Back to Day 42

9:30 PM

Just finished a wonderful home-cooked meal at Kathy and Jack Hillson’s house. Kathy is a tennis friend from home who recently relocated to Melbourne, FL.

We got off to a late start today. First we slept in, then we had breakfast at the Peach Valley Cafe in Ormond Beach. On the way to breakfast, I took the promised picture of the Ormond Garage where car racing in Daytona got its start.

This is the statue outside Ormond Beach City Hall. I love it!

So we weren’t really on the road until after 11:00, which is not the best way to start a 60 mile day. But it was a pleasant ride, except that it was SO FREAKIN’ HOT. I was actually getting nauseous from the heat. So we stopped in a Kangaroo Mart and guzzled water and Gatorade. Dana convinced me to allow him to dump ice cold water over my head and down my back. It was a nasty shock, but the after effects were wonderful.

Then we were forced to ride on Rte. 1 for a while, but we turned onto a side road and ended up in New Smyrna Beach. Here are the ruins of an old Civil War hotel that was destroyed by Union cannon fire.

 

It turns out there is an antique car gathering at New Smyrna Beach the second Saturday of every month, so we got lucky. On our way down Main St. looking for ice cream (we are always looking for ice cream), we started seeing one antique car after another. Dana took pictures of some of them:

The road near New Smyrna Beach was wonderful – scenic, waterfront, almost no traffic. But then we had to get back on Rte. 1 again, for about 30 miles. It has a decent shoulder, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic, but it was extremely hot and boring. And we really didn’t know how far we had to go, so we started bickering, which always makes 30 miles of riding on a hot, boring highway more pleasant.

I had told Kathy that I would call her when we were 10 miles out of Titusville, but I started getting worried because, with 30 miles left at 4:00, it was going to be very late when I finally called her, and we didn’t want to mess up her evening. But bless her heart, she called me, and when I told her we were still 20 miles out of Titusville, she offered to come get us.

Yippee.

We kept riding, and by the time Kathy and Jack showed up, we had ridden 50 miles and were quite happy to be done for the day. They came in 2 cars, which was so nice – enough room for the bikes and all of us. And as were were all driving back to their house, the skies opened up and it was pouring rain for the entire drive through Titusville. Kathy was worried that maybe she was cheating us by picking us up before Titusville, but we assured her that we had no need to ride more 10 miles on Rte. 1 in the pouring rain in Titusville.

So we got to Kathy & Jack’s house, and met Piper

They offered us their washer and dryer, so I started the laundry and we went for a swim in their pool and a sit in their hot tub. Hot tub sitting is so much nicer than bicycle seat sitting! After a while I figured I would get out and take a shower, but then I realized that I had absolutely NOTHING to wear – every article of my clothing was being washed. So Jack loaned us some shorts and t-shirts, which explains my sexy outfit in the next picture.

The Hillson’s neighbors, Linda and Tim, joined us for dinner. We had our second home-cooked meal in 44 days – grilled pork loin, apples, rice florentine, salad, corn-on-the-cob, and strawberry shortcake. Kathy has been reading the blog and knew I was craving the corn, but it turns out that was the exact meal I’ve been planning when we get home. It was wonderful.

Tomorrow Kathy and Jack will drop us off in Indialantic – a small cheat – and then we will continue on our way.

On to Day 44