Murrs Across America

We knew May 6 was the National Day of Prayer because signs every 20 feet along Highway 90 told us so. In a perhaps unrelated story, as I was donning my bike shorts this morning, I accidentally flashed the preacher.

Cursing (quietly), I pulled up my pajama pants and went to change clothes across the street at the filling station, which features outdoor bathrooms for which you don’t even need a key. There, the kids and I met Bicycle Tourist Paul, who gave Jane a Barbie doll (sans pants) he had picked up in Madison. She had been bungeed to his rear pannier because he said he couldn’t resist picking up a half-naked blonde. I think Paul will have a good trip, and as he headed west I reminded him that it was the National Day of Prayer.

Jane was delighted with her new friend, who she took for a dip in Blackwater River a few miles down the road. We had a picnic there and saw the funniest thing: a man paddling upriver whilst standing on a surfboard. The man made this feat look easy in the strong current, then he turned his odd vessel around, picked up a passenger couture life-vest-wearing dog, and continued to paddle his board downstream.

This day was not without hormonal raging for me, and I earned three stars easily with a fit that ensued after I fell off my stopped bike into the road after missing a turn. Of course this was Stuart’s fault, and so for a 5 mile trail stretch into Milton we rode separately and I had a small pity party during which I stormed ahead of my family and considered compiling graphic images of my bruises and scrapes in a photo album and presenting it to Stuart on our upcoming June 1 eighth wedding anniversary.

Fortunately, the fantastic Milton bike shop, Truly Spokin’, was right next door to a chocolate milkshake. Or a really neat place that serves chocolate milkshakes, Sherry’s Lunchbox. Don’t miss this efficient stop in Milton, dear bikers. Sherry will fill your bellies and Victor and T.K. at Truly Spokin’ will handle whatever ails your bike.

Audie (the father of our good friend Mr. Eric Street) picked us up at the bike shop and took us to his home in Pensacola where we met his lovely wife Vicki and cleaned up for dinner. We dinned on the beach at Flounders, an iconic Pensacola restaurant, where the kids played in the sand and where Brady learned to head bang.

Breakfast at the Hotel DeFuniak was as impressive as the hospitality and the ambiance. Below Brady demonstrates how much he enjoyed the French toast and Jane writes postcards to her friends Bela and Abbi.

We bid Cate and the hotel staff fond farewells and visited Richard over at the café, where Jeffry with the local press caught up with us. I ate a burger with a fried green tomato that was pretty outstanding and we met several interesting families who checked out our story and our bikes. It is always great when kids are curious about how Jane and Brady are traveling. Brady usually shows off his baby, and Jane generally shows off whatever small “treasure” she has at hand. She usually always has some sort of seed.

As we rode toward Holt on Highway 90, I had a lot of time to think about the inspirational people I had met in DeFuniak Springs. Cate had been a city slicker Texan but always wanted to work in a small town where the community was engaged and tight-knit. She investigated a lot of choices and systematically chose her career at the hotel. She is loving it. She loves the proximity to the beach, the feel of the community, the influx of nature, and the rewarding work. She does a great job, too. Another guest at the hotel was ill that morning, and Cate made her a special breakfast, called the local doctor, and in every way attempted to make the guest comfortable. When people are doing what they love they positively impact everyone around them.

Jeffry enjoys his job at the Herald and his life in DeFuniak. But as we were talking about the bike trip he mentioned a dream he has that he has yet to realize. He knows very clearly what his vision is, and he knows the primary reason why he isn’t making steps to accomplish his vision: fear. I respect tremendously that he has been able to identify both his vision and his roadblock, and know that such awareness is often difficult to come to. I wish him big breaths and small steps toward his dream.

I had a conference call in the afternoon, so we found a brilliant playground and waterpark and the kids splashed around while Stuart rested his legs.

My wheel started clanging about two miles from Holt. When we pulled up to Bill’s Country Buffet, we discovered there was a razor blade jammed in my tire! Because apparently, people discard RAZOR BLADES from their car windows. GEESH!

At Bill’s, five plates of food later (Stuart says to clarify that it was I, Kate, who ate the five plates of food, not the entire family), Rick the Local pointed us to the church next door where Pastor Fred welcomed us to camp in the churchyard and handed us a New Testament. As a bonus, Church Member Jeff finally revealed to me the meaning of a hand painted, obviously cornerstone sign we had seen back in Caryville that read, “Caryville, Home of Best Worm Fiddlin’ in the World”.  That’s a story for another day.

Thank you to Cate and the DeFuniak Hotel, Jeffry and the DeFuniak Herald, and to Holt First Baptist Church.

I’m convinced he weather channel could learn a lot from the regulars at Waffle House. Save the drama for the hair, broadcasters, get the accurate description from our waitress, who says she can now fish off her front porch just as well as her back porch. Or Mr. Waffle Cook, who says there’s three feet of water standing on his road. Or Frank, who wears a safety belt for heavy lifting and reports that we didn’t get none out there. All the weather report necessary; no creepy music required.

We walked to breakfast in the rain, obviously. Then we gathered up our things as the sun popped out, and I blogged in the Executive Inn lobby where the owner bounced his three month old, and where the air smelled like delicious Indian food. I brought my own curry leaves on the trip, by the way. If a girl has to do without toilet paper 80% of the time, at least she can have her favorite spices handy.

On this day we hit a stride. We booked it. The kids napped and we made mad time, something like 13 miles per hour all the way to the Tom Thumb station in Ponce de Leon. Barbra, the uber friendly attendant, took the kids out back to pick blackberries, which are bigger and sweeter here than in Missouri. We’ve seen a lot of convenience stores on this journey, and Barbra’s has been the cleanest, most friendly, and healthiest (I’m counting the blackberries out back here) store we’ve visited to date.

By sunset we were exploring DeFuniak Springs. We were greeted in town by a man who called himself Bin Laden, and after we declined his offerings of pizza and gin, we took in the glow of the sunset by pedaling around Lake DeFuniak past the Chautauqua and on to the town’s Main Street, just north of the parked Caboose. Brady fell in love with the Caboose, and while he explored it with Jane and Stuart, I met Richard Murray, owner of the Hitching Post Café, who said we were welcome to pitch our tent behind his restaurant. When I returned to tell Stuart and the kids the good news that we weren’t homeless for the evening, he informed me that a childhood friend, Delores, had bought us a room at the Hotel DeFuniak for the evening. I let Richard know we would be by for coffee sometime mid-morning.

The hotel was beautiful. Everything was breakable and smelled like expensive soap. Cate, our gracious hostess, was intuitive and attentive. She was professional, yet sweet, and extremely inspirational (which I’ll get to in the next post).

Bikers, splurge for a stay at the Hotel DeFuniak and eat at the restaurant there. While the town is a beautiful place, the dinnertime choices at DeFuniak Springs are slim. I won’t go into details here, but I have nothing nice to say about our experience at the Golden Bowl, where the television makes persistent loud censor bleeps and flies come free with water.

After we made the mistake of eating out, Stuart visited the downstairs hotel restaurant for a glass of wine. The people there were lovely to him. They bought his wine and encouraged him to come back. He said the menu looked scrumptious.

We slept “like kings” in the Louis Suite beneath nymphs, princesses, and muses, that I can only imagine were as squeaky clean as we were, thanks to the unexpected gift of an old friend.

Thank you so much, Delores.

Day sponsor Dr. Wendy Anderson of Drury University has declined the mother of the year award this year in favor of honoring our common mother: Earth. Wendy, director Campus Sustainability, is is passionate about promoting sustainability initiatives on campus, within the community, and across the globe. Recently Drury was listed as a “green” university by the Princeton Review due in large part to Wendy’s leadership on projects that helped Drury make the list, including the geothermal heating and cooling conversion of Stone Chapel, the O’Reilly Family Event Center’s LEED Gold status, and solar panel installation on Smith Hall.

Thank you to Wendy and the Drury community for all the enduring work you do to benefit the planet. Happy Mother’s Day!

“We’re sitting on our blessed Mother Earth from which we get our strength and determination, love and humility – all the beautiful attributes that we’ve been given. So turn to one another; love one another; respect one another; respect Mother Earth; respect the waters – because that’s life itself!”
-Wolfdyke Phil Lane, Sr. (Yankton Sioux)

This morning we’re enjoying a leisurely breakfast with new friends Terry and Linda in Fair Hope, Alabama. They picked up the stray Murrs at Tamara’s Steamers last night and escorted us to their home where they poured us small barrel glasses of Southern Comfort from their heirloom green glass eagle. We enjoyed conversation and a comfortable evening, and I’m currently taking notes on motherhood from Linda, mother of four, grandmother of seven. She says you can’t be close enough to your children or teach them enough. As a mother you’ve got to do these things and instill honesty and respect. If you clarify these expectation from the very beginning, she says, you teach your children to think about outcomes, which develops self control and trust as the children grow.

Springfield, bike out to Commercial Street for the first-ever C-Street ECOmmunity Festival! The merchants on Commercial Street are some of the friendliest in the country, and they passed a hat for this endeavor back in January. The Festival sounds like a great time.

Miss you, Commercial Street-have a wonderful day and thank you for the support!

We just left Audie and Vicki Street’s home in Pensacola, and we’re having lunch on the beach in Perdido Key, where we’re going to try to pitch in with some beach cleaning efforts. We’re a few miles away from the Alabama line. More updates to follow. So long, Florida!