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.

Day 56. Loving this Liquid Sunshine.....not!

Saturday May 3. White Springs to Gainesville. 71 miles. (2 days left- last night of camping)

The last thing that one should rely upon without question is a weather forecast. Even in today's world of smart phones, iPads, instant access to radar and Weather Channel apps,  the weather is it's own master, prone to confusing the experts.

For example yesterday, the weather was far less rainy than forecasted and today?  Well today was a 10% chance of a morning shower! clearing and sunshine by late morning. Note: I had talked of my various pieces of rain gear and wanted to advise that my gloves, pants, head cover and booties were all perfectly dry the whole ride as I had believed the forecast and packed them away for the day!  Bummer!

How lucky we were to be under that 10% chance the whole 70 miles from White Springs to Gainesville. This is 5 straight days of rain, 4 of those days that we have ridden the bikes, the other being the rest day in Tallahassee. The good news is that the clearing has come, 4:00 pm, the tents are up for our last night of camping and all is good.

Better than good in that I am having dinner tonight with Dusty and Hillary Holly.  Dusty was my Ag guy on our staff, a great friend and I haven't seen him since last October when I attended their wedding here in Florida.

Interesting note. We crossed the Sante Fe River today, a nice size river that at some point simply disappears!  It is tgpjhere and then it goes underground to resurface many miles later.

The pictures for today?  3 from one stop where it was....you guessed it, raining. 3 are from yesterday that just downloaded.

Day 55. Florida's motto...The WHAT State?

Thursday May 2.  Monticello to White Springs. 75 miles. (3 days riding left)

We started the day with our 4th straight day of rain. Thus I questioned the motto of Florida being the Sunshine State. It was a drizzle, but the forecast called for light rain in the morning turning into more significant rains in the afternoon. The day was also forecasted to be cool, high of mid 60s.

So we put on full  rain gear, which can be rather elaborate and if you have good equipment, works rather well. Rain jacket with ventilation, dry and allows for air to circulate, rain pants that fit over booties that cover your shoes which help keep the feet from being soaked, helmet cover to keep head drier but also really keeps heat in and outer gloves. The works, picture later.

We passed through Greenville, home of Ray Charles. Picture of water tower, yeah it's not much but it was raining.

One odd thing Gabe noticed, a freshly covered grave site in the Monticello town cemetery, still had the funeral home tent up, had a number of turkey vultures under the tent around the grave site. Odd. Of course the day before we passed a pasture with several horses and one pig. A cute pig .  The horses didn't move, the pig ran with us as we rode by.

We actually found that the rain mostly stopped and by halfway through the ride we were out of the rain gear for the first time since Monday. It felt good.

We crossed the Suwannee River, flooding of course. Pictures. The scenery was beautiful. More live oaks with Spanish moss, fields and pastures, shaded lanes and a good number of wildflowers. Of course many places were under water, but it was a nice ride.

Gabe and myself had dinner tonight, fried chicken, beans and potato  salad. Good eating. We are in a motel tonight and I actually have my own room.

We travel to Gainesville tomorrow.

Pictures from Gulf Beach

These finally showed from the camping at Gulf Beach. This was the state park.

Day 54. When April showers may come your way....they stay till the 1st of May

Thursday May 1st. Tallahassee to Monticello. 50 miles. (4 days left)

The rains that hit us on Tuesday and continued yesterday on our rest day, were once again with us most if the day. We were able to get in about 10 miles before the rains began, but once they started, as Derrick put it, it was "Biblical"!

Had to do some maneuvering getting out of Tallahassee, spent time on St Mark's bike trail. This was a really nice trail, very pretty, pictures attached.

Then it hit!  Some thunder/lightning, not as bad as Tuesday when we rode, but at times the rain was serious. The countryside was really pretty when you could see it, but mainly stayed focused on the riding.

The rain did ease up towards Monticello, our day's destination, and we were just able to make it to the local bakery a scant 10 minutes before they closed. Caramel pecan squares should be outlawed!  So good!

We were supposed to camp tonight at a 'warm showers' location. As I mentioned before, warm showers are locations that take in bikers and are networked through the Internet. Because of the rain, the home host here insisted that we stay indoors at her house and in her travel trailer. I am in the trailer. The option of dryness covers a lot of the otherwise skimpy perks of the locale.

I could have mentioned in the title of today's blog about April showers bringing the floods of May as this is May 1st and there is a lot if flooding around us, especially to the west. Many roads washed out around Pensacola, roads that we had just ridden.

Pictures limited today. Before rain options on the bike trail

. Of course our trailer is featured. The town is Monticello, beautiful trees.

Tallahassee rest day.

Spent last night with my niece Beth, her husband Matt and sons Henry, Owen and Oliver. Felt so bad when I said I was ready for bed at 7:30, then relieved to remember it was really 8:30, back on Eastern Time. We had been on Central Time since Texas, a wide time zone for sure.

Had breakfast this morning with the boys, got a haircut, took bike to be worked on, had lunch with a high school friend and classmate along with Beth and Matt for lunch, blogged some, got bike,  picked boys up from their school, got Fro Yo, and had a great day. Thanks everyone. Rained all day, supposed to rain tomorrow and Friday. Yeah!

Pictures of today.  Mike Jordan and myself, From the Class of '-- East Montgomery HS. The Boys, me and my haircut.

Shores that finally down loaded. And pictures from the 24th that finally downloaded.