Corey Gardner's Camp Collective Trip Nov 5th weekend

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Bicycle glamping. That’s what we’ll call it.

Our Adventure Vibes 2 bicycle camping trip started, oddly enough, in the car. The group had only coalesced around the idea of camping mid-week, propelled by the argument that Robby would soon have a job again and Sam and Mary Ellen were leaving the next weekend. Unfortunately, due to the beautiful weather and the Florida Ironman, camping spots were limited. Top picks Topsail and Grayton Beach State Park were full, which meant a last-of-the-season beach camping trip was out. Since we were riding with a couple of casual riders (me and Jennifer) and a couple of fit non-riders (Sam and Mary Ellen) the options were also constrained by distance. So Jennifer, Robby and I loaded up our car and drove north on 79 in the hopes that we would grab a first-come first-served camping spot at Pine Log State Forest early Friday morning.

As we drove through the campsite, we were increasingly dismayed by the “Reservation Only” signs posted prominently on each site. One by one we passed the prime camping spots on the pond, until we finally reached the last two sites. The only sites that didn’t require reservation. Sites 19 and 20. And site 19 had a RV, and it looked like it had been there all summer. With pleading eyes we glanced as one at Site 20.

Empty.

With a collective sigh of relief, since the whole trip was riding on our securing a site, we pulled in and jumped out, unloading all of our gear with speed since we were already a little behind, and we needed to get back in time to meet with Sam and Mary Ellen (henceforth known as Sam-Ellen for brevity’s sake. or Mary-Sam. But don’t tell Mary-Ellen’s mom).

Leaving all of our precious and heavy gear behind, we sped south again to drop Robby off in time to drink coffee and eat before he headed over the bridge to meet us down in the Cove, where we’d set off to Lynn Haven to meet with Sam-Ellen.

We agreed on 10. At 10:15 I texted Robby. At 10:30 he rolled in, sweating in the only mildly warm air of late October.

“I got stuck waiting on a train,” he smiled, not breathing heavy despite the obvious speed of his journey.

“So I went around.”

We assured him it was no problem as I shot a text to Mary-Sam and we finally set off, barely carrying any gear but sunblock and Robby’s Bluetooth speakers. Don’t worry, this was not the same speaker than only lasted 10 seconds on our last trip. Maybe, I dreamed, the speakers would last a whole song.

Five miles north on 77 and we approached the Wal-Mart area where we’d planned to meet up with Sam-Ellen.

Mary-Ellen is the sister of last adventure’s hero, J.Michael. Compound names are a family trait, although Mary-Ellen and Michael are different in other, less obvious ways.

Mary-Ellen and Sam were in town, having just returned from Spain where they did something nefarious for a year to make ends meet, strung together by shoe string trips to Mallorca for volley ball tournaments. There were rumors of mafia activity. Or weapons trafficking. J. Michael would be joining us later in the evening after work, but Mary-Sam were borrowing bikes, and ominously, his saddles for the trip. They were also loaded down with fresh fruit and vegetables, along with a great deal of grouper for dinners.

We spotted Sam-Ellen by the side of the road and met up briefly before deciding to hit the Wally World for supplies. And because Robby had forgotten to eat. We mentioned there was a Subway in the Wal Mart, so Robby headed for food while we got other needed items.

When we got back to the bikes were Sam was standing guard in one of Mary-Ellen’s bright yellow tournament tank tops, impressively tanned guns on full display, we realized Robby had completely missed the Subway and instead bought mac-n-cheese and barbeque chicken.

At one point as Robby scarfed down his food hurriedly, I glanced over and noticed he was leaning on the nearby grocery carts as he ate, not remotely seeming to enjoy the meal. He laughed and packed up the leftovers for later.

At last we pulled out heading north again, on 77, before wheeling off onto a side road to ride through less heavily trafficked neighborhoods until we reached the Bailey bridge.

We cruised merrily along in a loose formation through shaded suburbs. The sun was bright but the air was not yet hot. Suddenly, our peaceful ride was thrown asunder, as Mary-Ellen, riding with Sam at the rear the five ship formation, shrieked.

Just then, a squirrel darted from a well-manicured lawn, hell bent for the sweet release of a rolling bike tire. With no time to react, Robby’s death machine continued forward as the tan flash of fur darted right into his wheels, its head wedging into a spoke, spinning him around and casting him out like a weak child from a merry go ‘round. Just milliseconds later, Sam’s bike rolled right over the poor rodent with a quick thump thump.

In shock, we rolled on for half a block until we turned back to look, jabbering, aghast at what had just happened.

There, in an ironic pocket of sunlight, dead center in the middle of the unlined street, lay the squirrel, twitching and writhing, unable to run away.

“Should we do something?”

“We should at least move it from the road,” Mary Ellen suggested, taking the moral lead.

We all agreed.

We slowly approached the still spasming vermin.

“Should we kill it?”

“Yeah, snap it’s neck.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Let’s just move it off the road.”

Mary-Ellen knelt, gently touching it’s fur, which seemed to calm it.

She reached carefully under his heaving torso and lifted him, cradling him to her chest. Pacified, it seemed to grip her fingers, as if holding on to life.

The rest of us stood transfixed.

After a few moments, Mary-Ellen placed the squirrel in the grass near a shrub in the hopes that it might recover a bit, or at least die with the dignity it would be denied in the middle of the asphalt strip that had been its reckoning.

Someone shifted the feet, and the squirrel shockingly leapt nimbly a few steps before stopping.

We were all amazed it had moved, seemingly without injury.

Finally, it leapt ever farther away, quickly and with vigor.

As we moved away, we were all relieved to see it dash up a pine tree. He would live after all!

Or die out of sight. Either way, our conscious was clear.

With dazed but lifted spirits we hit the road again, heading north with all the speed our ragamuffin group could manage.

5 miles up the road or so, we stopped off after an uneventful stretch at a Dollar General to refill water and snack on ice cream before continuing on our journey. It was now officially hot, and the route was decidedly not shady. Robby turned the speakers on and we were propelled to the beats of gangster rap and techno-pop, or something like that anyway.

We finally turned west on highway 20 where we began to see Ironman markings on the road, and where 20 miles or so into the 30 mile trip, Sam had to wrap J.Michael’s much beloved Brooks saddle in towels to aid his ailing buttocks.

At last, as the sun approached the horizon, we turned onto 79 to head 1 more mile to Pine Log after a quick stop at the convenience store.

It was downhill, so we were moving nicely until Sam had to stop as Tupperware’s full of some exotic homemade hummus tumbled off his rack, which went unnoticed by Robby who kept right on rolling, feet tucked on the top tube as he descended the gentle slope towards the state park.

After securing his load, we restarted the final stretch, before Mary-Ellen struck a sharp rock, puncturing her narrow road tires. The slow leak allowed us to arrive at the dirt road entrance before it finally gave way. And so, unceremoniously and 5 hours later, we arrived walking our bikes.

 

We arrived just before sundown, so with only a few minutes of light left, we set about gathering firewood. Robby began darting like an enlivened forest hermit through the fringes of the surrounding pine forest. As I grabbed dead branches and small sticks, the quiet evening campsite was filled with the cracking and thrashing of entire logs being pulled across the gravel road and into the campsite. Robby dropped the logs one by one and bounded back into the dim dusk to find more.

Meanwhile, Sam-Ellen set about arranging their campsite, while Jennifer likewise began to prep dinner. Katie was inbound from PCB in Robby’s car with more supplies, and J.Michael would soon be getting off work and setting out to join us. With a pretty large pile of firewood, or wood at least, Robby and I also happened upon a stack of pre-cut wood that may or may not have been free for anyone to use, but somehow made its way into our site.

With the last bit of light, Mary-Sam set up their slackline and began to balance as best they could on tired legs and frazzled minds after a long, hot ride. And like that, the sun dipped below the bunched tree tops of the swaying pines, reappeared intermittently between the thin trunks, and at last fell below the horizon.

Katie finally arrived, but the gate code we’d been given was wrong, so as we tried to figure out the best way to get the correct code, while also squirreling away the aforementioned pre-cut, maybe-free wood, Katie befriended a kind elderly gentleman, who turned out to be the camp host. He revealed the correct code, which we’d reversed, and she truly arrived.

As we ate, J.Michael called to complain to Mary-Ellen about the bike he’d been left with, the gear he had or didn’t have, and most significantly, the headlight Sam had accidently taken, leaving J.Michael with no light to make the 30+ mile journey from Lynn Haven. Over the next couple of hours, we got cryptic, half-finished texts from J. Michael about his whereabouts, until he emerged suddenly out of the darkness, sweaty and clearly a tad bit irritated. He stopped abruptly when he was nearly closelined by the slack line, strung waist high between two stout trees, before anyone could warn him.

J. Michael had ridden all the way in the dark...well, all the way from the airport, where his mother had graciously dropped him, anxious to have him out of the house for her own date night. But still, 15 miles on 388 and 79 with zero light on a new moon...ghastly.

His first act was to remove the headlight from Sam’s borrowed bike and put it on his.

“How’d you do it, Michael,” someone asked.

“I mostly just tried to be a disembodied spirit.”

With the full cast assembled, the rest of the night was passed in increasingly drunken revelry, lit only by a very bright spotlight Robby brought and the crackling camp fire. We pulled the picnic table close to the fire and played Cards Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens until it was well past midnight, stopping only to eat too many s’mores.

Jennifer and I had rented cots from the Navy Base and only discovered after arrival at Pine Log that they didn’t fit in our tent, so we slept out under the stars and froze, eventually sharing one cot in uncomfortable, cramped misery.

It would be much colder night two.

Saturday broke cool and clear, and we all awoke in our own time. Michael first with his quiet yet penetrating voice and clicking clipless shoes, followed by Jennifer and I. We made breakfast, trying to be quiet, until Robby and Katie awoke, followed by a sarong’d Sam, and Mary Ellen. Before breakfast, they slacklined, the equilibrius envy of Robby, who tried himself later in the morning, after his birthday breakfast of mimosas and steak as prepared by Katie.

After breakfast, J.Michael, Jennifer and I ventured out to the nearby gas station for snacks, only to find ourselves smack dab in the middle of Ironman Florida. Despite our garb of straw and trucker hats, casual clothing, and mountain bikes, the eager volunteers offered us water and bananas.

On the way back we were passed by several leaders of the race, one of whom J.Michael attempted to keep up with on his fixie. He was going to win, too, but he was stung by a mysteriously invisible bee, which derailed his glorious ride, slowing him inopportunely.

We all went for a hike around the oddly shallow and clear cypress pond, returning to the camp in time for an afternoon nap. Michael and Robby went trail riding while the rest of us dozed in the mild November sun and Sam-Ellen went for beer and such.

Our firewood supplied was buoyed by the afternoon visit of a firewood salesman, which allowed for a brief conversation between him and J. Michael on the merits and expense of woodcutters, and the virtue in the good hard work of chopping wood.

That evening was a low-key affair of similar events and fare, but the night grew colder than the night before, reaching the 40s. Jennifer and I froze, literally (ok, figuratively, but it sucked bad).

The night was riven by coyote calls and the cries of a nearby peacock, or a woman being murdered (we’ll never know).

At one point Robby got up to relieve himself and I called out in desperation for an extra blanket, which Robby graciously brought me in the dark cold night. Eventually Jennifer and I climbed into the tent, which was a bit warmer, if uncushioned. We only got to sleep for a couple of hours as a rooster crowed from an area farm.

With a loose deadline to return our borrowed cots and needing to get home in time to drive back to the park and then to the navy base, we woke up and got moving early, eating then packing. The camp eventually all woke in time to eat and hit the road right at 10 as planned. That is, until J. Michael, he of flat tire fame, got to work. He inflated his tires and leaned the bike against a tree while he packed, when out of the blue the tire burst and deflated in a flash. Cue Michael’s patch skills, which were unfortunately unable to correct the sidewall blowout, which was severe. Michael refused to use the brand new tube he’d found, dropped by an Ironman competitor, so he tried and tried to patch the tube until finally he relented, taking a spare tube to ride home on.

So, an hour later we finally departed, with Katie taking half the camp supplies in Robby’s car. Before we left, Sam re-wrapped his seat in towels. His poor posterior was not yet healed nor hardened for another Brooks ride, yet.

As we headed south on 79, taking a different course for fun and sights, we spotted a water bottle, which Robby scooped up. Shortly, we spotted another, and another. Then a gear bag with a multi tool, then a trip computer, spare tubes, and more! The trip home had become a giant scavenger hunt, as we rode what had been the final stretch on the Ironman, where competitors, tired, clumsy, or fed up, had ditched gear. Soon, we were all spotting stuff and calling it out, eventually gathering hundreds of dollars of gear. Our tired, under slept bodies were enlivened by the thrill of the hunt, and soon we had reached the mid-bay bridge and were topping it and rolling down towards the beach.

At the intersection of Gayle’s Trails and 79 we turned onto the trails, heading east. At Frank Brown Park, Jennifer and I continued east while Robby, J. Michael, Sam, and Mary-Ellen continued south to Diego’s for lunch and some beach time.

And with happy hearts and full packs, we went our separate ways, concluding another awesome ride. 10/10 would bike glamp again.

 

 

 

Done