL - 69 miles

It was 69 scenic miles from Fountain, FL to our campsite in Destin, FL.


Okay...so the bed would have been a lot more comfortable if the mattress had been on a board, instead of slats.  Still, it was better than the lame mattress at the KOA cabin in Perry, FL and better than the Thermarest mattress I'll be using later today when we camp.  Lani slept well...very well...too well, perhaps.  

In the interest of time, we had our instant oatmeal sitting in the camping bowl with water, allowing it to hydrate overnight.  It just had to be heated a few seconds and was ready-to-eat.

Heating up the oatmeal, then raisins, nuts and Splenda for the perfect breakfast

Here's the post-night view of our "space":

Our little space, as seen from outside the barn door.  Quaint.

 As a breakfast supplement, we starting having honey on peanut butter.

Tupelo honey on crunch peanut butter; a breakfast winner.

The 7 miles back to our route went quickly...it's good to be fresh.  Turning Westward, I looked East for a second and was rewarded with a view of the rising sun cutting like a beacon through the cool morning mist:

The sunrise in Fountain, Florida, burning through the morning mist.  I love the look of  a good sunrise in the morning.  It reminds me of...victory.

After the turn Westward, it was a long stretch through forested area, culminating in the smudge-on-a-map Ebro, FL, population 250.  The back-water countryside had many streams and rivers, occasionally with people fishing:

About as idyllic as fishing can get.

Some of the streams were not as impressive as the others.  

This stream was pathetic, about as ugly as a body of war can get.  I mean, it was fugly.

When biking, you really, really really come to appreciate a decent shoulder:

Not all rural roads had a shoulder like this one.  I didn't mention it but, yesterday, we pretty much were run off the road by rush hour and school bus traffic.  It was just one lane in each direction with absolutely no shoulder.  If there was oncoming traffic, cars and school buses behind us could not pass.  Long lines of vehicles formed behind us.  One time, there was a voice - I think it was a kid in a school bus - that shouted  "Get off the road!" and I rode on to the embankment. It was way stressful. 

We passed many farms with free-ranging herds.   Here, cows #6 and #10 watched us pass:

Gonna cruise out of this pasture
Head down to the sea
Gonna shout out at the ocean
Hey it's me
And I feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like someone's dinner
A tenderloin in this land
I feel like a number
I'm not a number
I'm not a number
Dammit I'm a bovine
I said I'm a bovine
(to the tune of Bob Seger's Feel Like A Number.)

*with apologies to Bob Seger

You really come to appreciate major intersections and the otherwise sleazy/eyesore gas station/mini-marts as a place to briefly recuperate.

One of our many personal road-lounges, like a home, away from home, but not really.

While bridges are pretty scenic, the climb over was always dreaded.

Part of the nearly 4-mile ride over Choctawhatchee Bay

70 miles later, we arrived at Camping on the Gulf Holiday, the only place in the vicinity where we could drop at tent.  The laws of Supply/Demand allowed them to charge $60 for a few dozen square feet of grass.  But...hey...the showers were clean and the WiFi a heckuva lot better than it was at the Prince Morat Motel.  

Surrounded by RVs, we surveyed plot #105 for our tent.

We set up camp with me helping by telling Lani "Hey...put that tent up, will you, please."

The tent goes up, immediately dragging down adjacent property values.

It turned out that this was a spring break week and every family with school-aged children was vacationing in the area.  There were no sleazy motel rooms within miles and there were only a few camp sites left .

Moving in before showering and heading off for pizza across the street

We walked across the street for to the highly recommended (and even highlyier-overrated) Jordano's for pizza preceded by each of us with a 20 ounce garden salad  (Lani and I are both missing fresh produce more than anything from a dietary standpoint.)  On the other hand, the left-over pizza made for a good cold breakfast the following morning.  For dessert, we walked a few blocks to a Starbucks with a handful of cookies purchased at the adjacent Mrs. Fields, providing a perfect finish to the day.

We retired to the tent where I briefly blogged and Lani wrote in her journal.

Our first night in the tent.  Lordy do I hate sleeping on the ground.

Before long, we lapsed into comas.