29.9 mi / 13.3 mph / 141 ft. climbing
Home: Ochlockonee State Park

At the end of yesterday’s miles of emptiness, it was a surprise to see a couple of cyclists riding the other way. Then at the country bar, a couple of muscled and sweaty college guys showed up on their hybrid bikes. This sudden appearance of our two-wheeled brethren was likely facilitated by a trail that we passed a couple miles into today’s ride, shooting off north all the way to Tallahassee, and then apparently there is good quiet riding to be found within the St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge to our south. And the trail network continued as we headed west, with a US-98-paralleling path. It unusually wove in and out from the highway, with its 30+ jogs probably adding half-a-mile in our forward travel, but paid for itself by sending us to the shady side of the tree-wall, and just adding some dynamics to the ride.

Sopchoppy is an isolated town with a funny name, an approximately 8×8-block grid of streets, and a difficult-to-believe reported population of 426 people. And a brewery! It’s surely the smallest town we’ve ever been in that supports a brewery, and even if their tap list wasn’t awe-inspiring, its unlikely existence was sufficient to require a visit from us.

Civic Brewing is the unlikely creation of a Sopchoppy native who went to brewing school in California and then returned home to open the only brewery in Wakulla County. It’s also one of just a handful of businesses in Sopchoppy, another of which is the Dollar General where we picked up a cheese-and-cracker lunch to have with our beers. We would have skipped that step if we had known that there was a food truck open at the brewery doing Sunday brunch, though then we might have missed the guy who sought us out inside the dollar store after seeing our bikes outside. He nearly offered to have us over for dinner, and said he likes to support touring cyclists after having some friends do cross-country rides. Just another surprise that doesn’t fit this town’s profile!

But the impression we got is that the brewery itself is changing the town’s profile. Now open for more than three years, it was bustling with activity, including a sign-painter working next door on a soon-to-open coffee roaster. It seems to be a pure and inspiring example of a bold risk-taker planting a seed that is now creating self-sustaining economic growth for the whole town (we later saw a small ad for a “Signs By Bri” in town, and perhaps that was Bri up on the ladder?) It felt like most of the brewery’s patrons in this lib-coded place (in contrast to last night’s Confederate flag bar) were out-of-town travelers (including a delightful couple of sometime bike-tourers from Ohio who were excited to talk with us), but surely there is local support as well (and pulling in tourist dollars is the most-efficient way to fuel Sopchoppy’s growth anyway).

After beers, our second day in a row of super-comfortable riding continued for a few more miles, and got even better when we turned in on the long road to the campground in Ochlockonee State Park. The last three nights we’ve been sleeping right next to a highway, so the remote quiet became obvious before we even got to the campgound.

It got even better as we arrived at our amazing branch-covered (and huge) campsite, and despite the full campground, the quiet continued. It immediately felt like a place that I was sad we couldn’t spend more than one night at.

A woman from a neighboring site came out to investigate the squirrels having a war on the top of their RV, and after a nice chat, generously offered to take our food in their truck in case squirrel aggressiveness turned out to be a general trait. Because the squirrels here definitely have another unusual trait: they’re white! Or, at least most of them are. They’re also quite human-interested, presumably because the humans enjoy feeding white squirrels (is this a pure example of natural selection, where white squirrels outcompete the brown ones simply because humans ensure the white ones are better-fed?)

A short path behind the campsites led to an overlook and stairs down to the broad Ochlockonee River. I headed over at sunset, and shared the view and conversation with a guy from Michigan, who was an even bigger fan of craft beer than us. We also shared exact same view and excitement about the story of Civic Brewing and Sopchoppy; he was a strong believer that beer brings people together, and despite the lack of pints in our hand, our dusk conversation was additional proof of that!