From Austin to New Orleans: everything changes for the better

The second half of the ACA Southern Tier long-distance cycling route began for me in Austin. The eastern half. The half, which is, to put it mildly, less popular among cyclists than the other... In the last few days I kept meeting people who wanted to pray for my well-being. I wasn't sure if this was just a reflection of the widespread piety in this part of the country or if I should be alarmed. The terrain east of Austin initially remained hilly. I headed for Buescher State Park (the ranger was happy that I can pronounce “Buescher” so well), where I met an exiled Copenhagener in the park office who knows my hometown of Kleinmachnow. In this park I also met touring cyclist Tony, who shared his last whiskey with me and gave me some information on the route to New Orleans. He also warned me about what I had read many times: that in East Texas and Louisiana you are chased by countless dogs as soon as the hill country ends. But for now, everything stayed calm. It was only at the entrance to La Grange that I was hit by the first attack: a Chihuahua, the size of a slightly larger hamster, sprinted after me, barking wildly. The dog's blue little dress (!) fluttered wildly in the wind. I almost fell off my bike laughing. The next morning I wanted to get donuts for breakfast at the local donut shop, but the donut shop didn't have any donuts. Sad, but typical for this part of the United States. The stage then consisted of fairly quiet country roads through an slightly hilly landscape. Every now and then there were fracking facilities scattered near the road. A few days before Christmas I reached Navasota, a town with a comparatively rich history as a former location of the Wild West. Since a bad weather front was expected to pass through in the coming days, I decided to stay there for four days, including Christmas Eve. The place has a pretty good café, otherwise there wasn't much going on and the weather was gray. Dark grey, more black, were the clouds of exhaust fumes that some “friendly” pickup truck drivers in this part of the country treated me to (“rolling coal”). East of Navasota I passed through forest areas and past lakes that inevitably reminded me of Brandenburg in Germany. Here I camped in a state park that had a sign at the entrance stating that “discharging of firearms is not permitted in the recreation area.” It's something. The local donut shop was closed. From Kountze, Texas, what this section of the route is so notorious for began: loose packs of dogs. So numerous that I stopped counting at some point during the morning. My reaction was always the same: stop, shout a loud “go home” to the charging dogs and keep them at a distance with the ultrasonic whistle. If the pack tries to surround you, take a few steps forward so that all the critters are behind you again. A rather funny scene arose when a rather large, black dog ran with me behind a fence. I cheered him on slightly until, looking ahead, I noticed that the fence would be over in about twenty meters. Suddenly he stood right next to me and looked at me. I stopped and looked at him. He turned around and went home. I drove on. A surprisingly civilized twist. I passed through some very sad villages until I reached the Louisiana border. Scrap piled up in some of the front gardens, and some inhabited houses looked more like ruins. At the Sabine River I finally finished crossing Texas after what felt like an eternity. The state started with a dry desert and ended with dense forests and swamps. Louisiana welcomed me extremely friendly: in Merryville I was able to spend the night in a cabin at the local museum and the next morning a few friendly gentlemen even wanted to pay for my breakfast in the neighboring restaurant! The route through Louisiana passed through forests, fields and small towns. The drivers were considerably friendlier than in Texas. The highlight of the dog encounters was a pack of six, which - no joke - was led by a Kangal (the breed certainly has its fans in the USA), but everything was solved with a little patience. In Bunkie I was able to stay overnight at the local fire station. Since not much happens in town, not a single alarm disturbed the night's sleep. Only in the evening was there a brief false alarm because a local resident reported one of the sugar cane fields burning (they are burned in a controlled manner before harvest). East of New Roads I then crossed the Mississippi and thus reached the eastern United States. I welcomed the New Year at a campsite near Baton Rouge and then it wasn't far to New Orleans, where I stayed with Warmshowers host Arlon. The drive into New Orleans was a special moment: less than six months earlier, the line “there is a house in New Orleans” from the song “The House of the Rising Sun”, played in a 7-Eleven in Singapore, had caught my attention and brought up the idea of taking a route through the southern USA due to the approaching winter. Now I had actually arrived here.

From New Orleans to St. Augustine: the continent has been crossed

Immediately, New Orleans was a welcome contrast to the surrounding area: beautiful cafés lined up with modern restaurants, car drivers insisted on giving me the right of way and people even smiled at me - like in a completely different country! Arlon showed me the French Quarter, the old town of New Orleans. It felt downright European: narrow but cozy streets, old buildings and people moving around outside their cars. The old gas lanterns are still burning on many buildings, giving the streets a special charm. I spent the following day in the old town in various museums and exhibitions and tried the typical dishes that New Orleans is also known for. Shortly after New Orleans I reached the 30’000 kilometer mark of my bike trip! After a steep high bridge, I drove past a NASA factory and slowly reached the lake landscape northeast of the city. There were sometimes rotten boats lying in the bushes, perhaps evidence of Hurricane Katrina. I passed many houses built on high stilts due to regular flooding. Entire settlements here consist of this type of building. On another high bridge I met three touring cyclists who were on a bike trip from Florida to New Orleans. They informed me that I would have to lift my bike over one of the barriers on the upcoming road closure, but otherwise I wouldn't have any problems. I first heard about this closure due to a bridge in danger of collapsing in Arizona from Gulliver from Sweden. It didn't give me peace of mind because the detour would be about 150 (!!!) kilometers longer. I was all the happier when I simply pushed my bike around the western barrier and rolled on the now completely empty Highway 90. As I feared, I had to lift the bike over the eastern barrier, which required me to briefly remove my luggage. I now reached the state of Mississippi. I drove through a swampy forest that is in the buffer zone of the Stennis Space Center, where rocket engines are tested. Otherwise, as Arlon announced, Mississippi mainly offered waffle houses and casinos. In Gautier I stayed with Warmshowers host Freda for one night. About an hour before I reached Gautier, the passenger of a pickup truck pointed his gun at me at a red light, without saying anything. How friendly. Nobody has to like cyclists, but you don’t have to do something like that that, not even in the southern United States. The route only led briefly through Mississippi, so I soon reached Alabama. Since the ferry there across Mobile Bay was canceled for a longer period of time due to a mechanical breakdown, I had to take a detour via Mobile that was about 67 kilometers longer. The detour took me through endless residential areas, which were planted with quite stately trees from which countless tillandsias (“Spanish moss”) hung down. From Gulf Shores I rode for a few kilometers through a beautiful state park that was also used by many other cyclists for day trips. But a few armadillos didn't let this bother them while they were looking for food. I then reached Florida, the last state on this US crossing, via a coastal road behind the dunes and hotel complexes. In Pensacola I waited for one day for a bad weather front to pass. A good decision because this front produced a few tornadoes about 150 kilometers further east. The day after I saw the consequences of this. In Marianna, Florida I headed to the local campground. I reached a field of debris. A large canopy lay destroyed on the ground, the roof of the office building was partially destroyed, and opposite of the campground stood the ruins of a small residential building. A woman and a man at the entrance to the campsite told me that the site was closed. That was pretty obvious. The tornado passed right over the campsite. Seven campers had to be taken to hospital with injuries, but fortunately no one's injury was life-threatening. I learned that the campsite only had to be rebuilt in 2018 after a hurricane. Now it has been destroyed again and will probably be rebuilt. Until the next tornado or hurricane. I wouldn't want to live here. The route first ran through a densely wooded state park and then criss-crossed side roads through forest settlements. The scenery once again almost looked like it was in Brandenburg. In Florida! I continued cycling and soon crossed the Apalachicola River, by which I entered the fourth and, for me, last time zone in the USA. The clock was set forward one hour again. In Tallahassee I stayed for two nights at the “Bicycle House” run by Scot and Cassie - one of the better known Warmshowers stops on the ACA Southern Tier. The nonprofit Bicycle House, run by Scot, Cassie and volunteers, provides bikes and repairs to people who can't afford to go to a regular bike shop. And touring cyclists can stay here for up to two nights. East of Gainesville, the bike paths became more and more common and sometimes led on old railway lines through dense forests and swamp areas. A welcome constrast to the roads. On a bike path outside Palatka, an older, oncoming racing cyclist said “almost there” to me with a smile. And indeed, on the same day, after a long stage, I reached the Atlantic coast in St. Augustine - I crossed the continent from the Pacific to the Atlantic!

Along the east coast from St. Augustine to Miami: the rush to the airport

With St. Augustine I had now reached the oldest, continuously populated settlement founded by Europeans on the US mainland. Unfortunately, due to the weather-related delays, my schedule to Miami was now quite tight. Since I also waited for a rainy day in St. Augustine, I now had to cover 550 kilometers in four days. Luckily, a mostly very consistent tailwind helped me with this project. On the first of the four days, the stage initially ran through endless residential areas, but sometimes also near the beach. Then there were two beautiful cycle paths through a swamp and forest area. And they were beautiful. A few palm trees stood in the middle of the pine forest. Suddenly two rather large birds stood on the bike path and didn't move away when I approached. I carefully pushed past them and they let me pass. Shortly before sunset I reached Titusville, where the longest daily stage of this trip so far ended at 170 kilometers. The next morning I looked at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. As I noticed a few days later, I would have been able to watch a rocket launch to the ISS about eight hours later. I really should have done more research beforehand... The following three days on the bike were also long, but not 170 kilometer stages. The Atlantic coast of Florida is very densely populated, which is why you spend days driving through upscale residential areas. Donald Trump has his residence here at Mar-a-Lago (incidentally, the ACA bicycle route on the Atlantic coast runs directly past his hut). There were a lot of racing cyclists out and about in Palm Beach on a Saturday morning and at times there were more bikes than cars. As planned, I reached Miami in four days, where I got a box from a bike shop and then stayed with Warmshowers host Julie for two nights. At 75 years old, Julie still goes on bicycle trips and travels all over the world - wow! My stay in the USA now ended, but ended up lasting a day longer than planned because my flight to Lisbon was initially canceled. I couldn't fly until the following day, which was the last day I had to leave the country. On this trip I now had a quota of two out of six flights where I couldn't travel until the following day - once because of the arrest at the gate in Kolkata and now because the flight was canceled. I would definitely never book a flight on the last day of a visa’s validity…

About cycling on this section

ACA Southern Tier from Austin to St. Augustine: From Austin to Kountze in Texas, the Southern Tier route is still quite hilly. To Baton Rouge, the route mostly runs on quiet secondary roads and sometimes very beautifully through state parks (a day fee of around five dollars is sometimes charged when driving through the state parks). The stretch between Kountze and Baton Rouge in Louisiana is notorious for packs of dogs running loose. Pit bulls, kangals and other dogs are often kept in groups, receive no training and roam freely on properties without fences or with gates open. You should be mentally prepared for it. Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the route runs almost exclusively on very good bike paths on the top of the Mississippi levee. New Orleans has a comparatively good cycling infrastructure. The US 90 bridges northeast of New Orleans, which are closed due to dilapidation, can currently still be crossed (illegally) by bicycle, although the bicycle now has to be lifted over concrete obstacles on the eastern barrier, which was not the case until recently. Maybe it is possible that the authorities will further “upgrade” the barriers in the future, so the situation should be monitored closely if you plan to travel this route in the coming years, as the absurd detour is around 150 (!!!) kilometers longer than the main route. As far as I know, there are currently no plans to demolish the dilapidated bridges any time soon. Another obstacle can be the ferry across Mobile Bay in Alabama. In the winter of 2023/2024 it was often unable to drive due to mechanical problems. It also doesn't run when the wind is a little stronger. Only in the morning of every day it will be announced on the Mobile Bay Ferry's Facebook page whether it will operate that day or not - by this, planning is basically impossible, which is why you should always take into account the 67 kilometer longer bypass via Mobile when planning your trip on the Southern Tier. In my opinion, the course of the ACA Southern Tier in Florida is unfortunately not nice and unnecessarily long, which is why I followed more direct routes there (Highway 90 from DeFuniak Springs via Tallahassee to Live Oak, then on the 129 to the bike path near Branford, which leads back to the ACA route near Gainesville). The terrain in North Florida was generally quite hilly again.

Atlantic coastal cycle route from St. Augustine to Miami: This cycle route is generally well laid out and often runs along cycle lanes or cycle paths. Driving on sidewalks is also very common in Florida, since nobody walks by foot anyway... The route often leads over high bridges, which is why there are a few hundred meters of elevation gain per 100 kilometers despite the flat landscape. The small streets can sometimes be quite narrow. Unfortunately, hardly any campgrounds on Florida's Atlantic coast accept campers with tents anymore, so it can be difficult and expensive to find accomodation.