Marathon, FL to Key West, FL

 57 miles today to complete our journey.

For some reason unknown to me, we rode more together as a group today than pretty much any other day of the trip.  We mostly all left the hotel around the same time & a good sized group went at the same pace for quite a while.  One of the more interesting road situations was on our schedule.  There is a 7 mile long bridge that kind of becomes the entrance to Key West.  It is mostly flat, but does have a hump part way through to create a channel for big boats.  This is easily the longest bridge I have ever crossed on my bike.  What makes it more interesting is the wind conditions that tend to want to destabilize the bike.  I never felt unsafe, but I could sure feel the wind pushing me back and forth.  As we came off the bridge, our support driver Carol got a picture of 6 of us together.  I am second last.

As I mentioned before, roosters seem to be a big deal around Key West.  I probably heard 10 of them announcing their presence, only actually saw 4, and managed to get a picture of just this one.

The thing that most surprised me today was how much undeveloped land there is in this area.  For everything I’ve heard about Key West, I was expecting more of an urban area.  The city itself is developed and densely populated, but there aren’t any suburbs.  There are a lot of bridges.  In addition to the 7 mile bridge, there are probably 50 other much shorter that we crossed today.

Another interesting factoid about the Keys is how stable the daily temperatures are.  Today the forecast was a low of 79 and a high of 81.  On the subject of weather, we managed to do this 3 week journey without ever really riding in the rain.  We did delay our start one day by a couple of hours to miss a storm & we did have a few sprinkles here or there, but we never really got wet.  Amazing!  We have heard that some of the towns we went through have now been hit by heavy rain storms.  We were just enough ahead of that to miss them.

There are a couple of iconic landmarks that are picture opportunities down here.  One is the southernmost point in the continental USA.  When we arrived there, we found a line about 30 minutes long waiting to get their picture taken.  Here I am waiting.

And here is most of our group with a picture at the landmark.

The other place to get a picture is at mile 0 on Hy 1.  We have been watching the mile markers going down every day & here is proof that we reached the very beginning of Hy 1.

Another tradition is a full group photo at dinner.  This picture is actually from last night, but does include most everyone in our group.  It was a great group to journey with.  I made a bunch of new friends & heard people’s stories from all around the US & even some Canadians.

This pretty much completes my version of this New Orleans to Key West bicycle adventure.  Thanks for following along.  I hope you enjoyed.

Tomorrow we have an off day to do a little sightseeing & a lot of rearranging the van in preparation for our return drive home beginning early Tuesday morning.  Depending on how we feel, we are expecting either 2 or 3 days travel to get back to Wisconsin

Key Largo, FL to Marathon, FL

 46 miles today in the Florida Keys

I was back on the bike today & it felt so good. No flat tires or broken spokes, just a day of sightseeing , which is so much better at under 15 mph than in a car, train or airplane.  We started out by arriving 10 minutes early at:

The sign is oversized based on the size of the factory, but we waited the 10 minutes and I had:

Tasted quite good, but at $10 it seemed overpriced.  Most of the rest of the ride today was a combination of trails, bridges & riding on the shoulder of the road.  One of the bridges had to be 3 miles long, but there weren’t any large hills associated with them like in Louisiana & Alabama.

Key Largo is pretty wide, so we rode quite a few miles, but never saw water.  As we got further along & especially on bridges - it was ocean on the left and gulf on the right.  It is pretty common to see signs that say “No fishing on bridge” & there was plenty of that restriction here.  Surprisingly there were also a couple of places where a second pedestrian/bike bridge was built that allows fishing.

This is what it looked like as we approached, but the picture doesn’t do it justice.  There were literally hundreds of fishing poles sitting on the ground with each person apparently responsible for 3 or 4 at a time.  I don’t know what happens if you hook a fish & if no one is holding the rod, why the fish can’t just pull the whole apparatus over the concrete wall.  A bigger problem we had on the bikes was weaving our way through a couple hundred yards of fishing poles and people.

Travel a little further down the road & you come upon some stone sculptures that are unfinished.

No sign or explanation of what they are or how they got there.  A little further along we came upon a boat that looks like a race car.

Finally, just a few miles from our hotel was the Dolphin Research Center.  It is a non profit that rescues dolphins & also breeds them.  Pretty educational & we got to see some interesting dolphin activities including people who grab onto two dolphin fins and get pulled around.

There was even some non dolphin creature walking around.

The water around here sure has a green color to it.

All things considered - a very good day.  Tomorrow Key West.

Miami Kendall, FL to Key Largo, FL

 Zero miles out of a possible 52 for me today on the bike.

As I teased yesterday, there was a possibility that we would not be able to get from mainland Florida to the Keys because of a grass fire blocking the only two roads that exist.  For a while yesterday both roads were totally closed.  When we got up this morning, they were allowing only southbound traffic on one of the two roads & no way to get back to the  mainland at all.  It was unclear how bad the smoke was on the road & whether they would even a.low bicycles to travel through.

Everyone was given their choice of what to do.  7 folks said they didn’t want to take a chance on riding, some because of asthma problems, others because they didn’t want to get stuck on the Keys if we weren’t allowed to return on schedule next Tuesday.  Part of the problem was that we lost all 3 of our support crew.  I ended up driving one of the support vehicles rather than riding my bike.  

Eventually there were about a dozen bikers who made the trip.  The smoke wasn’t bad, the bikes were allowed through & everyone arrived safely.  We now have 2 days of riding here in the Keys for a total of a little over 100 miles.  I plan to be back on my bike tomorrow & looking forward to finishing off this adventure.  Since I wasn’t riding, it did give me the chance to take this picture of some of the group leaving.

When we arrived at the first rest stop, which was a gas station, one of the workers came out to tell us to watch for a rooster who likes to steal food from folks.  Here he is.

We’ve been told that there will be lots of rooster sightings in the next few days.

Some of you may be wondering what we do with our bikes over night.  Usually they go right into our hotel rooms.  That sometimes means things are a little bit cramped, but we make do.  My roommate’s bike is extra long, so it won’t fit in an elevator.  Mine folds nicely, so I can usually fit it into the room.  Here you can see both bikes in a first floor room we had yesterday.

I am optimistic that the tire repair we did the other day on my bike is successful & that I can complete these next 100 miles without incident.  You will hear about it here.

Everglades City, FL to Miami Kendall, FL

 I rode 62 of a possible 68 miles today (see below for the story behind that).

This is the well known “Alligator Alley” of Florida, but in terms of seeing alligators - not so much today.  I saw one dead one on the side of the road.  Relatively fresh based on the aroma.  We left at dawn to beat the heat, and it was really nice riding for the first 40 miles.  Not very scenic.

We did pass the smallest Post Office in the US - Ochopee, FL.  It was originally an irrigation pipe shed, but became a post office in 1953 when the original was burned down.  It has served as the post office since then.

Our first rest stop was at a campground & did have a pretty nice Florida look.

I stopped to take this picture since Miami & the Keys have been our goal all along.

After about the 40 mile point, things got interesting, especially for me.  Some of our advance support group had warned us that road construction was coming up, with no shoulder on the road & even in one place, just a single lane road controlled by a portable traffic light.  It turned out to be multiple construction sites for a total of about 10 miles.  Fortunately the traffic in Alligator Alley is not as busy as in a city, but there were still some times that vehicles got stuck behind our bicycles.  We tried to split up the group so no vehicle had to pass 20 bikes at a time.

My extra adventure was that in the middle of one of the no shoulder zones I got a flat tire.  Fortunately it was right near an entrance driveway to a construction site, so I was able to get well off the road to fix the tire.  Another rider stopped to help, which made the job easier.  Thanks Dick!  We also noticed when changing the tube that one of the spokes was broken on the wheel.  That is not something to change until later & the bike can function okay with a broken spoke temporarily.  After about 20 minutes we were back on the road, but only made it another 2 - 3 miles before the same tire was losing air again.  By this point we were only a mile from a rest stop, so we pumped it up & limped in.  At that point I consulted with Alan the mechanic.  We agreed that repairing the tire and the spoke was best done after we arrived at the hotel, so my bike went in the trailer & I rode in the pick up truck for the last 6 miles.  I am grateful that we have great support staff & that my problems occurred in a safe place to work on them.  The new spoke is in & the multiple causes of my flats are resolved.  One was a thin piece of wire that comes from a radial car tire, the other was a small piece of glass (thanks for finding that AD.)  I should be ready for tomorrow!

But wait - we hear on the local news that all roads going to the Keys are closed tonight because of a grass fire.  Stay tuned for the next chapter in this adventure.

Naples, FL to Everglade City, FL

 35 miles today.  No pictures, but some interesting stories.  Our goal today was just to get to a point where tomorrow we can cross from the west side of Florida to the east side.  We need to do that to access the Keys.  The ride tomorrow is through what is called Alligator Alley.  I remember driving through here years ago, but I’m looking forward to seeing it on the bike.

The first interesting story is that we were notified yesterday that our hotel in Everglades City was going to be without power from 9 AM until ???  The power company was replacing poles & wouldn’t give an estimate of when they would be done.  The dilemma was - when to leave Naples.  The heat gets oppressive after noon, but with only 35 miles today, there wasn’t a lot of sense leaving at 7 AM.  Different groups of riders had different ideas, which caused a challenge for our support crew.  They can’t sit at a location for 4 hours waiting for everyone to come through.  In the end it was decided that the rest stop would be open from 11 AM - 1 PM.  Any riders who left at a time that didn’t fit that better have enough water to last the whole ride because there isn’t any place to stop otherwise.  I left with a group of about 10 at 10 AM.

When we arrived at the hotel, the power was out, but the swimming pool was available, so a bunch of us used that to cool down.  Fortunately power came on at about 3 PM, so we are now working on cooling down the room.

The next interesting story is dinner related.  About 12 of us went to a local diner, which wasn’t overly busy & we were served pretty promptly.  We always tell the server when we come into a place that we need to split the bills.  We had 2 couples & 8 individuals.  I’m not sure the server ever encountered that before because when it came time to pay, she had all the drinks on one slip & a strange combination of orders on 5 other slips.  Everything was mixed up.  She said the cashier would straighten it out.  We felt sorry for the cashier.  Our approach was for everyone to tell the cashier what they had to eat & drink.  She would cross those items off a random slip & hoped that everything written down was paid for when it was all over.  Fortunately we are an honest group, so I think it all worked out.  I bet there was a training session for the server after we left.

Early start tomorrow to beat the heat as much as possible.  

Punta Gorda, FL to Naples, FL

70 miles today, with almost all of it on US Hy 41.  We did start out the morning with a river walk type trail to avoid some highway riding, but we discovered some construction going on.  That caused us to walk our bikes through a sand & gravel lot to get back to the trail.  Here’s one of our riders ready to go after that little adventure .

Hy 41 was mostly 4 or 6 lanes with a nice shoulder, but every mile or two is a stoplight, which if you don’t hit it right causes a delay.  As the day got warmer, those delays became uncomfortable.  At least when we’re riding there is some wind created by our movement.  Everyone made it safely to Naples, and no one is complaining that our 4 days in a row of 70 miles each is over.

I promised in an earlier post to get a picture of Alan our bike mechanic.  Here he is working on a bike at a rest stop today.

We are grateful that he is along.  He helped me adjust both my shifting & my brakes, and he has helped a bunch of others with various maintenance & repairs.  He also drives the van with a big trailer that carries bikes and luggage from one town to another.  Thanks Alan!

I mentioned that we have a couple of new riders who joined us in the past few days, and that gives me the opportunity to talk about cadence.  Cadence is how fast you pedal, not how fast you go.  Depending on what gear you are in determines how fast you go.  This comes up because I noticed one of the new riders has a very fast cadence.  It caused me to look up what my comfortable cadence is.  My bike computer keeps track & my average is between 70 & 75 rpm.  This new guy must be about 100 rpm.  

Not much to see on the route today, but here’s a nice picture of what I always remember palm trees to look like.  This is at our hotel for tonight.

Short day tomorrow, so we plan to sleep in a bit.  In answer to a question about how much further we have to go - 257 miles according to the itinerary.  And someone wondering if it was humid the day we rode right after the rain.  Actually I was surprised how fast the road surface got dry, I think because the sun came out, but it always seems humid down here - rain or not.  According to my weather app about 70% relative humidity.

Bradenton, FL to Punta Gorda, FL

 70 miles today in another warm day.  We started at 7:30 AM to try to beat the heat.  Our first 15 miles involved a lot of turns in the city, with a few miles of busy Hy 41.  Then we came to our treat for the day - the Legacy Trail.  An old railroad bed, which always makes a nice bike trail.  There were a bunch of crossing streets which slowed us down.  We have to push the “walk” button and then wait for the traffic to stop.  After 10 or so of those we came to a bridge under construction to allow bikes and pedestrians to cross over on top of the crossing streets which slowed.

Then a few miles further down the trail, we came upon a couple of completed bridges.  Everything is a trade off.  We had to climb the bridge, but no traffic.  The climbs weren’t bad, so I say it was a worthwhile trade off to avoid traffic.  My only complaint is that the pavement going up and down the bridge isn’t smooth.  The concrete is poured so that there are like waves in it.  I’m sure it is done to keep folks from going down too fast - you really have to brake to keep from getting airborne.  Makes for a bumpy ride, but I get it.

Here’s a picture on the trail:

I rode today mostly in a group of 4.  Every day it seems to be a little different combination, but usually we two recumbent riders go together.  We did have a rest stop at an old train station turned into a park & it was probably the most deluxe accommodations we have experienced yet.

One more long 70 mile day, then distances will start to get shorter.

Odessa, FL to Bradenton, FL

 69 miles today.  This was the first day we delayed our departure because of weather.  It was raining when we got up, but by 9 AM it had stopped & the rest of the day turned out to be sunny & warm.  Our route out of Odessa involved a bunch of turns through residential neighborhoods, which was really kind of interesting.  The rest of our ride can be summed up with this sign:

I’m quite sure this is the same Hy 41 that goes past Kettle Moraine Hardwoods way up in Wisconsin.  Down here it isn’t a limited access freeway.  It has a wide bike lane, and is a 4 lane divided highway.  We were going around Tampa today, didn’t really see much of the gulf.  There were a couple of bridges over some rivers that flow to the gulf, but they weren’t too steep.  Still 69 miles is a lot in the heat & a bunch of folks were suffering.

We also are trading out some riders.  2 of the women from Canada are headed back & 1 guy left for Virginia.  All of them had to get back to work.  In their place are 2 guys from Pennsylvania & the spouse of one of our riders from Chicago.

As usual, we had a good group go to dinner tonight & what a surprise - there was an ice cream shop right near by.  We commonly go for ice cream & tonight was no different.  They have something down here that I would like to see come to Wisconsin - Waffle Bowls.

I enjoy my ice cream in a waffle cone, but even in Wisconsin I often end up with a good tasting sticky mess.  With the waffle bowl, you get the best of both worlds.  Probably an innovation born from the hot climate where no one could finish a waffle cone without a mess.

That’s all for now!

Crystal River, FL to Odessa, FL

 The advanced scouting of this being our most difficult day so far was accurate.  71 miles with more climbing than we’ve seen so far.  The climbing was mostly in the early part of the day.  That can be good because it is cooler, but it can also be bad because the legs and heart haven’t had as much time to get going.  Whatever it is we can’t control, so we just do it.

The first 50 miles were mostly a trail right next to a freeway. Straight & wide, and up and down.  I usually don’t try to take pictures while riding, but here is one I got today in that stretch.

I did see my first live alligator on that stretch also, thanks to Rodney.

Here’s something unexpected I saw today - a palm tree growing in the midst of a naturally wooded area.  I always think of palm trees growing along roads in cities, or as landscaping features at hotels.  I never thought of them growing naturally in the woods.

After that 50 miles of hilly trail, we had about 15 miles of the nicest trail we have experienced so far on the trip.  Meandering through a nature preserve, and even with a turtle trying to decide if he should cross the bike path.

Here’s another picture of me on the Cruzbike.  Hope you’re not getting sick of seeing me riding.  At least I had a different jersey on today.

Okay, here’s another non bike episode that probably only happened because I’m on this bike trip.  Next to our hotel tonight is a restaurant whose complete menu is based on chicken salad.  Now I want you to consider whether you think a restaurant can survive with only chicken salad.  I will give my review below the picture  They have 15 varieties & it is available in sandwiches or scoops, along with sides like macaroni & cheese or chips or veggies.  I had the Fruity Fran on a croissant.

Here’s what I think - no way can they survive with just chicken salad on the menu.  It was good, although the amount of chicken salad on my sandwich was not quite enough to make it a good value.  The macaroni & cheese was okay, but not the best I’ve had.  I will be watching to see if the business lasts.

See you tomorrow!

Off Day in Crystal River

 This post isn’t about biking, but it was a great experience I had because of the bike trip.  A good friend from Menomonee Falls East High School, class of 1971, moved to Florida soon after high school & has made his home here.  We visited him maybe 20 years ago when we made a family trip down here, but haven’t kept in touch much since then.  When I knew where this bike adventure was taking me, I reached out to him & discovered he lives close to where we were having our off day.  Here’s a selfie of Tom & I.

Tom & his wife Sandy picked me up from our hotel last night & we had a wonderful evening of dinner, drinks, ping pong & great conversation.  Unfortunately I neglected to get a picture with Sandy because she is much more photogenic than us two old guys.

I stayed at their house last night, which is a real upgrade from our typical hotel room, slept in a little this morning, and then Tom took me out on his airboat.  Here’s Captain Tom at the helm.

I have never been in an airboat before & it is an experience I recommend you take advantage of if you ever have the opportunity.  We were in the Inverness, FL area & if you look at a map, you will see the hundreds of lakes all around.  This is different than the sand beaches of the gulf that we have seen so far, but it was very cool to ride through the different cypress groves and natural habitat.

At one point Tom was weaving slowly through some trees headed toward shore, then had the boat pull us right up onto land.  He turned the boat around & shut it down.  “Let’s have lunch”, he said.  The parking area would hold multiple airboats & there was a restaurant right there. 

Definitely have to come back down here for an extended visit.

Back on the bike tomorrow for what they say is our hardest day riding for the whole trip.  I’m ready for it after a day’s rest.

Chiefland, FL to Crystal River, FL

 Short ride today, and a short post.  46 miles, and pretty much all of it was on a 4 lane divided highway with a wide shoulder.  That is usually the recipe for a nice ride, but today about 35 miles of it was a very rough surface.  I was saved from some of it because of my rccumbent bike, but other riders were not happy.  As I’ve talked about before, about 10 miles from our destination we entered a different county & the road surface got noticeably better.  Here’s a picture someone sent me from when I was exiting the hotel this morning.

The terrain continues to be flat, with only one small bridge today.  Nothing of interest along the way to get pictures of.  We do regularly see birds soaring above the road.  I expect hunting for little critters along the shoulders or median.  Hope they don’t take a liking to bikers.  They are some big birds.  We did help one biker fix a flat & another untangle some cord material that got stuck in his chain.

Tomorrow is a day off, and I am going to spend the day with a high school friend - Tom Balfour if any of you know him.  We graduated together from Menomonee Falls East High School 54 years ago.  I knew he lived in the area & when I reached out to him it worked great that we were here on our day off & he was available.

Perry, FL to Chiefland, FL

 65 miles today with the last 20 being on a nice paved trail.  We also had our first sighting of a live alligator.  Only one of our riders saw it along the side of the road heading for the water.  Here is the photo he shared:

We are all expecting to see a bunch more, especially as we travel through the Everglades.

One thing I wasn’t expecting to see so much of is logging trucks.  There must be a big OSB plant in the area because there were about 50 loaded trucks today on the road.  Here’s a picture I got from the trail as the truck was going down the highway.

The trail also featured some wildflowers along side.  Something I haven’t seen in Wisconsin since last summer.

The other big highlight of the day was crossing the Suwannee River.  The trail we were on is a former rail line, so it was quite flat & featured a big bridge over the river.  Here are some pictures as we approached, and another of me and my Cruzbike on the bridge itself.

The weather for the past few days has been friendly for me.  In the morning when we start out it has been in the low 60’s.  Usually when we arrive at our destination it is in the mid 80’s.  Mostly sunny, so I lather up with sunscreen every morning & still get a little red.

One more day of riding before an off day.

Crawfordville, FL to Perry, FL

 55 miles of pretty boring riding today.  The weather was partly cloudy & in the 75 - 85 degree range with some wind in our faces.  Sometimes you have to have a day like this to get from one highlight to another.  The bonus was no bridges to climb!  We started out on about 15 miles of paved trail.  Most of it looked like this:

After that we rode a two lane road with a shoulder that mostly looked like this:

It is interesting that the road surface changes when you cross from one county to another.  Some are rougher, some have wider shoulders, none of them have much interesting to see.

One of our fellow riders got this nice picture of the two recumbents making this trip:

Very different bikes, but both of us ride in comfort!

I’ve talked about this before, but today I want to give special attention to our support crew.  Priscilla, Carol & Carol are all spouses of riders & they spend their days following us along the road.  There are specified locations where they stop to provide us with sandwiches, snacks & cold water.  They are our heroes!  Thanks to all of them

There is one more support person that I will include a picture of in a future post.  Our mechanic and truck/trailer driver.