Thoughts On The Road

A friend asked me what I think about during the many hours of bicycling each day. Here is a sample:

The topography of Florida's panhandle is mainly rolling hills. Rolling hills are easier to bicycle than flat land. You work hard to get up the hill, but you can coast on the downhill, and if the wind is with you, you can get half way up the next hill without pedaling hard. The scenery is repeated over and over-piney woods, cypress and red maple swamps, hardscrabble farms, horses, cattle, goats and pigs.

There are a lot of prisons in Florida and the prisoners work on the roadways. I wonder if road work is considered a punishment or a privilege.

Harley motorcycles are mainly status symbols. We have gone days without seeing any on the panhandle. Come to think of it, we haven't seen any Mercedes or Lexus automobiles either. Mostly Fords and Chevys.

Except for downtown Tallahassee there are lots more Florida Gator fans than Florida State Seminole fans on the panhandle. I know Florida State fills their football stadium for every game. Maybe their fans are shy?

Madison, Monticello, Quincy, Marianna, DeFuniak Springs are the small cities we visited on the panhandle. All are county seats, and each has an impressive county courthouse at the center of downtown. Most of the store fronts are empty now. Each has a florist, drug store, used book store, a cafe or restaurant or two. Lots of churches, and almost as many funeral homes. Surrounding the downtown area is a high end residential neighborhood. Very big old houses. The old money lives there. The Great Recession has been hard on the rest of the town.

Here's a sample of conversation between the captain and the stoker:

Captain: OK pedal. (This tells the stoker to get the bike moving.)
Stoker: Car back. (This tells the captain that there is a car coming up from behind.) Car back. And another. Truck back. Car back.
Captain: Damn, where did this wind come from? (Since we are going east to west, the wind will mainly be in our face.)
Stoker: Why are you not pedaling up this hill? (Sometimes the captain takes advantage.)
Captain: Can I go out? (Sometimes there is debris in the bike lane or shoulder and we need to go into the roadway.)
Stoker: Clear (This means yes.) or No (This means no. The stoker never says "Go" because the captain might confuse it with "No" and we will get flattened. "Clear" means go.)

Captain: I hear a hawk's call. See it there? Is that a red tailed or red shouldered hawk soaring overhead?
Stoker: It is a red tailed hawk. Look how it flashed its tail at us.

That is all.