I think we have had our share of extreme weather on this trip. Maybe it is always this way on the Atlantic coast, but it seems anytime we approach the ocean, the weather gets a bit lousy. Hitting the coast of Florida has been no exception. In fact, now I see the benefit of training in Burley when the wind gusts are hitting 30 mph. The wind today was fantastic at times. If we were going southwest, the wind would just push us along. In fact, we went across a flat bridge that was 1.5 miles long and was situated perfectly to have the wind at your back. Without much effort, I was going 30 mph across that bridge fully loaded on a touring bike. The weather channel app on my phone was reporting sustained winds in this area of 29 mph. So, when we were headed directly south, which was much of the day, the wind was directly on our left side. On much of the coast, there is a dune of sand that blocks much of the direct wind, but when that dune was gone, that wind would do its best to blow you off the road. You really did have to be careful. We had one of our group actually blown off the road. He wasn’t paying much attention to the wind and actually stood up on the bike to stretch and off the road he went. He kept a straight path in the ditch and didn’t wreck or anything, which was good. We had rain that came this afternoon as well. I did stop at a convenience store and wait the rain out, so I was able to keep things dry.
We are in St. Augustine, FL. This city is supposed to be the oldest continuously occupied city in the US, founded in 1565. It is also the place that Ponce de Leon was sent to find the “Fountain of Youth”. I hope to take a walk around the city and see some of its history tomorrow. We went up town for dinner tonight and the place looks very touristy. There were a lot of people roaming around tonight.
Spanish Moss in the trees
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