Leaving Tallahassee was tough for a couple of reasons. One, I really enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and getting closer with an old friend's "old lady" and two, because there was a brutal head wind the entire day and kept me at an average of 11mph. My destination was Apalachicola, 80 miles away, where I was to meet up with two Rotarians I had met while speaking to their club in Gainesville. Bob Rella and Hal Kennedy had contacted me and invited me down to their cabin in St. Joseph Peninsula State Park for a couple of nights, where they were finishing up a week vacation with their wives. This being an opportunity I would otherwise have never had, I of course accepted. I had never been to the "pan handle" of Florida or the Gulf of Mexico, except to Naples, FL two weeks before starting this trip, and this was completely different. The sand was pure white and only one type of mineral. The beaches of SC are made up of many different minerals and crushed sea shells, while these were soft, and brilliant white. The Bahamas are the only other place I've seen sand like this. I was able to take a nice three or four mile stroll down the quiet beach, watch dolphins, saw a couple sharks, took Bob's boat out in the bay to the point of the Peninsula where we fished. I caught a nice Pompano, a good Whiting, a catfish, a couple lady fish, and several Croakers. Those last three are just junk fish. After getting the boat unstuck from the sand we realized the steering cable was broken, so Bob and I took turns hand steering his 200 Yamaha motor back the ten miles to the boat dock.  Definitely worth a few laughs. That night we had some amazing baked Red Snapper that Bob and Hal had caught the day before. Mmm Mmmmm.

The next morning, after a glorious breakfast, Bob and Hal dropped me off back on the main Florida highway and I set off to Panama City Beach. Through a serious of contacts starting in SC I was lucky to be offered three free nights in a fully equipped condo across the street from the beach, an interview with the local NBC affiliate news channel, and a chance to speak at the main Rotary club at the Panama City St. Andrew's Bay Yacht Club. After checking into my condo, thanks to Counts-Oaks Resort Properties, I immediately called my friends J.C. and Sara (they hosted me in Tallahassee) and told them to take a day off and drive down to hang out on the beach. It didn't take much convincing, the next day we were sunning it up on white sandy beaches. I did the interview and appeared on the evening news Sunday, April 26th. If you want to read the story and see the video you can go to http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/43744522.html the video link is just above the story text. I gotta warn you though, I was pretty badly misquoted by a direct translation of Hausa (my local language I learned in Niger) and made to look like I have the speech skills of a fourth grader. It did have an immediate positive result though. A local tri-athlete saw the report and emailed me offering me a place to stay up the road between me and Pensacola. He also connected me with a friend of his in Pensacola for another place to lay my head while traveling through. Things have worked out nicely for the most part throughout these first few weeks of cycling, I truly hope they continue to farther down the road. I've gone over 800 miles so far and haven't left the state of Florida yet. It's definitely been a learning curve for me, and I definitely have felt my legs and will grow stronger while traversing the Sunshine State. Tomorrow I'm speaking at the Panama City Rotary Club then heading West. If the weather channel is correct I should have a tail wind and a nice ride along the coast. Thanks for catching up with me, I'll have more stories once I'm in Pensacola I'm sure.