The Sunshine State

The Sunshine State lived up to its motto today. We had another sleep-in day with a 9 AM departure and the sun was up without a cloud in the sky when we left the hotel. We immediately picked up A1A and headed south along the ocean. The water was glistening with the rising sun and the temperature was 67, a cyclist's dream come true. We formed into our usual group and headed down the road. I don't think I mentioned yet that the really fast riders, five very good riders, are known as the "Big Dogs". They usually ride at 21/24 mph and are almost always first into the hotel for the day. Our group has a core of 5 riders with 3 or 4 others who join us when they wish for all or part of the day. We generally ride at 16/18 mph and have adapted the name "Pedigrees" - we also stop for photo ops. So today the Pedigrees were at full strength and with only a slight tail wind and a great road we cruised along the ocean and up and over a number of small bridges linking islands and crossing over the tidal rivers. We crossed one new bridge (photo above) that was interesting in that when the built the new bridge they left the old one intact but it is now used exclusively by fisherman (and women). We had the ocean on our left and mostly marsh lands on the right where I kept looking for alligators. I know they are not really plentiful in this area but I have been entertaining this fantasy that we would see one sunning himself at the side of the road so I keep looking. We came to one larger body of water (small sound?) where we had to take a ferry across and the photo shows the Pedigrees plus a few others who were part of the waiting crowd. When we got off the ferry on the other side we split up - I joined with a couple of our occasional members and we took off at a bit faster pace than before. We followed down the ocean again although this time there were segments of housing and a couple of actual towns along the way. Among other signs of civilization we went by the Mayport Naval Air Station, one more military town on our route. Again, a very good ride. We were doing 21/23 mph almost effortlessly and it was not too long before we were approaching St. Augustine. We took a left at the signs for the Fountain of Youth - as you can see by the beards all of us could use a shot of the famous elixir. Alas, even after posing with Ponce de Leon himself the beard is still white and my driver's license still shows the same DOB. And so we made the ritual stop at the DQ for a quick lunch and headed for the hotel. We did 60 miles today under cloudless, sunny skies and, unbelievably, have but one day of riding left to Daytona Beach. I am very much looking forward to seeing Susan tomorrow but must confess that the ride is ending too soon.