A Lost Weekend - Chapter 3

US Highway 84 from Valdosta through South Georgia is a pretty nice ride. Where it crosses the Chattahoochee River into Alabama, the river has cut a deep gorge and there is a pretty cool railroad trestle that runs next to the highway bridge. I would have liked to get a picture of it, but with traffic it wasn’t safe to do so. One sign at the boarder states that Alabama is beautiful, but the surface of highway 84 isn’t; it’s a kidney jiggler. I was considering going on to Dothan and maybe spending the night, but it was too early, only about noon, and I was in no mood to ride much further on this road. I got to thinking that the further west I navigated the Harley, the further I am getting from turning to ride home. I passed a sign for 95 South so I U-turned and rolled into a gas station. I bought a cold Gatorade and asked for directions. They told me that if I took it south I would wind up on US 90, north of Tallahassee. I finished my drink and fired up the hog for another adventure.

I wasn’t 100 yards down the road and I knew I made a good choice. A smooth winding 2 lane that travels through woods before breaking out into some backwoods farm land and also runs along the Chattahoochee State Park where I stopped to take a few pictures. I crossed the Florida/Alabama state line and then Route 2 where 95 turned into Route 164. I got to the end of the road and guess what, I wasn’t at US 90. I took a guess and turned left and hoped that I’d come to a major, well marked road. After a few miles I could see some buildings coming into view. I passed a green sign indicating that I was in the town of Two Egg; yep, that’s right, Two Egg. Laughing to myself I thought, “Well, I guess I’m somewhere.” I pulled up to a storefront and took a picture. No one appeared to be manning the store and luckily I noticed a sign on the adjacent road for 69 South and I knew I wanted to go south so I followed it. It took me down to US 90 where I stopped to get gas. I checked my map and saw the 90 would take me through Tallahassee over to Monticello where I could get onto US 19 and head south; and that’s just what I did.

Riding across the rolling hills of US 90 was a pretty nice ride and crossing the Apalachicola River west of Chattahoochee is a sight. There is a dam there holding back Lake Seminole that is enormous. For a few moments you're eyeball level with the top of the dam and the huge body of water eerily suspended behind it. The genesis of the river flowing from the base of the dam is far below in a U-shaped gorge.

Tallahassee was a little too busy and once again I wished I had planned a better route away from the area, but Route 90 from Tallahassee to Monticello was great. It’s a beautiful road and the small town of Monticello was another antebellum gem. Connecting to US 19 I had few thoughts on my mind except at what time I might get home. This last part of the ride was pure road warrior, 162 miles of 4 lanes at 65 mph. Not much to see and hardly a turn in the road. I rolled through Perry and stopped for gas in Cross City and then traversed the Suwannee River at Fanning Springs and rolled on south through Chiefland. I could have stopped at any of these towns and spent the night and started fresh in the morning, taking an alternate, more scenic route, but I was alone and doing what I wanted to do and sleeping in my own bed was an enticing thought. I pulled into the clubhouse 596 miles later at about 6:30 pm and was glad to be back safely.

It was a great trip and one for the record books. I’m already thinking of the next time and a few things I would do differently but only because I don’t like to do the same thing the same way twice. It was a trip I had wanted to do and as someone told me, from here on out, at any time I can close my eyes and remember all the great things I saw.