2021-04-23 Day 43

Duct Tape is magic!

 

One of my 4 allowed bags had a huge rip in it this morning. Fortunately, we had some duct tape available. This stuff is the traveler’s best friend.

All of my equipment and clothing is showing signs of wear and tear at this point in the trip. Hopefully, it will all make the remainder of the trip without a major failure (that cannot be fixed by duct tape!).

Today promises some interesting riding. We are exiting Mississippi and heading into Alabama – not just Alabama, but Dauphine Island in the Gulf.  

Hitting Alabama marks the 7th state we have touched on this trip.

Our first glimpse of the Gulf was this small bay with shrimp boats.

James and I rode back to the docks and were able to talk to the captain and owner of one of the boats.

He was preparing the boat to leave in about a week with a crew of four. They will stay on the water for about 30 days and they hope to bring back 30,000 pounds of shrimp from that trip!

 

Finally! We get a glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico and get to see the bridge we have to cross to get to Dauphine Island.

The bridge is a little hard to make out in the video. Here is a picture of it.

As imposing as it looks, we crossed without incident. However, the riders just behind us were stopped for 45 minutes on the bridge because a car caught on fire at the top of the bridge. We didn’t see the fire, but we did see the emergency vehicles coming from the other direction. Of course, our first thought when we see that is “I hope it is not one of our riders involved!” In this case, it was not. All our riders were safe but some poor guy has a burned out husk of a Corvette now.

 

Finally – settled in at the campground for today and our rest day tomorrow!

Today’s Ride Statistics:

Target Ride:  77.6 miles;  Larry’s Ride:  65 miles