I figured that riding the motorcycle out to and climbing Britton Hill would be the adventurous thing to do, because I am an adventurer at heart, and...well, adventure! Since I'm not really in peak mountain-climbing shape anymore (the dreaded "COVID-15#" - you know what I'm talkin' about), climbing from the base was, as the kids say, OOTQ*. I was hoping that there'd be a road I could ride on leading up to a point where I could park and maybe hike the rest of the way. Or maybe one of them cable-car thingees...that would be cool.
So I packed me a bottle of Gatorade and some honey-roasted peanuts and headed off on a beautiful, chilly Monday morning, eastbound and dowwwwwn (obligatory "Smokey and the Bandit" reference) on Interstate 10, opposite the flow of the hordes (well, dozens) of rush-half-hour commuters heading into Pensacola. Sadly, that has always been my lot in life: I'm going thisaway while everyone else is going thataway... I am never in sync with the crowd. I took my "big" Harley, the Super Glide (aka "Stupid Glide," officially the FXDBi Street Bob)....the one I desperately want to sell. There is a woman who sells Harley parts in the town of Florala, Alabama which is coincidentally right near Britton Hill. I wanted to see if she maybe had a better seat for my bike. I don't really want to spend another dime on this P.O.S., but I hate the "stock" seat on it so much that I'd rather not inflict it on a future purchaser. I'm not that depraved.
I did get to Britton Hill and managed the arduous climb to the top. Well... as luck would have it, I was able to drive all the way up. And even "up" is an exaggeration; the stone marker is right by the side of the road. Spoiler Alert: It's not very impressive - 345 feet. Turns out that Florida has the lowest high-point of all 50 states. Delaware is next, with a high-point of only 448 feet. Even flat and swampy Louisiana has a higher high-point than us: 535 feet. I know you're wondering... Alaska has the highest high-point. It's Mt. McKinley at 20,320 feet.
They call them, "highpointers": People whose goal is to visit the highest point in every state. Their website has a list of all of the highest-points in all 50 states. You can look at it HERE. And now I've joined the club! I'm in, baby! I got my first one out of the way! Only 49 to go.
Okay, so it might not have been as much of an adventure! as climbing Mt. Rainier would have been, or Mt. Kilimanjaro as one of my friends wants to do for his 40th birthday. Sometimes you have to make do with what you've got. This is Florida, after all. Everything is flatter here: our beer and our women. And most certainly our mountains.
*I don't think kids really say this.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing the link for the "highpointers". To the best of my memory, I can only tick off one location (Clingman's Dome) that I've actually visited. Given I live in Arkansas and my daughter's family lives in Bienville Parish, LA, it's shameful I haven't been to either of those. I think I'm too far behind to try and catch up...
I used to visit my grandparents when they lived in Sebring in "Highland County" and they always said the highest point in the state was there. Like a fool, I believed them.
Looking on a map, I haven't been that far west in the panhandle. During my decade plus of going down to Panama City Beach, we always dropped straight down from Dothan, AL. When we headed back, we went toward Op which according to the map, missed it just to the east.
Kelly, I'd heard about Clingmans Dome and always wanted to visit it just because of its intriguing name. I've driven by Brasstown Bald in Georgia, but for some reason we did not stop, although we should have.
I never really thought about highpointing as a "thing," but I guess it is...and I guess it's something I might want to undertake. I mean, it's cool and all...and what else is there for an old, retired guy with too much time on his hands to do? Might be a fun round-robin motorcycle trip to embark on this summer: See how many highest-points I can hit here in the south (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee). Think of the selfie possibilities!
Ed, if you passed slightly to the east of Florida's highest point, then you came pretty dang close in elevation anyway. As I rode around that area, some of the hills seemed like they might even be higher than our Britton Hill. Although...come to think of it...they might have been just over the border in AlaBAMA. The whole area is just undulating hills that most people speed through on their way from Atlanta to Panama City Beach.
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