Still planning on finishing up the write-up about my Canadian adventure soon, but in the meantime I’ve had another adventure finding a true adventurer – Peter Frank – who is currently 3/4 of the way through 6000 miles on the Great Loop by canoe.
I tried to find Peter when he was near Columbus, MS a couple weeks ago, but the timing was off. This time I arrived right as he was canoeing by Clifton, TN. I left Birmingham around 1am and drove 100 miles northwest to Hamilton, AL.
I had a 260 mile route planned that first took me across the TN river at Florence, AL and then straight to Savannah, TN where I would follow the river until I found him – turning around in Clifton. But before I made it across the border to TN I saw that he was moving already, so I immediately did a Google Maps bicycling direction straight north to Clifton.
I thought for sure he would already be gone by the time I got there and my hope was that he would meet some people and hang out/resupply for a few minutes and maybe I would catch him as he was leaving. Instead, my progress through logging roads and old gravel roads was faster than expected. In fact, it looked like I was going to make it to Clifton with plenty of time.
I was using some of the route I had planned for my return after Clifton and knew there was a fire tower, and my new biking directions were taking me right by it. Seeing I had at least a few minutes, I turned and rode the half mile up to the tower and climbed it. It was a really rough logging road with logging trucks. Thankfully the only one that passed was while I was up at the top of the tower.
This took quite a bit of time, but I still was thinking I would be there ahead of him so I also stopped at a gas station to get supplies for myself and to give to Peter if he did stop and needed anything. He was really close by this point and as I finally made it to the river, there he was! I quickly dropped down to a city boat dock and waved and shouted encouragement as he canoed by in the middle of the river.
I thought he was going over to the other side (as there was a couple at a boat launch over on the other side), but he just continued right through the middle of the river. I think he waved but he may have just been resting with his paddle up in the air. It made me think on the way back how many people he must pass by every day cheering him on. I was excited to see him even if I didn’t get a chance to meet him.
There was another person on the dock with me who was from Clifton and had seen him at the marina on the far side of town, but drove down to see him again at the city dock. We chatted for a few minutes as I biked very slowly up the steep access road and she walked beside me (that’s how slow I was going).
It had gotten quite hot by this point, and not wanting to go back the exact same way I reverse some of the original parts of my route towards Savannah, but knew that I was already long on miles and looked for a good cut-off short of town. I found it, but it missed all the gas stations.
So by the time I made down Choate’s Creek and past Porter Creek’s swimming hole, I was long out of water. I thought about jumping into the swimming hole to at least cool my body off. And given the heat and humidity, I don’t think it would have made that much difference in how wet my clothes were. But I was hopeful to find something, and find something I did!
Jay’s Market didn’t even show up on Google Maps as a store, but it was there and open and cool inside with tables and chairs! While I resupplied this really friendly customer came in and was chatting with the clerk and me. We all ended up sitting down at the tables together and talking for a good solid 30 minutes. The clerk gave me some ice from a bag (they didn’t have an ice dispenser) and it was so perfect. It was great meeting this guy who was a retired tow boat worker. He told me there were generations of tow boat workers up there in Clifton and the surrounding towns. He knew about Peter from one of his buddies he had seen the day before and was talking about the canoe trip. I found this out when he asked what I was doing up there, and I told him about my mission to find Peter.
Even after this time in the AC and tons of liquids, it was now about 2pm and so unbelievably hot. I routed myself through Central north of Florence so I could come into town at the pedestrian bridge. It was a cool bridge with a tunnel like feel (to prevent suicides, I think). On the other side, the path was a mix of rails to trail in a couple spots and super steep old roads, hilariously not rails-to-trail or probably any kind of “bike path” regulation … no signs at all, just a nice 10-15% downhill followed by an equally steep uphill, all through a canyon forest. I could see the bike path pavement laid out on top of an old road bed pavement. It was so awesome and great to finally have some shade and get away from the traffic which was quite heavy at 5:30pm through Mussel Shoals and Tuscumbia.
Through Tuscumbia, I rode by the other side of Hellen Keller’s birthplace, and even though it was open on my way back I was too hot and tired to try and visit the cool looking estate called Ivy Green.
I refueled at a gas station knowing I had about 60 miles left with one stop in the middle. It was very, very rural and quite roads. I spent a lot of time with zero cars on a route that switched roads so many times. I was lucky that the gas station on Hwy 24 was still open. Lights were already out on half the store, but it was still unlocked and the clerk was packing things up. I said, “looks like you’re getting ready to close”. She said “yep, I’m out of here as soon as you leave”. She was friendly and told me to take my time, so i got the stuff I needed to make it the last 35 miles back to Hamilton.
It was super hilly with several thousand of the 14,000+ feet of climbing all in the last 35 mile stretch with very steep straight uphills, a relatively flat top, followed by a screaming fast descent on the other side. The only problem is that the roads varied between rough chip seal patched potholes to open potholes and the sun had already set so I had to take the downhills slower than I’d like since I couldn’t see anything out of my glasses given the humidty and low light.
I turned on County Rd 29 with a “Rebuild Alabama” sign and perfect fresh tarmac and kept wondering when it would run out, but the last 10 miles of the route were generally downhill and fast now that I didn’t have to worry about hitting potholes. It was the perfect way to end the adventure rolling up one last steep hill into downtown Hamilton, wandering around a little bit trying to find the car, and making it back before 9pm.
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