Great Weather for Capes (USA Day 158)

Dauphin Island is a wonderful contradiction: it’s full of sun-chasers and snowbirds, offering gorgeous beaches, calm seas and wonderful sunsets, but the island is regularly racked by storms. Every house is built on stilts to avoid the floods. In the time we were there, we experienced insane Caribbean-level humid heat and an apocalyptic thunderstorm. The island is, it seems, made for people who like talking about the weather.

The rain fell in buckets. We’d probably have just cancelled the day outright, spent another day with our great hosts Keato and Denise, and left tomorrow when the sun had planned to shine, but there was one big complication: Hallowe’en. Now we’re not massive fans of ghouls and skellingtons, but we’d had the idea a few weeks back of wearing spooky outfits as we cycled. We’d bought our vampire and witch costumes last week, in Baton Rouge, and honestly if we didn’t wear them today, there wasn’t likely to be another opportunity. So, I donned my red cape, fake fangs and eyeliner. Amy put on her stripy leggings and ragged cloak, and then Count Bikeula and the Whizzy Witch of the West sat back down and waited.

We couldn’t begin our day with the planned 8am ferry trip to Fort Morgan, because it had been cancelled. As was, it turned out, the ferry at 9:30, and the one at 11. By this point it was becoming seriously late to travel the 55 miles to Pensacola, plus if we went round Mobile bay, via Mobile, it’d be more like 120 miles, with six hours of daylight remaining.

Our hosts, Keato and Denise, offered us a lift to Gulf Shores, which gave us a chance to skip some of the rainiest, windiest parts of the day and the terrible traffic in Mobile. It also meant that we didn’t have to swim across the bay, dragging our bikes behind us, even though this would have been a very spooky scene indeed. All of this amounted to a 30-mile jaunt, beginning at 2pm, straight into a foul headwind.

Turns out, headwind is great for capes. They billowed and buffeted, whipping around behind us most dramatically. We yelled ‘Trick or Treat!’ at passing cars but didn’t give them a chance to decide which option they wanted. Looking at the whole performance from afar, the most amusing moments must have been when the two terrifying creatures were sneaking off for a roadside wee, eating leftover pizza or checking directions on the map.

When we arrived at Ray’s, our host for the night, he barely reacted to our outfits, to the point that I began our first conversation, “Hi, I’m a vampire. Ivan. I’m Ivan.” I mean, they were very convincing outfits. I didn’t want to scare him.