The End of the Road

Well we did it...biked coast to coast then from Maine to Florida.  Actually we cheated a bit by driving some 400 or 500 miles and missing Virginia and most of North Carolina, but what the heck, we rode 5800 miles and we had innumerable smiles!!!
On Monday we woke up at the beach, packed up, and rode about 60 miles to my mom's home in DeLand.  It was great to see her, great to arrive for some needed rest, but mixed emotions about the end of this phase of our grand adventure.  On Tuesday we went to mom's water exercise class; it was an ideal workout for our repetitive motion overused bodies!  She is a pistol when she is leading the class - a no-nonsense task master: play the piano, do the ballerina,  squish the spider, all to the count of 15!!!

On Tuesday evening Nancy's cousin from Kentucky swung by, picked us up, and we drove to Tampa for thanksgiving.  It is wonderful: great company, food, and festivities!  Soon we will return to DeLand to visit and end our time in Florida.  On 12/14 we will fly to Seattle then on 12/21 fly home to Anchorage.

We've been warped by the rain
Driven by the snow,
Tired and dirty,
Don't ya know,
But we're willin
To be movin....

Happy Thanksgiving to all and thanks for following along on our adventures!

Coming To An End

It's our last night on the trail. We are camping at a FL state park behind the dunes on Flagler Beach.  It's been cloudy, overcast and big northerly winds for the past several days.  Looking like rain, but just a sprinkle here and there.  We are partially sheltered by the the winds by palm bushes and dunes, we can here the constant surf and waves crashing. Seems fitting for our last night of this big adventure. In some ways it is hard to believe it is coming to a close oon the other hand feels like another break to do some more visiting. It's been an incredible journey, sometimes it's hard for me to believe we actually did it, it truly was a one day at a time accomplishment.
  We end our journey at Chris's moms house in Deland Fl and then to Tampa for Thanksgiving to spend with my bro and sister inlaw, my sister and our cousin. We will return to Deland for a 2nd thanksgiving dinner and extended stay with Chris's mom and sister , then to Seattle and then home to Anchorage.  We haven't reached the 6000 mile mark still have a couple  hundred miles to go, maybe we will take some day trips while in fl to ease out of the bike mode and keep adding on the miles!

The Sunshine State

Here we are in St Augustine, Florida, the oldest European city in North America.  But let's backtrack a few days so I can tell you how we got here...  After our big 81 mile day we left the next morning in the rain, had a few little adventures, and ended the day at a campground right across the road from the Okefenokee Swamp (or "national wildlife refuge" if you prefer).  At that point we were still in Georgia and I must say that we enjoyed Georgia.  We only saw a narrow ribbon of the coastal plain but the roads were more bicycle friendly than South Carolina and the farms looked more prosperous.  The pine tree farms are being actively harvested and we did see a lot of logs and chips and milled logs heading down the road in big trucks.  The next day we left in cold and foggy conditions; gloves and plastic bags on our heads was the uniform of the morning!  We really wanted to go into the refuge but we also wanted to move our show down the road so after riding to the first info kiosk and seeing one hawk we got back on the road toward Florida.  I warned Nancy that I wanted to stop and take a picture of her at the welcome to Florida sign when we crossed the St Mary's River.  She was fine with that but there was no sign, only a buckle your seatbelt, it's the law sign!  The afternoon was better with exotic birds and we ended the day at a hotel near the Jacksonville airport.  We had some navigation to do to get out of the airport so I was comparing our 10 year old bike map with the map on my phone.  I figured out a way to get back to the bike route and went over it with Nancy.  She took one look at the phone and pointed out an alternate route on a road that did not exist when our bike map was published!  It worked out great.  There was very little traffic at 7 am so we escaped the airport and Jacksonville and peddled our way to the ferry at the mouth of the St Johns River.  It was quite windy but once we turned south we just flew down the coast.  For a while we passed miles and miles of opulent mansions; many looked like they were built in the 1920s and, in grandeur, were between the White House and the palace of Versailles!  We arrived in St Augustine with enough time to tour the old fort.  There are a lot of tourists here and most of them were cold!  Our bicycle adventure is drawing to a close; in a couple of more days we will be in DeLand and visiting my mom and sister.

Our Southern Experience

We're starting day 8 of riding this morning.  It took us 5 days to ride through South Carolina, at times we really felt out of our comfort zone on some of the rural country roads and at times we were out of the ordinary at some of our store stops. In general people have been been very friendly, helpful and curious about our trip.  We are on a quest to make it to Florida to spend time with family so we have put in some long days.  Also there are not a lot of camping or  accommodation options along our route.  The first 3 milage days were in the fifties, since then high 60s, 70s and yesterday 81 miles!  The terrane  has been great, flat in North and South Carolina and mild rolling hills in Georgia.  After a month off from cycling in NJ we got soft and doughy, but now after a week of riding feeling stronger and fit.  We talk a lot about the whole trip and marvel at all the different places, Eco systems and foliage we have seen along the way.  The south is so different from the west and north east.  People marvel at how beautiful Alaska is, which it is, but there are so so many beautiful places through out our country.  We have really enjoyed riding in GA with its tall stands of pine, sandy soils and orange dirt.  The agricultural experience has also been awesome, with lots of cattle and hay farming in the west and central along with corn and soybeans, in the south we have ridden past cotton fields and Vadallia sweet onions, peanut fields with a zillion peanut shells along the side of the road and we think pecan trees.  We went off route yesterday towards the end of the day to find a motel to stay in, so todays route is our own, a shorter route to get further along our way and we will connect up with our mapped route at the end of the day.  It's gotten much cooler and there's showers to day, so a shorter route will be appreciated!

South Carolina

Three days of riding brought us to Andrews, South Carolina, a quiet little town southwest of Myrtle Beach.  I'm a little reluctant to draw broad conclusions from our limited experience...but it seems that the roads here do not have shoulders.  And there is a fair amount of truck traffic.  And our daily destinations are determined by the limited motels along our route.  But let's not be negative - we're having a great time!  It's sunny.  Most drivers give us as much room as they can.  And we keep meeting the nicest people.  Today we stopped at a gas station / grocery (rusty rural not shiny urban) to get cold drinks and eat some of the snacks we routinely pack.  A woman who was parked said that she didn't think she would see us so soon, she had just passed us...at least that's what I think she said, to my ear, her accent was quite strong.  Then her husband came out of the store and asked us about our travels.  We chatted a bit and he asked us if we worried about stuff; he offered that he would have a little bit of worry if he was traveling like we were.  We told him no, most of the people we meet are like him: good people who are interested in what we are doing.  They wished us safe travels, warned us to be careful, and told us that the store had the best hotdogs.  We passed on the hotdogs.  We find it interesting that people here keep commenting on how cold it is.  Before the sun comes up there was frost the first two mornings but we are in a warming trend and it has made it to the 70's the last two days!
Our legs are doing fine after our month off from riding...but our bums are out of shape...reminds me of the birthday card my mom sent, "smile until your cheeks hurt!"
Oh yea, we have seen several fields of cotton; they remind me of snow.  And today we saw an ostrich  on what otherwise appeared to be a horse farm.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Oh What a Beautiful Feeling

We're back on our bikes and Oh how good that feels!  We returned the rental car to the Wilmington, NC airport this morning and started today's ride from the airport.  The day was just wonderful, it started out frosty but sunny and by the time we were riding it had warmed up.  We had a tailwind in the morning but our direction changed by afternoon and thus a head wind for our afternoon ride.  We had lots of variety today with coastal riding, inland roads, great shoulders and less than ideal roads, new ecosystem with sandy soils and lots of pine trees and a ferry ride with dophins connecting coastal towns.  Chris called this a dolphin/endorphin ride.  It was a great day of riding and feels awesome to be back in the saddle.

Goin' to where the weather suits my clothes...

After a month in south jersey including dental work for nancy; a great, quiet time at the shore; a nice visit with our niece in Virginia; the big build up for a storm that was minor where we were; and relying on the generous hospitality of nancy' sister, we rented a car to get our show on the road about 500 miles south to Wilmington, North Carolina, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River.  We are currently in a modest motel and tomorrow we will turn in the car, load up the bikes, and hit the road on the adventure cycling association route to Florida.
Last night we made a return visit to Kori and Kris in Virginia - what a great way to watch the election results!
In a recent development, we have decided to go home for Christmas!  Our adventure has really changed...from the car-centered road trip to the relatively hard-core coast-to-coast bike trip to cultural immersion experience in New Jersey to fleeing the cold weather.  Our trip continues to ebb and flow with opportunities, What a grand time it continues to be!