Day 11: Gulf Shores, AL to north of Dees, AL

Daily Miles: 61.5 Total Miles: 589.6

Riding the bike trail out of Gulf Shores

What a day! And not in a good way... We headed out this morning early to drive back to Gulf Shores to get back on the route. Before 8am I headed out on a bike path adjacent to State Road 180, hoping to make the 20.5 miles to Fort Morgan in time to catch the 10:15am ferry to Dauphin Island. And at first all was well. After about 10 miles the sky got dark and it was clear that the 30% chance of thunderstorms was quickly becoming 100%. I continued to ride as the rain started to POUR. I am talking about POUR. I rode on and it just got worse and worse. After about 17.5 miles it started to thunder and lightning, and I hurried to seek shelter. 

Maybe next time we'll get to ride the ferry

I tried to go into an apartment complex thing, but it had a gate that required a code. So I continued to ride on and less than a mile later I pulled in under a house that was on raised stilts. I waited about 30 minutes for mom to show up and the thunder and lightning only got worse. We decided to drive the 2.3 miles to the ferry terminal so that I didn't have to risk riding. We learned the 10:15 ferry was canceled and that potentially the next ferry, at 11:45 would leave for Dauphin Island. We had to make a decision. The weather info said that there was a 40-60% of thunderstorms until 11pm, so we decided to just drive the 1.5 hours around Mobile Bay and pick the route up in Dauphin Island. If the storms continued we had found a place to stay on the Island. 

Part of the looooong bridge off of Dauphin Island

As we headed north, the rain eventually stopped and we had found a gorgeous day. Great, we thought, we should have waited for the ferry. However, once we drove around the bay and headed south again we ran back into heavy rain, but fortunately no more thunderstorms. We arrived in Dauphin Island and Mary dropped me off right in the middle of the tiny island. I rode the 2.5 miles down to the ferry terminal (to make up for stopping short this morning), then turned around and got back on the route. I rode up and over the 3+ mile bridge leaving Dauphin Island and met Mary 10 miles up the road to eat a quick Subway sandwich. Then we pressed on through more pouring rain to Bayou La Batre where we found a hotel. 

Beautiful azaleas after the sun came out

Now I have been quietly excited about riding through Bayou La Batre for a while now because it is the hometown of the fictional character Bubba in the move Forrest Gump. I was maybe expecting a Bubba statue and a restaurant serving every different type of shrimp, and let me tell you I have been sorely disappointed. But we are in a nice hotel. Once we pulled in to the hotel, the rain stopped and the sun came out. I decided to press on and was able to knock out an additional ~20 miles giving us a nice head start on tomorrow. All in all we made it, even though we didn't think we would, but man are we exhausted. Fortunately, it looks like we'll have beautiful weather for at least the next week.