Nicest people ever

We have no clue what we’re doing as we travel through Florida.  Without making reservations a year in advance you have pretty slim pickins on campgrounds.  Its impossible to get a spot at a state park….how we got the one in St Andrews I have no clue.  We found an RV park in Carrabelle FL that had space so we booked a few nights and decided to check it out.  There is not a lot to do here but the people are really nice.

We’re a little west of town so we saddled up on the bikes and rode to town.  I’m a cyclist and I’ve read many accounts of people touring the country by bike and I’ve heard horror stories about being a cyclist in Florida.  But I have never seen people move over so far for bikes in my life.  Seriously, a couple times they were onto the shoulder of the far lane of traffic.

Once in town we hunted down the bottle house.  This dude, Leon, woke up one morning and told his wife, “I’m going to make a house out of bottles”.  And he did!  It was super cool how he organized the bottles into patterns on the walls and with the sun shining through it was really spectacular.  He also had a lighthouse made of bottles, an abstract stack of bottles and some geodesic spheres.  After awhile a giant poodle comes out followed by Leon himself.  What a cool guy.  He told us about his projects including a math lesson describing the difference between a 2 frequency and 6 frequency geodesic dome (I had no idea the math behind domes, pretty cool).  He doesn’t charge a thing for people to wander around his yard checking out his art.  We took note of his recommendation that we check out the pygmy cypress in Tate’s Hell state forest then thanked him and headed on to the museum in town.

The director of the museum met us at the door and greeted us warmly.  We asked if we should lock our bikes and she said no.  This lady (I never did ask her name) was so proud of Carrabelle: the people, the town, the industry and the history.  Its a super small museum but she explained everything and told some really great stories about some of the artifacts.  She talked about the logging industry, the turpentine boom, and oystering.

After the museum we stopped by the world’s smallest police station and then rode our bikes back home.  Again, the cars got over so far it was crazy.  At one point we were stopped along side the road just taking a rest and a guy stopped his car in traffic (its a highway mind you) and asks if we are wanting to cross the highway.  I think he was going to get out and stop the other lane of traffic or something.  We thank him for his kindness then pedal on when a guy in a pickup truck in a driveway comes out on foot to ask if we need a ride, “Y’all can throw yer bikes in the back an I’ll give ya a ride”.  Crazy Coloradans…riding their bikes 3 whole miles to town and back!

Back at home we had dinner then played a game of Word on the Street before bed.  Today proved that its not so much the destination as it is the people you travel with and the people you meet.