I was thinking of titling this entry "Reward at the End of the Trail" and then loading only Susan's picture. After 1600+ miles and over three weeks Susan is here to help celebrate the end of the ride. She is standing on the balcony of our hotel room where we just sat and watched the water and the beach. Perfect end to a great ride and another good day. Tonight we have a last dinner with all the riders and guests (including Jack's wife and daughter from Israel) and tomorrow pack up and go our separate ways. Unbelievable. After weeks of riding in pace lines, watching out for traffic and calling out the road hazards, helping each other change flats it doesn't seem possible that we will soon be returning to our separate realities.
Again this morning we woke up to an almost perfect riding day - a bit overcast but no rain and in the low sixties. We had a flurry of picture taking while waiting to load luggage and get our "go" signal for the day. I'm showing the photo of the folks from the '09 cross country ride - a terrific bunch of people and I'm not sure I can express how great it has been to share another ride with such good friends. We were back on A1A almost immediately and rode along the ocean the entire way into
Daytona. The scenery was either ocean beaches or beach homes that range from very nice to truly magnificent. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much open beach there is in this area - further south where Susan and I have taken a few winter time vacations it is much more built up and only occasionally does a passing cyclist actually see water. And something else we saw a lot of this morning was motorcycles - and "a lot" is an understatement. We literally saw thousands of motorcycles going both north and south, and the closer we came to
Daytona the thicker the packs became. I posted the one photo above which was in a little beach town north of
Daytona - a little side of the road eatery whose parking area was just jammed with the bikes. As we came into the real city part of
Daytona the road becomes a four lane boulevard with hotels on the beach side and touristy shops, motels, bars/restaurants and the like on the other side. The streets here for several miles were jammed with motorcycles and the occasional unwary motorist. And NOISE, overwhelming noise as the bikers revved engines, idled at red lights, and moved out when the green light flashed. We on our bikes made our way along the side of the road feeling like ants caught in a cattle stampede. It was a bit intimidating but also exciting in a way that makes your heart beat just a bit faster and definitely heightens your senses. Needless to say we made it through the heart of the turmoil and found our hotel. There are also number of bikers here and it was quite a contrast in the lobby with the bikers in their attire and we cyclists in our spandex all checking in together. Great way to end a terrific ride. And for today we did 55 miles for our finale - everyone rode today and everyone finished. It doesn't get any better than than that. Susan got here in time to join us on the hotel patio for lunch and meeting of a few people and tonight the final dinner. I know I will have a few thoughts over the next few days. But for today I can say that it has been a terrific experience, I am very happy to have done the entire ride without mishap and can only say it is a beautiful thing to be alive.
I was thinking of titling this entry "Reward at the End of the Trail" and then loading only Susan's picture. After 1600+ miles and over three weeks Susan is here to help celebrate the end of the ride. She is standing on the balcony of our hotel room where we just sat and watched the water and the beach. Perfect end to a great ride and another good day. Tonight we have a last dinner with all the riders and guests (including Jack's wife and daughter from Israel) and tomorrow pack up and go our separate ways. Unbelievable. After weeks of riding in pace lines, watching out for traffic and calling out the road hazards, helping each other change flats it doesn't seem possible that we will soon be returning to our separate realities.
Again this morning we woke up to an almost perfect riding day - a bit overcast but no rain and in the low sixties. We had a flurry of picture taking while waiting to load luggage and get our "go" signal for the day. I'm showing the photo of the folks from the '09 cross country ride - a terrific bunch of people and I'm not sure I can express how great it has been to share another ride with such good friends. We were back on A1A almost immediately and rode along the ocean the entire way into Daytona. The scenery was either ocean beaches or beach homes that range from very nice to truly magnificent. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much open beach there is in this area - further south where Susan and I have taken a few winter time vacations it is much more built up and only occasionally does a passing cyclist actually see water. And something else we saw a lot of this morning was motorcycles - and "a lot" is an understatement. We literally saw thousands of motorcycles going both north and south, and the closer we came to Daytona the thicker the packs became. I posted the one photo above which was in a little beach town north of Daytona - a little side of the road eatery whose parking area was just jammed with the bikes. As we came into the real city part of Daytona the road becomes a four lane boulevard with hotels on the beach side and touristy shops, motels, bars/restaurants and the like on the other side. The streets here for several miles were jammed with motorcycles and the occasional unwary motorist. And NOISE, overwhelming noise as the bikers revved engines, idled at red lights, and moved out when the green light flashed. We on our bikes made our way along the side of the road feeling like ants caught in a cattle stampede. It was a bit intimidating but also exciting in a way that makes your heart beat just a bit faster and definitely heightens your senses. Needless to say we made it through the heart of the turmoil and found our hotel. There are also number of bikers here and it was quite a contrast in the lobby with the bikers in their attire and we cyclists in our spandex all checking in together. Great way to end a terrific ride. And for today we did 55 miles for our finale - everyone rode today and everyone finished. It doesn't get any better than than that. Susan got here in time to join us on the hotel patio for lunch and meeting of a few people and tonight the final dinner. I know I will have a few thoughts over the next few days. But for today I can say that it has been a terrific experience, I am very happy to have done the entire ride without mishap and can only say it is a beautiful thing to be alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment