Back to Day 40

8 PM

Sitting down to dinner, in St. Augustine, after our last cheating day. They have corn-on-the-cob as a side dish. I am SO excited! And we are discussing TV trivia with a guy named Juan who’s like 25, but he knows a lot because he watches TVLand.

We started the day with a trolley tour of Savannah. We’d already biked around most of it, but we didn’t necessarily know what we were looking at. So the trolley tour seemed like a good way to make sure we saw the whole city in a limited time. Turns out we really had seen most of the city, including this treat for our Girl Scout friends:

And about the Forrest Gump sighting – the movie was set in Savannah – so today we saw the restaurant where Jenny worked, and the bench he sat on. But sadly, there was not another Forrest sighting. [We found out later that the city hires Forrest Gump and Paula Dean impersonators for tourists to enjoy.]

After the tour, we had ice cream at Leopold’s – a Savannah tradition since 1919 – followed by lunch at the Starland Cafe. We shared an asparagus sandwich and a salad. There’s that sharing thing again.

Then we headed out of town towards the Okefenokee Swamp. It was very hard to navigate there with the GPS, since the swamp doesn’t really have an address. So after we got to Folkston, we got lost, and when we got found again, we had to drive 5 miles on a dirt road.

This was the only time we were worried about banjo music on a river. Dana made me get out of the car to take this picture, and on hindsight, I’m surprised he didn’t just leave me there, since I was the one who messed up the navigation in the first place.

When we finally reached the swamp’s visitor’s center, we changed into our bike shorts and rode the 8 mile Swamp Island Drive.

The swamp is amazing

We saw an alligator

and a baby water moccasin

and some interesting flowers

and huge woodpeckers that refused to pose for pictures.

Quiz:

Did we put on bug spray before riding in the swamp?
Are we suffering now because we are dumb-asses when it comes to bug spray?
How many baby alligators can you see in this picture? (the answer is 5)

But, while the swamp was beautiful, we saw very little wildlife. Then, in the parking lot as we were leaving, we saw a huge diamondback rattlesnake (5-6 feet long)!

Then we drove to St. Augustine. We will return the rental tomorrow morning, tour the historic part of the city on bikes, and then head south. 500 miles to Key West! I promised Dana he can train me to ride fast in Florida. No promises, but after all this cheating, I will try.

On to Day 42