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.