Day 56 – Florida City

Another beautiful day.  It did rain for about half the day, but I did enjoy the ride.  We got up this morning and since during our day off yesterday, no one did any shopping for breakfast or lunch, we went to a restaurant for breakfast and had to stop on the way for some lunch.  I don’t think anyone minded.  Everyone is getting pretty tired of cold cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch.

It was an interesting ride.  Hollywood is right next to Miami Beach and Miami.  We rode right through the middle of those cities.  It was probably a good thing that it was Sunday morning because I think on Monday, there would have been a lot more busy traffic.  It was fun to ride through the middle of those cities.  I enjoyed the big buildings and all the hotels and such.

We stopped about noon and we had some breakfast again and then it started to rain and when I talk about rain, it started to pour.  I was riding with Tim, Nancy and Bonnie and we got lost.  Somehow, we thought we were a lot further down the road than we were and we were really messed up.  The rain didn’t help.  We were right out in the middle of it and it gets pretty hard to see the map when the rain is coming down and my glasses have water on them. We ended up stopping at this church and these sweet ladies tried to help us know where we were, but we were still messed up even though we didn’t know it at the time.  We were contemplating waiting for the rain to stop (which it never did) and decided to go and as we got back out on the road and turned on a different street, we spotted our leader, Dave, with a few other riders.  We ended up following him the rest of the day and everything turned out ok.  If we would have been 30 seconds earlier or later we would have missed him.  This type of thing has happened over and over on this trip and I just know that God has been watching over me and the group as we have ridden.  It is like He is saying, “I know where you are.” He does know where we are and will always be there for us if we just take a minute and look for Him or ask Him to help.

Today I saw the first LDS church on this trip.  I did see the spires of the temple in Washington DC.  As I was riding through Miami, I spotted a church with a steeple and wondered if it might be LDS, but I have seen so many, I doubted it would be, but as I rode by it was.  There were not many cars there and wondered if the services were over.  I wonder what they would have done if a man in riding shorts and shirt came walking in to attend sacrament meeting.  I sure did want to go in. I did have time for a little personal study this afternoon.

After getting out of the cities we rode through some farming areas that were quite pretty.  They were mostly tree farms growing all different kinds of palm trees.  The trees looked pretty all in rows.  We also rode by some sugar cane.  That is the first time I have seen that.  We are again staying in a hostel this evening.  It is the Everglades Hostel in Florida City.  We are pretty much at the bottom of Florida and will be in Key Largo tomorrow night.  It is still raining like crazy outside and it is supposed to continue through tomorrow.  I really can’t believe all the rain we have had on this trip.  It seems that it has done a pretty good job of just following us down the coast.  It used to make me nervous to think about riding the next day in the rain and now it doesn’t even bother me much.

Dinner was interesting here at the hostel tonight.  They have this “Communal” dinner at 7:00 and had chicken soup.  When the meal is done, they ring this bell and all the hostel dwellers come running.  They had a salad, garlic bread and corn on the cob to go with it. They had two pots of soup.  One was labeled “Gizzards included” and one just “Chicken Soup”.  I picked the chicken soup and since there was no place to eat outside because of the rain, I took my food back inside our room.  I started to eat the soup and the bones of the chicken were just broke up in the soup as well as the meat.  I thought at first that I found a stray bone, but after continuing, I guess they just break up the chicken, bones and all.  I was so hungry that I just took the bones out as I ate.

I took this yesterday and just wondered which RV would you prefer.

 Hollywood Beach.

 Banyan trees

 Palm Tree farm