Another lovely day on the Gulf Coast. Here are just a few pictures to document things. Mr. Brown is pulling in a crevalle jack with his brother:

We bought our wedding rings from Mr. Brown. He’s a terrific man and has a great family. And I’m not just saying that because he’s letting us visit his condo, either.

We took a trip off the condo’s private pier and drove down the street to the state pier. It is very long, almost three-tenths of a mile, and costs $2 to walk. It is not unlike walking through a county fair held in the parking lot of a Walmart sale next door to an Alabama football game. Interesting people watching and too many hooks flying through the air.

The pelicans hang out for any left overs:

Kids were reeling in bait fish to give to the pelicans, so that was fun:

I startled him off so everyone else could take in-flight pictures. I was just a tiny bit hasty with this one:

Not bad for phone pics, though.

Since we rode 60 miles yesterday and that was too far and too hot for my lovely bride, I suggested we take her ideas for future rides and reduce them by about 30 percent. So, today, we just biked into another state.

Don’t tell anyone, but we are staying just four miles from the line, so it isn’t the most impressive feat you could imagine. Hence my expression, I guess. (Incidentally, a friend of ours got engaged just a few hundred yards from this sign a couple of years ago.) We pedaled on into Florida for a while and then turned back for the condo before we made it to the Atlantic ocean. People in Florida are about as observant of bikes as people anywhere else, but the accents might be a bit thicker.

I hit another round number on the odometer today. This is where I should have been to start June. Still behind, still catching up.

That’a 1,500 miles so far this year. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

We had dinner tonight at a place called Cosmos. Jot that down and go there on your next visit. You might have a wait, but once you get beyond the it-is-fashionable-to-wait-despite-half-a-dozen-available-tables insult the food is worth it.

It was going to happen at some point this weekend. The land is flat and we brought our bikes. There are long stretches of road and we’re on the right side of the bay. I had this feeling of certainty: The sky is blue, the water is blue-green and I’m riding to Fort Morgan.

My mother used to play here when she was on vacations as a child. She took me there once or twice when I was a teenager. We’re only 30 miles away.

So we were looking at routes last night and The Yankee says, “Let’s ride to this Fort Morgan place.”

It seemed a bit long for her, but she suggested it, so we went.

We had a slight headwind as we headed west. We did a quick turn off the main road on the coast, up to a state park. We did six miles through woods on a bike path, sliding past lagoons and katydids and then two or three more miles of RVs decked out in Alabama and LSU regalia.

And then we joined the cars again, more woods, beaches, beach houses. Head winds. A beautiful, warm summer day. It would make sense that we’d get the tailwind on the way back. We even passed this street:

But the air was dead still on our return trip. This ride, The Yankee said, was a better idea last night when she was in the air conditioning. But it was a great ride. We stopped at a marina and topped off our drinks. I tried new cycling snacks of gels and crackers and things.

We just missed a coastal rainfall, the kind you can set your clock by each afternoon. We did not miss the post-rain humidity, though. Essentially this route took us across the entire width of Baldwin County. It was sunny and the heat index barely made the mid-90s. I love to ride like this. We had plenty of wonderful views:

Here are my seat stays and seat tube, after a flat, steady 60-mile ride:

The dirtier it gets, the better it looks. Just wish I’d been pedaling harder.

We had lunch, cleaned up and then went fishing with our hosts. We caught nothing.

That’s not true. We became very proficient at catching bait fish. Other fish would then eat the eyeballs of those fish. Eyeball-less bait is unattractive to what we were after, so we’d have to catch more bait. And this cycle repeated itself for hours. Fish eyeballs, it seems, are a delicacy in the Gulf this season.

As the sun went down we got cleaned up again and headed out for dinner at the famous Wintzell’s Oyster House.

Tomorrow, she tells me, we’re taking a much shorter ride.