For some reason, despite being pretty tired when I went to bed, I didn't sleep that well. I woke up a couple of times and remember having some weird dreams. I usually sleep really well and straight through the night. I wonder why I couldn't sleep. When we woke up this morning, I made a quick stop at the gas station next door before finishing packing up. Joey went a couple buildings down to the brand new little IGA store that had just opened yesterday, to get some cereal and milk. Although I walked over, Joey decided to ride over so he would get our breakfast quicker. We had a nice table and benches to eat at, but ended up eating on the steps that were further back in, simply because we were out of the wind. We didn't get as early as a start as yesterday, but still didn't do too bad. It was a tad chilly this morning because of the wind, but the sun was up and shining and there were hardly any clouds in the sky, a very nice change from yesterday morning. Almost right away, we jumped on a bike path that we found and were happy to be away from the traffic. It was one of the nicest paths we've been on. It was very smooth and since everything in this part of Florida is super flat, so was that bike path. The path paralleled the highway with a nice line of trees between us to buffer the loud sound of the vehicles screaming by. It was a very peaceful way to start the morning. Now if we could have just gotten that wind to cooperate like it did yesterday, then it would have been perfect. We took the bike path for about 10 miles or so before getting back on the road just before crossing the Suwanee River. It is kind of neat to think about crossing it because I remember crossing it (much further north of course) on the way back to NY on our last tour. We quickly found the bike path again and jumped back on it. Since it was a rails to trails trail, it was so straight and long. We could see for miles down the road and the end of it disappeared off in the distance. There were sections where the trees made a canopy and it was like we were riding through a tunnel. Joey thought this was a perfect place to practice riding with no hands on a loaded bike, so he had fun with that. There was hardly anyone on the trail today, even though it was a Saturday. That kind of surprised me because a lot of the trails that we've been on have had quite a lot of people on them. The miles were still going really slow today, nothing like yesterday, that is for sure. We eventually made it to Chiefland and had a quick little break at the table outside of McDonald's. Since we weren't sure what laid ahead of us, we decided to figure out where the grocery store was and get what we wanted for lunch before heading out of town. From there, we had about 13 more miles to get to our "half way point" for today. The wind was not helping us very much. Although it was mainly a side wind, we really felt affected by it for some reason. I was really dragging by the time lunch came around and was dreading the last half of the days ride just since the mornings ride seemed to take forever. It turns out that it was a really good thing that we bought our food when we did. The little "town" of Otter Creek only comprised of a small gas station and a little deli/convenience store. We went inside at the first place that we came to and asked if we could sit at their picnic tables for a few minutes and the lady said "why of course you may!" Such a nice lady. It really was a perfect place to have lunch. We had the tables to sit at, an overhang over us so that we were out of the sun, and there was music playing over the loud speaker. I'm glad that we continued on to get here before deciding to just stop on the side of the road because we were hungry. That is one thing that we've always done is "push it out for something better" when it comes to stopping for lunch or to take a break. It really has done us well cycling by that theory. We had mini shells and pasta again so that we could use up the rest of the bag of cheese that we had from the last batch of pasta. Pasta really does wonders. I felt a bit better after lunch and we were able to get some miles done a little quicker. Now I was actually thinking that we might just make it to Crystal River like we wanted to. The trees down the median of the road really helped a lot with the wind. It's too bad that they weren't there for the entire day's ride down this long, almost boring, stretch of highway. Two days in a row with nothing but trees between the few towns there were. We definitely didn't feel like we were in Florida anymore. Where did the road along the beautiful gulf shores go? When we were about 10 miles in to our afternoon's ride, we saw what looked like another cyclist with panniers coming down the shoulder on the other side of the road. When we got closer, it was! We pulled into one of the "U-Turn" spots in the median and waited for him. At first I thought he was just going to keep riding by if I didn't say anything. I asked where he was riding to/from, etc. We learned that he left San Diego on November 12th, right around when we were there! He came across the us and then rode down to the Keys. At the present moment he is riding back up and is thinking he wants to ride back to San Diego since he liked it so much and wasn't ready to quit. The guys name is Dwayne and he told us all about how he has walked across the US and has walked in all of the lower 48 states in different segments. We had a little boost in our riding after getting to talk to him for a couple minutes since we were excited to have seen another cyclist. The second half of today's ride was definitely a bit easier. At one point the road we were on made a pretty large turn and we were able to go a little faster because the wind was actually helping us a little at that point. After riding through the town of Inglis, we only had 11 miles left to go. I decided to put in my headphones, which really did the trick. I was able to take my mind off my sore bum and pedal to the music. The last 11 miles were a cinch, I should have put them in a long time ago. When we got into Crystal River, we were pretty excited because there were signs for the Manatees everywhere. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to figure out a place where we can see them for a little bit! We had hopes today to get a blizzard at Dairy Queen, which helped us get through the miles today, me especially since I was pretty sleepy tired from not sleeping well last night. We looked and looked, but didn't see one. We eventually ended up stopping at Burger King, hoping they would have internet, since they sometimes do, to check. Somehow I was getting free wi-fi, but the people in Burger King said there wasn't any wi-fi through them. Either way, we looked it up and it showed that we had passed it already. We were looking really hard for it as we were coming into town and didn't see it. Looking at the street view on the computer we couldn't see it either, so I'm pretty sure that it didn't exist. With that being said, we decided to just get a little snack there at Burger King. Joey got a chocolate milkshake and I got an oreo brownie sundae, which somehow ended up being cheaper than the milkshake! A nice little treat after a fairly long day. We are finally down to the area of FL again that will have a few more towns and cities and less of the long stretches of road with nothing but trees. After having our snack, we headed off to find a place to camp for the night. We ended up coming across a little church that had a security light, which is always a plus. It looked like a place that we would be out of the way and wouldn't be bothering anyone. There wasn't anyone there to ask to camp, and since it was already dark, we just went for it. We had a chance to make a couple calls home and finished up the little bit of pasta and sauce we had left over from lunch. As we were sitting in our tent, we heard a car pull into the driveway of the tent, someone say "there's a tent here" and then they disappeared into their car and were off again. We weren't sure what had happened. This is the first time that someone has seen us an not come to talk to us. About 15 minutes later, the car comes back, along with another car. Joey was already outside at that point, so he went and talked to them. Once they found out that we weren't a bunch of crazies and heard what our trip was about, they were cool with us being there. The lady that came by originally said that she saw a couple bikes and a tent and didn't know what to do. She admitted to being a little scared, which I don't blame her one bit. However, I don't know how much harm we could have done- we're on bicycles afterall. We talked to them for a little while and they told us some good places to go where we would have a good chance of seeing some Manatees. It's going to be a fun morning tomorrow on our quest to find the Manatees! The pastor let us use the bathroom before he left, which saved us a trip to the gas station. So nice! It worked out nicely that the lady had come to turn the heat on for tomorrow's 11am service. It is always nice when people know we are here and we have permission to be there. I typed for a little while before going to bed, but not as much as I have lately since I was so tired today. Our miles totaled 71.20 today. We are about 100 miles away from Uncle Ronnie's house and are getting excited about getting there. We still may go a little further south before cutting over, but it still should only be a few days days before we are in Altamonte Springs!
|
|