On Veteran’s day, I decided I wanted to do a bit of a ride along the coast. Living in the middle of Florida, I have a number of different coasts to choose from and get to within a short amount of time, so this time I picked on an area that is sometimes called the Forgotten Coast. It is in the panhandle of Florida, and extends from around Panacea out to Port St. Joe, and the road is US Route 98.
I now ride a 2013 Triumph Trophy SE, a large sport-touring bike that is aimed by Triumph directly at the BMW R1200. This would be my first relatively long ride with the bike, so I was somewhat excited with the prospects of the ride.
From Gainesville the route to get to the beginning of 98 is a quick jaunt on US 441 out to High Springs, then US 27 out to Perry. From Perry you can join 98 Westbound and just stay on it.
The road is in good condition for the most part, though I did run into a small amount of construction work. You are within smelling range of the water a good portion of the time, and can see out over the Gulf of Mexico on a very regular basis.
There are numerous places to pull over and take a bit of a rest, take in the sights, and smell the ocean breezes. It turned out to be a beautiful day for the ride for me, so I enjoyed it as much as I could.
In Eastpoint I was starting to get a bit hungry, so I took the St. George Island bridge over and had a bit of lunch at a place called “The Beach Pit”, which serves barbecue and fried seafood. The barbecue was alright, but not really anything to write home about. A year ago, this place was called Fire House No. 9 Bar and Grill, so obviously there has been a change in ownership (and apparently a loss of their upper deck.)
Finished with lunch, I continued down the road, crossed the bridge to Apilachicola (a cute town… nice little downtown area) and then decided to take CR30A out to Cape San Blas. This turned out to be a mistake, because the north-south portion of CR30A turned out to have been under construction, and while it was pretty much complete, was still under a 30mph speed limit that slowed everyone down.
Once back on US98, headed up to Tyndall AFB and across the bay into Panama City. While I was passing through the base, I was lamenting the fact that my father could have been stationed there, and we would probably have enjoyed it more than when we were stationed at Homestead AFB back before it gone blown away by Hurricane Andrew. At least I got to see a couple of F-4 Phantom II’s sitting on the flight line. Most likely they are being used as drones these days, as the air force no longer has any F-4’s operational.
Out of Panama City took US219 up to the Interstate and blasted my way home on the superslab. It was actually a very nice test for the Trophy, because I hadn’t really put it through any long Interstate riding up until this point. It performed admirably, with only one instance that had me concerned because the pillion seat on the bike had come loose. I ended the day with a stop at McDonald’s of all places, because they had an ad in the window that had one Big Mac at regular price, a second for just a penny. I hadn’t had a Big Mac in something like a decade, so I figured it would be something different. Now I don’t have to have one for another decade.
Total ride distance by map was about 530 miles, but with other things that I sort of investigated it was probably a bit longer than that. Google maps says it should have taken a bit over 9 hours. I did it in 12 with the stops for food and stuff.