Sopchoppy, FL to Apalachicola, FL

42.2 mi / 13.5 mph / 291 ft. climbing
Home: Apalachicola Bay Inn

As expected, it felt a shame to leave the State Park campground, with morning on the Ochlockonee River just as still and peaceful as the evening had been. Well, the squirrels were neither still nor peaceful; they were twice as frantic and feinting as they were yesterday afternoon, though we didn’t need to take up our neighbor’s offer to store our food, and it went unmolested overnight.

Dawn on the Ochlockonee River.

There were only brief glimpses of bright orange sunrise before the fog rose in front of it.

White squirrel, up early and looking for treats.

Proof that it wasn’t just one genetic freak in this park; we probably saw at least five, compared to two “normal” brown squirrels.

Ever since our ferry from the Florida Keys dropped us at Fort Myers Beach, we’ve been roughly following the Gulf Coast of Florida northward (and now westward). But except for the ferry landing, we haven’t actually seen the Gulf, for hundreds of miles. Some of that is due to our inland turn to Orlando, but mostly it’s because there is no equivalent to A1A, the Atlantic-hugging highway on the eastern shore. Presumably the lower-sloping land on this side draws a poorly-defined line separating it from “water”, making it impractical to build a road through wetlands.

But today, today the dividing line would become sharper, allowing the road to finally bring us near those famous turquoise waters! Except, today is also the day that fog dropped in with more weight than we’ve felt any time recently. So while we were within 50 yards of the beach for many miles, it could have been a dense jungle, or a lava flow, or a wall of skyscrapers, and we wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

The fog made our departure from Ochlockonee River State Park even more-softly quiet than our arrival.

The fog achieved peak density when we crossed the Ochlockonee River; at most other places it was less than half this dense, and my mirror showed that cars had no problem seeing us.

Apparently Florida black bears are active around this area, though I somehow doubt they resemble the one on the sign! We later saw another sign with an even less-likely polar-bear silhouette.

Many of the houses between US-98 and the water were perched on extremely-high concrete stilts like this. As nice as it must be to live this close to the water, it seems that at some point, if insurance or good sense require climbing this many stairs every time you enter/exit your house, you just gotta say “nah, it ain’t worth it”!

More stilt-houses, one lifted higher than it is tall.

Supposedly riding along the Gulf Coast.

Restarting after lunch at a “Tates Hell” picnic area with a Gulf view. Yes, on the far side of the road, there is about 10 feet of beach, then water. Guess you’ll have to take my word for it!

Finally when we reached Apalachicola Bay, that ocean-connected water had the opposite effect of the Ochlockonee River: it cleared the fog. We crossed the 5-mile-wide mouth of the bay on a super-long Florida Keys-like bridge (3+ miles of actual bridge, 2 miles of causeways). Like the Keys (and nearly every bridge in Florida), we had a big shoulder to make the crossing comfortable.

If this rope of concrete wasn’t here tying the two ends of the mouth of the bay together (and it wasn’t here until 1934), we would have to bushwhack 50 miles north to find the first road crossing of the Apalachicola River! That seems to be another indication of how difficult it is to build roads in this low-lying land, and it makes the town of Apalachicola an unexpectedly remote outpost.

Crossing Apalachicola Bay, suddenly under bright blue skies!

A wall of fog awaits our return on the far side of the bay (and looking behind us we could still see the white wall from which we had emerged).

Day 2

After six days and 240 miles of riding (the longest stretch we’ve done in two months), it was time for a day off. But after a layabout morning, we actually managed to roust ourselves for a mile walk back to downtown Apalachicola (it helped that our ride to our motel yesterday had given us a preview of the town, revealing it to be quite worthy of further exploration).

It has a historic downtown business district, surrounded by blocks of well-kept wooden houses under massive oaks. With two breweries, a chocolate shop, and a load of clothing boutiques, I’m sure it’s an aspirational example that was in the mind of Civic Brewing when they opened in Sopchoppy.

But despite its obvious charms for tourists and their wallets, it didn’t feel like a “tourist town”. Credit for achieving this holy grail surely belongs in part to its isolated location; it’s very much a “day trip” town, but there simply isn’t a lot of population within a day’s trip of it!

All of this led to us frequently saying “I could live here!”, though the absolutely perfect weather (where walking out of the wide-open doors of the brewery felt identical than being inside) was surely influencing our infatuation!