Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine
59 miles
Total so far: 59
This is Bob, Sallie's husband. He's filling the role of being in charge of the command post in Fernandina, a vital function
Some times there’s just too much preparation involved in these rides. Our equipment list is exhaustive, packing everything in four bags requires careful weighing and whatever can be done to remember where things are (I keep a list on the other side of my map case, and have to refer to it until about two weeks into the ride when I have it all down).
Regardless of all the prep, we left this morning and had a glorious ride down the coast. The winds were up a little coming from the south-east (and of course that was where we were going).
Even with the wind and the resultant slower pace because of it, it was nearly a flawless ride. Until that is, a
The starting point - Bob and Sallie's house in Fernandina
passenger in a passing car thought it would be cute to yell something out his open window as they drove by. Of course this is meant to scare us, but we’ve seen that original trick before, so it’s just not scary once you’ve gone through the drill a number of times.
I have a lot of experience in dealing with rude passengers unfortunately. Every cop has. Most of the time you can just about bet if someone is likely to get out of control on a traffic stop, and begin challenging an officer’s qualifications with a speed measuring devices, knowledge of the law, etc., it’s the passenger. That reminds me of good joke about passengers, but it’s far too early in this blog for that. Remind me in a month or so.
It’s worth mentioning that we started out and rode a whole day south-east along the coast, when overall, we are supposed to be going pretty much north-west. We will start our westward trek from here in St. Augustine — this is the beginning of the “Southern Tier Trans America
The flora of North Florida - it's what I always thought the South should look like
Route” on maps we use from the Adventure Cycling Association. We will take it west as far as Mobile, Alabama and then go north for a ways on the “Underground Railroad Route” to Kentucky, then turn west on the traditional Trans America Route.
This is Jeff from Seattle. He pulled over on the road to speak to us. Jeff flew to Key West, is riding north to the Blue Ridge Trail, and then joining the Trans America route to return to Washington.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tomorrow’s ride will be dedicated to Abay Lattin
My son was a humorous, intelligent, determined young man. His life was music and he used his talents to highlight Phoenix, and AZ on a national level. He had returned to AZ. from New York to do a series of concerts over a 4 day period with his group Silver Medallion-He was killed by a drunk driver.
He will be greatly be missed by many.
In Memory of Warmer Summers 