Well, after a wonderful 11 days off from the saddle and getting to see the family, we're back on the road. We woke up around 6:30 and I took one last shower at the hotel before we all headed down to the lobby for our last hotel breakfast. Breakfast went out with a bang today since not only did they have their usual items, but they also had the big huge waffles. I unfortunately didn't have one because I had a bad headache and wasn't feeling all that good this morning. I woke up around 3 last night and felt the same way. I was hoping that after a little cereal and a few miles on the bike that I would feel better, and that is exactly what happened. After breakfast, we headed to the room and got our last few items all packed away, rechecked our bikes to see if there was anything else we could send home with the family so we wouldn't have to carry it, and got my sunscreen on. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone since it felt like we just got to see them. But- we only have a little over a month left, so we will be seeing EVERYONE very shortly! We can't wait. Although we are still excited about the last part of the trip, I think we are starting to prepare ourselves for going back into normal life and at the same time getting a little excited about it. With a couple more hugs for the road, we were off and had started the last leg of the trip. I still can't believe what point in the trip we are already at. I remember a year ago when I was doing things to prepare for the trip and was at that time wondering how we would be feeling by that time next year. SO weird that it's almost over. For most of the day we stayed along route 441. At one point we passed by an Orange Grove and it really made me crave an orange. As we were riding, I noticed that my crank was a little loose and I noticed a lot of movement as I was pedaling. That worried me because we had just had so much time off and if there was something seriously wrong with it, we could have already had it fixed. Luckily, we stumbled across a bike shop and we found out that all it needed was to be tightened. Thank goodness!! We chatted with the people in the shop and were even given a bunch of packets of "butt cream" and electrolite tablets to add to our water bottles. How cool is that! By the time we left the bike shop, I was feeling really hungry, especially since we had already done 40 miles. A ways down the road, we found a Wal-Mart in the city of Leesburg and stopped there to get some food. There were tables outside and a little overhang to sit under so we were able to get out of the sun. Boy was it a hot day! The sun was beating down strong and the temperature was at a record high of 89 today! Luckily we had a nice tail wind for part of the morning to help us get some miles under our belt. After that, the wind changed to a side wind and the only good it served was to keep us a little cooler. Thank goodness there was a breeze, otherwise it would have been even worse. After lunch, there were a few stretches of road that weren't very fun to ride on. There was construction going on, so not only were there cones and cement barriers all over, there just wasn't any room for us to ride except for in a lane. The only good thing about the construction is that the traffic tends to go a little slower and for the most part, people would slow down and give us a lane. Towards the later part of the day, it became a little more cloudy, but yet it was still pretty hot. We were pretty excited about getting to Ocala, because not only did we go there on our last tour, but tonight we were going to get to stay with Mike and Bernice, who we also stayed with on our last tour! SO neat! Once we got a pretty close to their house, we had some back roads to go down. The whole area we were going through was full of houses and all of the street names were something to the effect of "Juniper Ln.... Juniper Pl.. Juniper circle Ln... Juniper Run... etc." When we started seeing that, we were a little worried that we would never find the road we were looking or, which was Juniper Circle. Now it would have been really easy to find their house had we come in from the same direction as on the last trip, but that wasn't the case. Somehow, as we were riding along, we were back to the road we had turned off of; we had gone in a big "c." I was pretty sure that we had somehow passed the road about a half a mile to a mile before we actually stopped, but we kept going anyways, just in case it was still up there. Long story short, we found our way again and when we found the road we were supposed to take, we found out that it wasn't our fault at all that we had missed our turn. The street sign and the road name on Google maps are completely different. Even though we were looking for "Juniper Circle," the road name was SW 79th street- yes completely different. That was a little frustrating, but after that minor little speed bump, we were off in the right direction. We didn't have any trouble finding where they lived after that. I knew it was the right house when I saw it because I had remembered that it was blue. We had a great time chatting and catching up with Mike and Bernice, while having a nice hot shower too. It worked our perfect that we got to see them again. Bernice made this incredible meal for us too. After an amazing soup, she had roasted some vegetables and a salad to go with it and also had some Farro, which is kind of like rice/ quinoa (and actually looks like golden puffs cereal) that is really good for you and is really tasty. We were joined for dinner by Mike and Bernice's son and their daughter in law. I twas nice to get to meet a little more of their family. A wonderful evening, that's for sure!! We each got to enjoy a piece of Bernice's homemade pound cake, too. When we went to bed, we were pretty excited that we were going to get to sleep in a bed yet again! Our miles totaled 70.27 today. I don't know what way we went on our FL trip to get from Altamonte Springs to Ocala, but on that trip, we had 80 or so miles by the time we got there! Glad we went a different way this time!
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