Day 21. 4/26/22. 69 mi. AIS 6:28, 741 elev. 10.6 mph
Long Beach MS to Bayou LeBatre AL
Such a pleasure riding all morning along the gulf coast. For quite a ways we had a bike path-ish route through Gulfport and Biloxi MS. I will comment yet again on the Mississippi bikeways, roads and clean shoulders. The shoulders were of the “everybody’s happy” description I gave earlier in a blogpost. Really remarkable. All this area was devastated by Katrina 15 years ago and they did use their recovery money well. Everything is new…buildings, homes, roads. Everything looks really nice and well taken care of. For several miles it was like a parade of homes along the beach road. I enjoyed looking at the homes. Made the miles go quickly.
Biloxi was the entryway to the gulf coast beach scene. The beaches have this very fine, white sand. At one point in the center of Biloxi we had a wooden path that was above water and followed the edge of a big interstate junction.
It seems that Waffle House are the ubiquitous 24 hour restaurant in these parts. I had heard this from my gym friend “Big Bob”. Tomorrow morning we’ll have an opportunity to give it a try!
Bicycle shop salvation in Ocean Springs, MS. The local bike shop guys were super helpful and nice. They have a great store with everything we needed and a water bottle jug too for refills. They get a steady stream of bicycle tourers stopping there.
Found a nice lunch spot in Gautier. I really liked this little town. Pleasant ride through it. The Hucks Cove restaurant had a patio on the bayou side. Signs read “Don’t feed the alligators”. Jim and Curt had delicious gumbo soup. I kept it more bland. Still trying to error on the bland side of food. Po’Boy blackened. shrimp sandwich.
Crossed into Alabama today. As expected there are always differences in roads and shoulders. Narrower shoulder on the busier road with the wide rumble smack dab in the middle of the shoulder…aargh!! It wasn’t the worst but not terrific either. Car traffic was respectable to us today.
Arrived at a respectable time (4:30) to Bayou LeBatre (La Bate-er). Little town, simple expectations. We met up with Sandy from Scotland again today and shared a booth at dinner. Passed along more good stories. Sandy gave me some photos of the alligator he saw along the road. I’ll include because it’s cool.
cinnicrew 