One result of our winter in Florida is that we unexpectedly racked up an extra 6,500 miles of driving during our 143 day stay. The bulk of that was the result of needing to move frequently from campground to campground, due to so many campsites being reserved, especially on weekends. I can only imagine how many more miles we would have traveled if we hadn't had the use of Teri and Carson's vacation home for two of those months.
We weren't able to make a second blog post while we were at Fort Clinch. While there was coverage, it varied erratically and frequently dropped the signal.
Yesterday was one last chance to get things in order before we settle into a pattern of moving nearly every day (at least when the weather cooperates). We took advantage of the local Petsmart to get more dog food. We also tried out a new app to keep track of each other using our cell phone's GPS signal. It was pretty slick, but it needed decent signal strength to work, plus we only have wi-fi (not cellular) data on our phones, so it doesn't really work for us.
But we've settled on a new routine to make it easier to stay in touch with one another. First, whoever is driving takes pictures of the northbound directions on our maps (the rider has the map with them). That way if we lack cell coverage to access Google maps we'll still have a means of staying on course (last year we made a duplicate copy of all of our maps, but that wasn't something that we had the tools to do this year). Second, whenever the driver pulls over to wait for the cyclist, we send a text message describing where we are parked. Likewise, if the cyclist has stopped for any reason they send a text, and then send another text once they are moving again. It seems to be working fairly well, and helps to reduce the anxiety created by not knowing what the other is up to.
We worked out an alternate route for leaving Yulee, where a large road construction project makes it unsafe for cycling. I headed north on US 17, then took County Road 108 to Hilliard and from there, a short distance up US 301 I rejoined the Adventure Cycling route. That trimmed a dozen miles off of our planned route for today, though at the cost of a lot of traffic, a rough shoulder on CR 108 and rumble strips on US 301 once we crossed into Georgia. It was about 32 miles once I arrived in Folkston.
After we got to Folkston, Alea took over. She rode a similar distance to Nahunta (about 30 miles), where we left our route to find our campground. In total we covered about 62 miles today (Friday). She lucked out, as right after she took over we came across a detour that said a bridge was out 11 miles ahead. Lucky for her, we branched off of that road after 7 miles and onto a rural side road. So she had very little traffic for the bulk of her riding, and it was pine forests and small rural farms along that stretch.
We will be staying at Laura S. Walker State Park ($30, power and water). Since this year we are marking our campsite locations (pink triangles) on the map in the masthead of our blog, it will be more obvious how we often need to go off route to find camping, like we are doing tonight. We plan on staying at this campground for two nights, as there is a front coming through with rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow. After that the forecast looks pleasant for the remainder of the week.
We're traveling through a stretch of Georgia where the campground are few and far between for a few days. So we are likely to have some longer mileage days than we'd like, but things should get better once we reach South Carolina. We haven't decided on our next stop, though it is likely to be 60+ miles down the road.
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