Chiefland to Perry, Fla - Jan 27

62.25 miles in 4:08. We stayed in the Chiefland Wal Mart parking lot last night, and it was a nice, scenic, asphalt parking lot. I set out onto US19 again, and it was more of the same. Great small towns, great weather, great road, little Sunday traffic, virtually no wind.
This is most definitely logging country. I rode past the Georgia Pacific saw and chipping mill, followed the old railroad tracks which have been apparent yesterday and today, and even rode on a portion that was paved from the mill, to and through the local town. I saw lots of neat small town things like a real Dixie Chicken. ( it's a great song, google it). We ended up at the Perry KOA, which isn't gonna win any awards, but its nice. It has an outdoor jacuzzi, next to the pool with solar panel heating that isn't working, so it made for great kryo/heat therapy on my tired legs. A lady we met at the jacuzzi, called this area the armpit of Florida, and a piece of paper given to us by the KOA, warned us of the cabbage smell emanating from the pulp mill that sometimes wafts over the campground. We went out to eat at Pounceys Restaurant, and we passed on the peanut butter and honey sandwich with vegetable soup that was on the special board. We also missed 'swamp night', it was Saturday night, and it featured gator tail and a crawfish boil. We like it so much here we are gonna spend an extra day, to rest my legs and enjoy some nice weather before we continue the journey towards New Orleans.

Okay, so here is my 2 cents!  I feel like I'm in a reality show!  There are still some swampy areas with LOTS of old decaying mobile homes, shacks, pick-up trucks and lots of camo clothes! Oh, and it's also bear season down here!  Mike has seen 2 bears in the back of pick-up trucks and he forgot to take a picture of a bear and wild boar processing place!!  The town of Perry has many shutdown, decaying motels and businesses.  We figure that it fell upon hard times when I-10 opened up and traffic no longer came on 98 to get to central Florida.  What a culture shock coming from "fashionable Venice" to backwoods Perry!  The biggest shock to me is the weather!  If we didn't have reservations in New Orleans in early February, I would head back south! I could definitely spend more time in Big Cypress, Everglades or the Keys!

Of course I sang the song as I was driving along!

The Dixie chicken!  It was actually at a business that makes tombstones!  Go figure.