25.6 mi / 14.1 mph / 34 ft. climbing
Home: Perry KOA

Mornings for the last week have been wet with condensation, but today was the first day when that condensation remained visible in the air. Actually through breakfast everything was clear and sunny (and the bikes stayed dry under the cover of the pavilion!) But then something crazy began happening, first strong gusty winds blowing our gear about, and bringing the temperature up to 72 degrees by the time of our 10:15am departure! Then the fog appeared ahead of us on the road, turning into a slight mist as it enveloped us, dropping the temperature.

Visibility never got so bad that drivers had any difficulty seeing us, and US-98’s consistent shoulder gave us plenty of space anyway. Well, there were actually a couple points late yesterday and one today where the freakish consistency of Florida shoulders was briefly broken! Old bridges are frequently narrower than the modern roadways they connect, and in every other state, if a shoulder disappears at such a bottleneck, that’s just tough luck. “Why were you even depending on the shoulder at all, dumbass?”, these old bridges frequently sneer. “Try not to let that semi truck smear your guts all over my wall!”

But here in Florida, not only are such bottlenecks extremely rare (frequently the bridges are wider than the roadways!), but here where they occurred, the bridges nearly apologized for their shortcomings! At each one, signs were posted half-a-mile ahead warning of the narrow bridge, and then stripes and reflectors filled the shoulder for a quarter mile as further warning before it disappeared. Oh, and I think we had a total of two cars pass us on those three bridges, both times way over in the left lane while we were at the edge of the right lane. Don’t worry rest-of-the-country/world, I’m not going to demand similar treatment now that Florida has shown how it can be done, though I wouldn’t be mad!

We’d pedaled 100 miles over the last two days, so today’s 25 miles was a bit of a “makeup”. That meant we reached the KOA campground well ahead of the 2pm check-in time for cabins (their 1(?) tent site was booked, so the $65 cabin was the cheapest option in town). We figured if the cabin isn’t ready, no problem, we’ll shower, hang out, whatever. But no, “the system” can’t check us in, and we can’t use any facilities, unless we pay the early check-in fee. Oh, it’s only $5? Yes, let us in now please! (especially since we were there early enough to really make our flat fee worth it!)

With air-conditioning, a refrigerator, and a TV, it’s the nicest KOA cabin we’ve stayed in, and along with the excellent individual bathrooms a few steps away, it made us wish we were staying more than one night. Because it really highlighted how a cabin is the best of both worlds for us: the outdoor space means that we can do much better cooking than we can with just a motel microwave (and also dry out the tent, etc.), while the indoor space is of course more-comfortable than our tent (and yes, we even got an unexpected bit of rain while under the roof). Of course the value proposition depends a lot on the price, which can vary enormously, but here it was cheaper than the tent sites at the Crystal River KOA!