Day 57...Florida finally delivers something other than rain..Sunshine is back

Sunday May 4...Gainesville to Palatka. 55 miles. (One more day)

If you have read the blogs for the past few days, 5 of them to be exact, you have scene a recurring theme of rain...rain...and yes, more rain. You might have heard of the rains that hit Pensacola earlier this week, combined rain totals of 26 inches I was told. We were in Pensacola last Sunday, so in a bigger perspective, we didn't get hammered like that, but riding for four straight rainy days was not what we expected either. But there is always tomorrow and our 'tomorrow' was today!

Quite simply, this was one of our best days. The sun was out, the air crisp but warming to start the day and then became almost toasty!  Not wet, not chilly, no rain jackets, etc, but...toasty!

We left Gainesville after our last night of camping. We got on a beautiful bike trail, actually a converted railroad bed, ("rails to trails"), and rode for 16 miles. (With these miles and the additional miles we would do later in the day on another "rails to trails", we were on these bike paths for more than half of the miles for the day.  Really nice.).

This trail went to Hawthorne. While there were some open areas, the majority if the ride was forested or swampy and simply beautiful. We stopped often, took a lot of pictures, went to an overlook of a lake to maybe see some alligators, (didn't), simply enjoying the ride. The change from the bad weather days just raised the spirits and relaxed the mood of the riding day.

The morning brought opportunity for a "second breakfast", the pancake special along with Nicole stopping us on the side of the road

forcing us to eat key lime pie. As we near the end if the ride, all good is considered surplus and in need of being eaten. I hope to do my share to help this cause.

In Hawthorne, we got on US 301, which at one time was a major road for getting to Florida along with US 1. Times change, but we were on this road for a little while before finding some good rural roads and the other bike trail.

The afternoon trail was more along open, water areas, pine forests and a winery that was offering free samples. Stopping...

Also met a 7 month old Golden Retriever named a Stone. Picture included.

Tonight, we are in the best accommodations yet, along he St John River, heading to St Augustine tomorrow on our last day. Hard to believe that after 2 months and over 3000 miles, the last day is here.