Day 45, post 40: I'm in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, about 60 miles west of Pensacola. It's curious to me that Louisiana and Florida won out on coast line, but a quick review of the history of the Florida and Louisiana territories suggests that both Mississippi and Alabama were originally created without coastal access, and were granted coastlines controlled by their adjacent territory as a way of insuring each state would have ocean going ports. Or at least that is my impression. Happy to be corrected...

In any case, I cycled through Mississippi in two days, and I expect to do the same in Alabama. I'm told that the coast I'm about to explore - Dauphine Island and the Alabama coastline to the east of it - is both extremely beautiful and heavily developed. If so, this will be a change from the lovely, understated and almost funky coastlines of Waveland, Bay St Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi.

The weather has been sublime the past few days. Apparently this is a very desirable and highly enjoyed time of year. That certainly accounts for the fact that it is spring break weekend in Mississippi and spring break week in Alabama and Kentucky. My weekend timing has cost me some stress in finding camping or motels. Even so, people have been consistently friendly and helpful. In fact, the manager of a Motel 6 in Gulfport, where I spent last evening, gave me a lot of information about cycling in Florida, and even a few connections... So, the surprises only make things interesting (and stretch my budget a bit). After all, part of the fun of a long cycling trip is figuring out how to deal with the unexpected...

I can easily imagine the oppressive heat that is likely to come later in the summer... the pace of life is slow now - it must become a crawl when the heat hits...

Check out my road cycling activity on Garmin Connect.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1666027762