Day 60 – I guess it’s done

We had a nice day on Key West.  I had some laundry to get done and woke early so that is how I started the day.  We then rode out to the site marking the southern most part of the Continental US.  The rest of the day I did some gift shopping and just rode around on the bike and looked the City over.  We boarded a ferry at 4:30 and are now on the way to Fort Myer, FL where each of us are taking off from there to our individual homes.

Key West is a nice place to visit.  I was most impressed with how kind the locals seemed to be.  It definitely is a tourist town, but I think I would like to visit again when I am not so rushed.  I am saying my goodbyes to very one on the boat.  It is actually a happy/sad deal.  I had a lunch/dinner with Tim and Nancy before boarding the boat and we were talking about staying in touch.  Nancy said that it was a 100% chance that we would see each other again and Tim looked at her and said, “Out of the people we have traveled with in the past, how many have we seen again, zero.”  They have traveled quite extensively as well, so I don’t know if we actually will see each other again.

As John and I have talked, I asked him if he would ever do a ride like this again.  He said no, but that he still wanted to ride across England.  I mentioned in a previous blog that that is where my Mother’s side of the family comes from.  I told him that if he wanted someone to go with, that he might let me know and I can see if it is in the cards.  However, I do think it will be a while before I do anything like this.

I am actually writing some of this the next morning.  We had pretty rough seas coming in to Ft. Myers last night and I had to quit typing.  I was getting a little seasick.  I have met back with Carey and my son Brandon.  Oh, I have missed Carey.  That is another reason that I am thinking that a 2 month trip alone may not happen.  I guess time will tell.  It is good to see Brandon again.

Well, this is going to be my last entry.  I hope you who have followed me have somewhat enjoyed my experience. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers on our behalf. This trip has met my expectations and I have learned so much about a sport that I love.  I have met and gotten to know some great people. I have had experiences that I will remember a lifetime.  I have been reinforced that God created this beautiful earth and that He is aware of us.  You know, when we tell people what we have done, they sometimes act like we did the impossible.  It only seems impossible because, probably, it is something they really don’t want to do and never will do, which is ok, this was my dream and not theirs, and also I guess it proves that if we want to accomplish something in this life, if we stick with it and don’t give up, we will accomplish it.  It is amazing what we can do a little bit at a time.

I again want to thank those that have made it possible.  I have wonderful people I work with and they have helped so much.  I know many of you have called me or written an email or test and encouraged me on, thank you.  I appreciate my family supporting me.  Carey had to deal with my daily calls.  She told me in the beginning that I had to stay on this trip for at least three weeks.  When the three weeks were up I jokingly said, “Now I can come home”, and she said, “Oh no, three more weeks.”  My dad took care of my yard and there are good friends taking care of my church calling as well.  My clients have been patient with me being gone and supported me as well.  Thank you all.  I have been able to live a dream of mine.

Hope to see you soon, Friends and Family.  Love you!!

A welsome sight!

 Lots of little homes like this on this island.

 Our group on the southern most tip of continental US.

 My good friend John.  I will miss him.

Above are Tim and Nancy.  I will miss them as well.  I was usually the third wheel with them. Below is our ship back to Ft. Myers.

 Goodbye, Key West.

Day 59 - Key West!!!!!!!

We have finished! And I am ready for it to be done. It has been a fantastic experience, but I miss my family and my work and am ready to be back.

Today got off to a bit of a hard start. We woke to a bunch of rain. The house boat was also swaying in the wind a bit. They were saying on the news this morning that Key West has received fifteen inches of rain since Saturday. Can you believe that. We were receiving much of that this morning. The thunder was enough to knock you off the bicycle seat. We didn't get going until noon trying to wait out the rain and then finally just had to go. It didn't rain for long after we left and then it was just a day battling the wind. I guess mother nature knew it was our last day of riding and wanted us to remember it. We ended up riding 55 miles. My odometer for the trip now reads 3,025.

It was quite the feeling arriving here. Everyone was pretty elated and after checking into the hotel, we all jumped into the pool in our biking cloths. I'm not sure management would have appreciated that in the sweaty condition we were in, but it felt good and we were ready to celebrate. We do have a bit of riding to do tomorrow. There is a marker on the south side of the island that designates the southern most part of the United States and we all wanted to ride there together. We were supposed to go there today, but because of the late start, we will do it together tomorrow and take a picture of the group.

We had our celebetory meal tonight. I again had sea food and key lime pie. It was nice to celebrate and we stayed out quite late just reminiscing the trip. I do think everyone in the group is ready to go home.

Sorry for the lame post on such a day, but it is late and I will write a bit more tomorrow.

Day 58 – Just about there

We woke up to a lot of clouds this morning and were fully expecting another day of riding in the rain, but we were pleasantly surprised.  It remained cloudy, but we didn’t get a drop of rain all day as we were riding.  On days like this, the clouds actually keep things cool while riding.  The humidity here is really high.  You actually get quite wet just by riding.

The keys are all connected by bridges.  The initial bridge was built in about 1905 and was a railroad bridge to bring vacationers to this area.  Those bridges were damaged in the “Storm of the century” in 1935 and the railroad was already in bankruptcy and couldn’t fix them so they sold the right of way and bridges to the State of Florida for $600,000.  The State made them into auto bridges and since then have rebuilt new bridges to sustain the traffic that now travels on them.  What is interesting is that parts of those original railroad bridges are still here and they have been made into fishing/biking/pedestrian bridges.  These keys are very pretty.  They seem to be very narrow and of course very tropical.

We are actually staying in these boat hotel rooms this evening.  This place has all this old house boats tied to a pier and we are all out here floationg tonight.  We are supposed to have 25 mile winds tonight and hope we are not rocking around too much.

We rode 45 miles today and have 55 miles left to the end of the road.  I am doing my best to eat all the seafood I can before I leave.  I had a nice Grouper sandwich tonight and I am trying all the key lime pie that I can.  We had our last map meeting tonight.  We also discussed getting the bikes sent back home and transportation to the airport etc.  It really seems kind of weird to be discussing these things.  I guess it is because I waited so long to be able to have this experience and it seems we have been out here so long, in a way, I can’t believe it is just about done.

A view of the road we are traveling

 The new bridge and old road.

 This bridge had been converted for biking/fishing. The car bridge is to the right.

 Our boat houses

Day 57 – Key Largo

As expected we had rain again today.  One nice surprise is that it didn’t rain as much as was expected.  It was pretty much a light rain all day and really wasn’t too bad to ride in.  When you get to this area of Florida, there aren’t many roads that you have to find your way through either.  There is only one main road that goes through the Keys, so I shouldn’t be getting lost anymore.  I say that a little hesitantly because I still may and that could be bad.

We had an opportunity this morning of going to an alligator farm that is located right next to the Everglades National Park and is supposed to be much like the park and take an air boat tour, so Selwyn (New Zealand), Bill and I did it.  It was quite interesting and I think it gave us a little idea what the Everglades were like.  The air boat was very loud when they got the thing going, but we were able to see alligators, turtles, birds and beautiful sights.  They did give us ear covers to minimize the noise.  It was interesting to go through the grass and reeds of the swamps in that boat.  They say that the average depth of the Everglades is six inches of water and that it is actually a river.

The road that we took riding to get to Key Largo went mainly just to the side of Everglades Park.  The ride was just as beautiful as the boat ride.  It is just pretty to see the wildlife and plants that are in the park.  It would have taken a day to get to and tour the park and we just didn’t have that much time.  I think a person could spend a few days here and enjoy it.

As I mentioned above, it is raining.  There is this blob of a storm right down on the tip of Florida and that is where we are.  I think the rain is supposed to continue through tomorrow and then start tapering off.  I hope so.  We have two more days of riding and then we are done.  We only rode 35 miles today and we are at the 99 mile marker.  Going down the Keys, the miles are counted down on the mile posts until you get to Key West, which is 0.  The addresses down the way are also counting down. We will spend Thursday in Key West and not ride, so we will be able to tour a bit that day.

I had a nice seafood dinner tonight.  We went as a group to the restaurant and I had mahi-mahi, shrimp and scallops and a piece of fried key-lime pie for desert.  I had to try the fried pie as it was the first time I had heard of it.  It was a piece of pie wrapped in a pastry crust and fried.  The pie was actually warm when served and I thought was very delicious.

I had my 8^th flat today.  In fact I actually replaced my back tire.  It was worn down to where a different color begins to show, alerting you to the fact that the tire is worn out.  I was carrying an extra tire, so it was no problem.  I have learned that there are probably better tires that are out there to maybe prevent so many flats.  It is hard to say.  I am probably just a little low on the luck.

Everglades

 Alligators

 Selwyn

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

Day 55 – Dedicated to my Sweetheart, Carey

Today is my 29^th anniversary.  I am really missing Carey on this trip.  I think many wives would not have thought their husband leaving for two months without them was a very good idea.  Carey might have thought the same thing in the back of her mind, but she also knew that this is one of my dreams, so she encouraged me as soon as I came home and asked what she thought of it.  She has always been my support in all the things I have needed to do and most things that I have wanted to do.  I love you Carey.

This Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale area seems to be a really great place to visit.  I never imagined this area with all the intra-coastal waterways before.  We paid $20 for an all-day water taxi ticket and had a great time touring the homes and yachts that were along the intra-coastal waterways.  I simply cannot begin to tell you all the money that is invested in those miles of waterways.  There were many homes and yachts that belonged to people who started companies and made their millions as well as the movie stars.  There really were some beautiful homes, but most of the cost was just the land.  There was a person who had a 20 million dollar home and bought the home next to his for 7 million and paid 2 million to have the house torn down and yard put in for his two Labrador dogs. Now that seems to be just wrong.

In Fort Lauderdale they have a yacht and boat show the last week of October each year and they are currently setting up for it now.  It would be awesome to come to the show someday so that you can see inside these yachts.  There is a yacht that is here called the Cakewalk and it is like 225 feet long.  It is the longest yacht made in America and carries a price tag of $165,000,000.  I just can’t fathom someone buying something like that.  It is a beautiful ship and there was a companion ship parked next to it to carry along all the support stuff for the Cakewalk.  Crazy.  We saw a sailboat owned by Senator John Kerry and numerous others.

We are staying in a hostel here.  It is a little tight as far as accommodations go. There are two rooms that the twelve of us are in, but there is only one bathroom.  Needless to say, that is why we must get out and find things to do during the day.   I think we must have another Nor’ easter brewing outside again.  Today the wind blew pretty hard from the northeast and it started raining tonight.  We have the winds again predicted for tomorrow, which actually could blow us in the right direction.  We also have a 60% chance of rain.  I guess we wouldn’t want to get too spoiled with good weather.

They had a good old fashioned rock/blues band playing on the beach tonight.  It was fun to just sit and listen to them.

Things are wrapping up pretty quickly on this trip.  We have less than 200 miles to go and I will be flying home in a week.  As I think back to the things we have done on this trip, in some ways it seems we have been here for a year and in other ways, I can’t believe it is about over. I do have to say that I am ready to go home.

A couple of the homes we saw

Seanator Kerry's boat

An anniversary gift for Carey

The Cakewalk

Day 54 – Hollywood

Not the California Hollywood, but Florida.  Hollywood is a little south of Ft. Lauderdale.  It has a great beach that goes on and on and has a boardwalk type atmosphere with restaurants, shops and bars all along it.  We do have a day off from riding tomorrow to check things out.  We went to a taco place for dinner tonight and after eating, we all went to take a little stroll on the beach.  It was dark, but there was a lot going on.  It is amazing how warm the water is.  I get California beaches in my mind and these waters here are so much warmer.

We had a pretty big ride today.  We rode 85 miles and went through some pretty amazing places. We went  through a string of beaches today;  Juno, Riviera, Palm, South Palm, Highland, Boca Raton, Hillsboro, Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood Beaches.  We rode through places that had more mansions than I have seen in all my life.  The architecture of the buildings and the landscaping is amazing. Some of the lawns were the same grass and mowed the same as a green on a golf course.  I don’t know what that is all about.  Come to think of it, there was a road called PGA Blvd. and I wonder if that is where all the golf course grass was.  I was looking for a place to get a soda and a bag of chips to go with my lunch at lunchtime and there were no stores for miles and miles.  It was so odd.  I guess the real estate must be so expensive, that a store in these areas juts wouldn’t work, or the areas might not allow for that type of building to be there. I finally found the store and just about waited too long to get something in my stomach.  I was really running out of gas.

We also saw some pretty amazing boats.  This area not only has the ocean, but they have put canals in to connect all the lagoons and lakes all down the coast to allow boats and marinas to be inland as well.  I would really like to go aboard some of these yachts and take a look, but I resisted the temptation to jump aboard.  It probably would have ended up a quick end to the trip.

I don't know what is up with the internet connection tonight, but I can't upload any pictures.  I will post some tomorrow.  Goodnight all!