Day 13

Turns out leaving peanut butter and bread on the ground in a campsite is a big nono. The bag was saturated with these damn things, and they just so happen to be the friendly red ones that like to hang on to you when you go near them. After beating my bags wtihout mercy, and chucking the bread, we were ready to roll (literally).

We were on our last day of riding before our rest day and our destination was Pensacola, Florida, where we would be staying. We stopped at starbucks to check my email and get some breakfast. Someone had responded to our couchsurfing request (another site that connects you with people who host travelers) and we would have a place to stay. Nice! Excited about our lodging luck, we headed towards Pensacola.

Fort Walton Beach was a small place we stopped to get some water, and take in the scenery. The gulf beaches are definitely the most beautiful in Florida, as advertised. We decided to continue on and get into Pensacola early enough to maybe go to the beach there.

The bridge was fun crossing into Pensacola. It was pretty long, and we zipped along it. We found Ryan and Lacey's place, our first couchsurfer host, with no problems. Ryan was home, and we chatted with him for a while about life and such. We were able to shower up, and relax as the next day would be a day of rest. Lacey is into journalismn and photography and hopes to do a sort of documentary about the homeless / poverty-stricken in the Pensacola area. Ryan is into architectural modeling and plans to create a much more realistic depiction of construction for companies in the area using computer technologies not adopted by some of the firms yet. They are both intelligent, involved young individuals who were excellent hosts. As they were our age, it was nice to be able to relate on some of the same things.

For dinner, Ryan cooked an amazing Mexican chicken dish with cous cous. Man, it hit the spot. It was very good. Paul and I each had two beers, and were about ready for bed after that. We had a nice comfortable couch and air mattress in a nice home, and we were going to check out the beach tomorrow.

Life was good.