Day 5: The Real Cost of a Hurricane

Just to recap, on day 4 I rode from Galveston to Bay St Louis, to stay in the Hollywood Casino hotel.  The trip was 13 hours and I would only end up getting a few hours of sleep.

Waking up in a Casino hotel is interesting.  Casino’s by their very nature seem to blur the lines between day and night.  The bright shining sunlight off the pool 12 floors below was the only way I could tell that I'd had more than an hour of sleep.  I had rested but not nearly enough.  Body-wise I felt pretty good.  Brain-wise, not so much. 

Packing up was pretty easy as I’d been here way less than 12 hours.  As I walked down to the checkout, the same person was at the front desk. 

“Good god, Are you still here” I asked

“Oh no.  They let me go home to sleep for a few hours” she said.

It reminded me of former jobs with strange hours.  In fact, this whole trip had that feel to it. An exorable progression south where day and night was really just a condition of lighting.

I was surprised to realize that the Casino was in the middle of a neighborhood.  I rode through it respectfully and made my way to the coast. 

I would take 90 all the way along the coast to Biloxi then overland down to the Dauphine Island causeway.

I had never been to the deep south before so I was really looking forward to this gulf coastal stretch.  After all, this is the land that produced Jimmy Buffet.  It is unlike any other part of the gulf coast I had ever seen.  The beach is so close to the road that, at times, you feel like you can reach down and touch the water. 

There were long swaths of sand flowing like small rivulets across the road. 

How do any of these towns survive Hurricanes (more on that later).  It felt so unprotected. 

I stared Southeast into the gulf. I imagined that I could see Key West sitting patiently at the bottom of the country… somehow knowing that I would get there in a few days.  I however was in a hurry.  After the 13 hour grind from the day before, I was haunted by the thought of another long day.  Today was only a couple hundred miles.  I would get to Panama City with plenty of daytime left.

As I look at the map now, the overland stretch was only about 60 miles.  It felt much longer.  First of all, there were stoplights everyfuckingwhere, allthefuckingtime.  I got to the point where I was ready to ride up on the sidewalk and haul ass through ‘em.

I should say though that the countryside through here was quite pretty.  Small towns and tall pine trees.  It was much more rural than I expected.  It reminded me of the way 249 used to look about 20 years ago.  Not far from the city but irrevocably country.  I just don’t know why there where friggin' stop lights on a highway…every 2 miles.

I struggled through the “stoplight” highway onto the Dauphine Island causeway.  One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t put a GoPro camera on my handlebars.  There were times where I could have just snapped a couple of pictures without stopping.  Shots from Google Maps have been a good substitute but after using a GoPro lately, I really should have had one for the ride.

In any case, the view from the causeway was beautiful

from google maps

I made it to the Ferry landing…to realize that I had just missed the goddamn ferry!.  The next one wasn’t leaving for an hour and a half!  There goes my daytime in Panama City.  The lesson learned here was to check the damn Ferry times and ride like hell to make them.

The good thing about all of this is that I was in spot #1.

from Google Maps

Oh well, there are far worse places to be stranded.

So I did what all bikers do in such situations.  Grabbed lunch, worked on the bike and talked to other bikers.

There was a couple from Washington that were on their retirement trip.  They were three weeks into a months long trip and I have forgotten all of the places he said that they’d been to..  He was on a 1200 pound Harley (I asked) and she was on a smaller model.  They were a really neat couple although I sensed some reluctance on her part to the hard-core windy riding we’d done across the causeway.

I love talking to people on different voyages.  I think that these journeys somehow intersect for a reason.  You are smarter after a conversation with a fellow biker than you were before.

As with the Louisiana ferry, the loaders were very familiar with bikes.  They put us all together in a fairly stable spot.  The bay was really choppy so we stayed by the bikes.  We struck up a conversation with a really cool local guy who explained that the shark they used in jaws (the one they thought was the killer) was actually caught a few feet offshore, “right over there”.

The non-coastal people seemed very surprised.  I’ve seen some bigass hammer heads pulled in on the Galveston piers so I joined the local in spreading some shark fear.

I got some really close pics of an oil rig:

I meant to check to see if it was one of ours but I’ve never done it.

We buckled down in preparation to disembark.  If you ever get  a chance, ride a motorcycle from the Ferry to the docking platform. You just feel like an absolute badass while doing it.  Not sure why, it just is.

As I made my way down Fort Morgan road, I was a little disappointed at the lack of water view.  There were trees on both sides of the road along much of this peninsula.  I became a little introspective and started thinking about all of these places that were now “real”.  I had kind of a terrible thought. 

Every Hurricane that makes it onto a Gulf Coastal mainland will now cost me something.  It will be a piece of coastline that has been forever changed and lives only in my memory.  This made me a little sad but it also gave a sense of urgency to the trip.  "Pay attention asshole ‘cause nothin’ lasts forever." I decided to worry less about schedule and look around more.

Ironically, it was about that time that I realized the biggest planning mistake of the trip.  182 along the Florida coast is absolutely jammed with stoplights and traffic.  It took me hours to crawl across this bastard and it wasn’t even that pretty.  I didn’t get to see much water at all.  I really should have grabbed I-10 at this point and gone up and over.

I had been to Panama City beach years before for a family reunion.  It is a beautiful place but it always feels much more like California than Florida to me. There is an LA vibe that I can’t say I’m in love with.  Go a little further though, and you will find one of the most beautiful places on the Gulf Coast.

I made it into St Andrews state park at about 7:30 and I was utterly spent.  I got to the site. Chucked off my gear and bike luggage and rode my ass to the beach.  The goal was to get as many daylight pictures as possible. 

And here we go…

First the swampy lowlands

Then the beach....

St Andrews feels like the kind of park where you could get eaten after sunset.

I didn’t venture too far from the campsite after dark.

I slowly set up camp and called Julie and the kids.  I turned in pretty early though.

A quick word about my camping setup.  My gear was fantastic.  I had the right tent, the right sleeping mat and a good heater that provided both white noise and a cozy interior.  My phone produced some white noise and I had a big empty Gatorade bottle for midnight biological necessities.  Night time rest was not a problem. I mention it because this should really be considered a safety concern for anyone who does a ride like this.  If you catch yourself skimping on camp gear for any reason during the planning phase, use hotels for the whole trip.

I wouldn’t have backed off my schedule even if the nights were crappy.  This would have led to the “zombie on a motorcycle” condition.  All this gear was a pain to lug around, but I lived well at the end of the day.

Even in fairly comfortable camp conditions, there is a demon that lurks in the depths of mental fatigue.  It whispers of comfy beds, soft pillows and more time to enjoy the destinations.  All you have to do is start taking the big freeway roads and your life gets better.  I would have serious discussions with this demon on day 6.