I wanted to cry when I went out to pack my bike after a night of near-comatose slumber. The rear tire was flat again --the third one in fewer than ten miles of riding. Mars and Fred insisted on just pumping it up so as to make the ferry to the Alabama mainland, where they planned to have breakfast. A fresh tube and coffee would have to wait. We had anticipated a leisurely 50-mile ride along pristine beaches all the way to Pensacola, but as soon as we hit the road it became evident that we would be riding straight against a serious easterly wind.
Waves washed over the deck of the ferry as we pouted and stood slantways into the gale. Fred pumped up my tire during the crossing, but it was flat again when we reached the other side, where I pushed my bike into the lee side of a closed restaurant for yet another round of repairs. I was beginning to feel like Sisyphus, and imagined running over my ungrateful mount with a steamroller. Coffee and food at a nearby restaurant helped change my mood some. It was in a yachty sort of place, with all the other customers talking about fish. One old guy came up to us and questioned us about our trip, and told us he was a cycling enthusiast too.
With geeky joy he told us all about his three bikes and the componentry he had equipped them with himself. He said he'd have to sell all of them now though, since a car accident had permanently damaged two of his vertebrae. Then our waiter told us that his mom's boyfriend had spent over a year riding his bike through Latin America, subsisting entirely on nuts and fruit he found by the roadside. By the time we had finished our meal, it was nearly noon and we'd ridden all of four miles. There were over fifty miles of slow riding to go.
We resorted to the \"kilometer system\", switching off windbreaking duty with every kilometer post. Yes, Alabama surprised us with its unlikely embracing of the metric system, plus the best roads (and paths!) for cycling we've seen in any state. Still, every kilometer seemed like ten. In order to keep my momentum, I told myself that if I stopped pedaling for so much as a second, we'd be blown back to Texas. After passing through the town of Gulf Shores, we pedaled along the sea coast, which is revoltingly overdeveloped. For several miles we rode with an older cyclist with an odd riding style that reminded me of a frog.
We didn't get a chance to talk to him, though, since conversation was futile with the howling wind. He turned around at the Florida border, for reasons which would become apparent to us later. We decided to stop at the Flora-bama Lounge and Package Store to grab some grub and check out the scene. Preparations were being made for the biggest event of the year in these parts: The Annual Mullet Toss. It was scheduled to take place the next morning, and apparently involves flinging fish for fun and profit. When we queried the bartendress exactly where the event took place, she told us that the fish were thrown \"from Florida to Alabama.\"
We learned that the guy who usually wins practices all year in earnest, and that many thousands of people attend. If Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth, the Florabama is probably the straightest place on Earth; even Mars felt uncomfortable there. The only decorations were beer advertisements, and the clientele tended towards drunken frat boys in baseball caps and big-haired bimbos encased in tube tops, trapped in an eternal Spring Break. I can't remember ever feeling more like an alien. Our cycling gear was obviously not acceptable attire, and no one so much as smiled at us. So much for Southern hospitality.
The prospect of biking the remaining twenty-five miles into Pensacola was not very attractive, especially with the knowledge that we'd be sharing the shoulderless road with returning clientele from the Flora-bama. We made it somehow, though, rolling into town just in front of the first in a series of thunderstorms that would keep us off the road for the duration of the weekend.