Day 51 – Kennedy Space Center

Lately I have been having a hard time writing these blogs.  It seems like I write the same things day after day and I am sure that anyone reading this has to be bored to death.  My days are not that much different from the preceding day unless some bad weather or something is taking place and I am glad to have none of that to report.

We did get up and get ready a little early today.  We had about 55 miles to ride, but there was a few of us that wanted to travel an extra 14 miles round trip to get to the Kennedy Space Center and take a tour.  The last tour started at 2:45, so we needed the early start to get there on time.  It was another beautiful day to ride.  We again rode by some great housing areas and some inland rivers.  We didn’t ride next to the ocean today, but these rivers are connected to the ocean where the tide has some effect on the rivers height.  I did get another flat today.  It was my seventh I think.  I still am leading the group. 

The flat made me a little later than I wanted to be, but we did get to the Center at 2:00.  It was a great tour.  It was a little sad due to the fact that it was centered on the space shuttle program and the space shuttle program is no more.  We did get to actually go into the space shuttle Explorer and see the cockpit and cargo bay and their living quarters.  The best part of the tour for me was a building that they have dedicated to the Apollo missions and they have a Saturn V rocket in there hanging on its side and it was absolutely huge.  It was as long as a football field.  It is just unbelievable that it takes a rocket that big to get a little capsule into space.  They had some movies about the Apollo 8 mission, which was the first mission to circle around the moon and the Apollo 11 (I think) mission, which was the first landing.  They have the actual terminals in the Center that were used and it just made you proud of our Country and the ingenuity of man to get something like that done.

There was one thing that I wanted to mention yesterday.  They are having this big motorcycle rally here (in Daytona Beach) in the next few days called Biketoberfest.  It is much like the rally in Sturgis and this area is becoming inundated with cycles.  The campgrounds that we stay at are full of them and there are bike shops and chop shops all over the place.  I guess it is one of the big gatherings in the US.

The building in which they built the Saturn V and the put the shuttle together with the rockets.  In the Apollo days, this was the largest building by volumn in the world.  Now it is the 4th largest.

 Saturn V Rocket used to propel the Apollo missions.

 The two well dressed people are Kennedy Center employees.  They were bikers and interested in what we were doing.  They gave us stickers that read, "I need my space".

Day 50 – Daytona Beach

We just about had another mutiny on our hands this morning.  When we woke, it looked like the wind was going to be blowing quite hard today and there was also a tornado warning issued for the area.  The storm causing the tornado warning had actually passed to the north, but many in the group were thinking we should wait another day to go.  I really wasn’t part of that group.  We have one more day of rest and I hated to give that up as we would have no wiggle room for the rest of the trip and I knew a day off in a few days will be needed.  Dave, our leader,  made the decision to ride and  just see how we do and it turned out to be a great day.  We rode many beaches today such as Beverly Beach, Crescent Beach, Flagler Beach and we are spending the night close to Daytona Beach.  It was absolutely beautiful riding.  Much of the way, the ocean was on one side of the road and houses on the other and the sun was shining on the ocean just right and it was just enjoyable.

There is a lot of wealth along this coast.  We end up riding in some areas that the houses are just amazing.  I imagine that many people come here for the winters.  Much of the riding is on islands that border the Atlantic on one side and have a river channel running along the other.  These homes have boat houses on the river side and they have these huge boats out back and all.  I am enjoying Florida.  The scenery is more tropical than we have seen in the past and I have enjoyed the palm trees and all.

We rode 62 miles today. We are camping tonight and it is very hot and humid.  I hope it cools down.

Getting ready today in the hostel

Riding along the beach

This picture really doesn't do it justice.  I took it while riding and should have stopped.

Day 49 – St. Augustine

Another Sunday.  Wow the weeks seem to be going by quickly.  This actually turned out to be a good day to have a rest day.  The wind has been incessant today.  Tonight, the news is reporting them at sustained 33 mph winds.  It is supposed to calm down tomorrow, but the direction is also supposed to shift more to the south east direction which could end up being brutal.  There is supposed to be two inches of rain tonight and that also is supposed to change to a 30% chance tomorrow morning.  I am hoping for the best.

We are staying in the Pirate’s Haus hostel.  It is by far the best hostel we have stayed in thus far.  It is clean and the beds are regular mattresses and the owner is just a really fun guy.  He cooked us pancakes for breakfast today and he would make these pirate faces with a squirt bottle of pancake batter and then after that cooked for a bit, he would pour a pancake over the pirate face.  When the pancake was done, you would have this little pirate face in the pancake.  He would write names and messages in the pancakes, which is not as easy as it sounds, because he has to write backwards on the griddle for it to come out right. After that he dressed in his pirate outfit and was wandering around in that.

I spent the morning getting a little religion in my day.  Technology is pretty wonderful.  The sessions of last week’s conference were on the internet and I was able to watch some that I missed.  I also helped Dave, our tour leader, outfit his new bike.  Yesterday as he was riding, his bike frame cracked and he had to buy a new bike to continue on.  He bought a Surly Long Haul Trucker, but was pretty sad about losing his Canondale.  He was pretty bonded to his bike.  We had to move his fenders, pedals, racks and computer to the new bike and it took us a few hours to get that done.  I then jumped on my bike and did a little touring of the town.  There is a lot of history here, but it really is a pretty small place.  The city has a ton of restaurants and there are a lot of tourists, but I think they come just to hang out and eat.

I had a nice dinner with Tim and Nancy tonight.  We ate at this quaint little place and I had Chicken and Sweet Potato Dumplings with pecan pie for desert.  It was so good.  We just had a great evening talking about each other’s families and lives and such.  They really have become good friends.  It will be interesting to see what happens when this is all over.  I imagine that we will all just go back to our prior lives and that will be that, but I would hope that we could still correspond once in a while.

An old Spanish Fort that actually has a mote around it.  It was built in the early 1700's.  Can you belive it still exists?  That's amazing.

An old hotel that is now a university.

Day 48 – Nor’ Easter

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.

We rode 68 miles today.  All in all, I did enjoy the ride.  The wind probably helped as much as it hindered, so for me, it was ok.  This Nor’ Easter is supposed to continue through Monday, so it looks like we get to deal with it more.

Spanish Moss in the trees

Getting everything secure for a ferry crossing today

Day 47 – Yulee, Florida

We are in our last state.  Do you know what a Nor’easter is? The locals say we are going through one.  The wind increased in velocity all day and by this afternoon, it was really howling.  Bill, Merv and I pretty much drafted on each other to get tour destination.  We were heading east today to get here and have about 10 more miles to get to the coast and then we will be heading southwest.  If this weather pattern continues, which it is supposed to, it should push us along for much of tomorrow.

The bad part about the weather is that we are back in rain.  We didn’t have to ride in any today, but this afternoon, it really came down.  The thunder was shaking the ground it was so loud.  The campground that we are staying at has a recreation room and we are all in here eating, reading and just hanging out.  The tents are outside and I have yet to see how the tent went through the down pouring of rain.  This rain is supposed to continue the next few days, so we may be riding in it tomorrow.

It was kind of a boring day as far as events. We rode about 55 miles.  After today we will be riding right down the coast of Florida for the entire way.

For those who don’t bike, drafting on a bicycle is done by following someone ahead to take advantage of his/her breaking the force of the wind for you.  It is amazing how much more you can do when drafting.  The way it was done today is that the lead person pushed through a mile of riding and then pulled out in the road slightly and let the other two pass.  That cycle is continued, so that you are only riding directly into the wind every third mile.  It is a little more dangerous in riding, because you have got to be real careful not to bump into the person ahead.  If you bump, there is a good chance the one in the back is going down.  If done properly, you can ride much faster and much longer than you could normally do.  In life it is much the same.  When we have people we can learn from, or people who help us out, we can accomplish so much more than we would if we simply go after life on our own.  We also have many opportunities in life to be of service to others and should take that opportunity.  We are able to help out someone else and the great thing about that is that we will see that we received something from it as well.

Guess where we are at

Day 46 – Okefenokee National Park

We had a nice day today.  I did wake to a flat tire.  I have begun putting the tube in my tire so that when I find the hole in the tube, I can find out where the tire might have something in it. Today I found another shard of metal in the same place that I received my second flat.  I think the same piece of metal has caused four of my flats.  It was difficult to find and it just worked away slowly on the tube until it wore a whole.  I fixed it and I hope that that particular problem doesn’t cause anymore flats.

We rode about 45 miles today.  About 10 of which was going to the Okefenokee Swamp.  We took a boat tour into the swamp.  It really isn’t a swamp, it is a peat bog.  Back in the late 1800’s, some people had the idea to drain the bog and started digging a canal to do it.  They ran out of money before the canal was finished and that is where they take the tour boats.  It really is pretty in there with the Cyprus Trees and Spanish moss hanging.  We were able to see alligators and turtles and a bunch of birds.

I also had to cook again today, so this has turned out to be a busy day.  It is quite late at night so this posting is going to be rather short.  This is our last day in Georgia.  Tomorrow we will begin the trek down the eastern side of Florida.

Day 45 – Peanuts

It was a big day of riding today.  We rode 85 miles, but it was very pleasant.  The day started off very cool again today and it again made a nice day of riding.  We rode through mainly farm country today and mainly saw cotton, peanuts and onions.  One thing that was interesting was there was quite a bit of irrigation, which we haven’t seen too much of.  The locals were saying that this area doesn’t get the rain that other parts of the state get.  Things still looked pretty green to me.  Georgia is a beautiful state.  It seems to be a little more open than other states that we have passed through.  I mean by that, that the trees have been cut for farming in more places and you can see over the horizon a few miles instead of just seeing trees on the side of the road.

We stopped at a farm where some peanuts that had been dud up were drying on the top of the ground.  They were windrowed much like beans are in Idaho.  We shelled a few and had a taste.  They weren’t very good.  I’m sure they need roasting.  You see a lot of boiled peanuts around here.  I haven’t tried any yet.  I need to take an opportunity to sample some.

We also stopped at another convenience store where they were cooking up some lunch for the locals.  I had some mustard greens (which is like spinach or swiss chard) and potatoes and gravy.  Again it was very good.  The greens were very fresh and even had a little grit in it.  I imagine it was dirt from picking that morning.

We are staying right don town Nahunta, GA.  There are two railroads that come together here and we are hearing trains about every 30 minutes.  There is also a pen of dogs right next to where we are camped that yelp every time someone moves.  It will be an interesting night.

I rode with Tim and Nancy today

Peanuts and a good picture of cotton

How do you like the hair