Day 11 - Left Eastport on a 4 mile causeway leading to a high bridge with 8% grades. No mountains in Florida so they build the bridges tall.
Coffee stop in Apalachicola which was a nice change. I don’t know if it was the coffee, the tailwinds, or the fact that I pumped my tires up, but I set a good pace for the next 20 miles or so. There was a long stretch of open road with not much scenery, a good wide shoulder, and light traffic.
I rode through Port St. Joe on the main road and thought it was kind of blah, but then I rode through it again one street over and there were lots of shops and eateries. I stopped and had baked oysters. After all this is the oyster capital of the world, or so they say.
Then came an even taller bridge and some more miles of nothing before St. Joe’s Beach where I finally hit the beautiful white sand beaches I’ve been hearing about. I’d been expecting to hit the central time zone and I finally did as I crossed for Gulf to Bay county and Mexico Beach. But no campgrounds and motels were full. I asked if I could camp at an RV park and was told tent camping was not allowed in Bay county, but if I went back to Gulf county I could camp on the beach. It was only a couple of miles back so I did and now I’m snug in my tent on St. Joe’s Beach.