Back to Day 51

9 AM

In the Waffle House. The flat tire score is now 7-5. Dana had a flat in the hotel parking lot. What a great way to start the day! And we have watched every available episode of The IT Crowd. This vacation MUST end NOW.

12:45 PM

At Robbie’s, which is THE place to go for tarpon feeding. You are not supposed to feed the pelicans, but I get the impression they have been fed before.

This guy too

I tried taking a picture of the tarpons, but they don’t pose well. But they get really excited when you throw little dead fish in the water.

As I write this, Dana is changing his third flat of the day. The score is now tied at 7-7. He is changing his tire this time, not just his tube. And he is swearing a lot. On the plus side, I have gotten really good at patching tubes.

On the way to Robbie’s, we stopped at a local artists’ mall, with this great lobster statue in the parking lot.

I really wanted to buy a concrete manatee, but thought better of it. And when we got back on the road, Dana had another flat!

We also passed the Diving Museum

And this historic marker

6 PM

While Dana was changing his tire, Robbie (as in Robbie’s) came over to talk to us, which was nice. I’m happy to say that there were no more flats today.

After crossing a 3 mile bridge, we stopped for a butt break in a little store. Turns out the owner used to work at the movie theater in Lowell. Small world. Then we headed to Grassy Key to the Dolphin Research Center. We saw a nice dolphin show

and Flipper’s grave.

My mission is complete, I can go home now.

People have been asking about the roads and bridges on the keys. So here’s our take on the situation. There have been bike trails and/or bike lanes for the last 55 miles. However, it changes constantly. The bile trail moves back and forth between the northbound and southbound sides. Bike lanes appear and disappear at random. At one point we had our own private bridge!

Another time we were on a lovely, well-paved bike trail, and it just ended, with no good way out.

Our last .5 miles today were on a trail in the woods, reminiscent of the rail trail in Groton, but with lizards. I think you can always ride safely on the keys, but you have to pay very close attention.

Now that I said that, I hope I haven’t jinxed our ride across the 7-mile bridge tomorrow. And as I write this, Dana is passing out at the bar. One strawberry daiquiri did him in. He is SUCH a lightweight.

On to Day 53

Back to Day 50

8 PM

I forgot this Banyan tree from yesterday

Today we rode to Key Largo on Card Sound Road. Dana has been muttering about Card sound Road for 2 years now. It seems there is a big debate on the bike geek circuit about whether Card Sound Road or Route 1 is the best way between Homestead and Key Largo. So we just HAD to do Card Sound Road – Dana thought we’d see crocodiles and miles and miles of nature.

We saw miles and miles of nature. About 20 to be exact. Beauty to the point of boredom. We’ve had a lot of that lately. This is Card Sound.

When we got to Key Largo, we headed straight to John Pennekamp State Park for our snorkeling adventure. We are now the proud owners of two snorkels in case anyone wants to borrow them. We snorkeled in the coral reef for over an hour. I did not take pictures for obvious reasons. You can Google Key Largo tropical reef fish if you want to get an idea of the plethora of cool fish we saw.

We had dinner at The Conch House but we did not have conch because it is not sustainable. We did, however, have a lovely meal.

Tomorrow we have a big day planned. We will begin with breakfast at The Waffle House, which Dana says is a Southern tradition. Then we will ride 22 miles to Ronnie’s to feed Tarpon, then another 20 miles to Flipper’s grave. We are currently 98 miles from Key West!

On to Day 52

Back to Day 49

10:30 AM

Waiting for the laundry to dry. It just doesn’t get more exciting than this. On the plus side, this is a rest day and we slept until after 9:00. And we were able to wash the grit off of everything from yesterday.

Q: How long does it take to lose the butt pain?

A: 7 weeks

Dana trained for 2 years for this trip. I didn’t, but I rode my bike around town for about a month beforehand, getting used to the bike seat and the weight of the panniers. Yet it was just a few days ago when Dana exclaimed “My butt doesn’t hurt!”, and I realized that mine didn’t either. Neither of us had butt pain for the first 30 miles of any day, but after than we started squirming. We have finally stopped squirming. So I guess you need to train for this by doing this.

Not gonna happen again.

Something else we realized – no matter how fast we ride, we end the day averaging 10 MPH. It seems there is always something to slow us down. We get lost. We have to ride off road. We get stuck on drawbridges, we take pictures of little green lizards. And 10 MPH wouldn’t be so bad if you could just do it 5 or 6 hours straight, everyday. But I can’t. I’m not sure Dana can either. Not everyday. It’s been much harder than we thought it would be.

So Dana has been dreaming of an airboat ride in the Everglades ever since he watched Flipper. I guess I have too, except I didn’t know the difference between the Everglades and the Keys. Or that Key West is 500 freakin’ miles from St. Augustine. Or that Florida is a BIG state. Nonetheless, two Flipper dreams will come true today. Life is good.

But now we can’t wait to get home. Dana wants to go to work and get back into his routine. I’m worried about the house, the cats, the kids, the cars. I think Bill managed to lose every drinking glass we own. I hope he didn’t lose all the spare car keys, too – they are so much more expensive to replace. Bill’s car is dead, Katie’s motorcycle is dead. The cats are getting angry. And I NEED to get back to my kitchen! I can’t watch cooking shows on TV without getting homesick.

Something we’ve noticed in the touristy beach areas of Florida: there are more people in the stores and restaurants than there are on the beaches. There are more bikes/surfboards/toys on cars than there are on trails/water/sand. People go on vacation to shop. It makes me appreciate biking – which at this point is no easy feat!

6:30 PM

Eating take-out Chinese food. Just got back from the Everglades airboat tour. We learned how to make a bandage from a cattail:

and we saw a female alligator protecting her nest

a male alligator

a swamp lily

a spider lily

pond apples

lotus grasshoppers

and Purple Gallinules.

whose natural prey seems to be the Cheeto – it took one right out of Dana’s mouth…

Plus water lettuce,  tiny greenback herons, tricolor herons, great blues, egrets, and, well, the Everglades.

It was a fantastic ride, totally worth doing if you are ever in the Miami area.

Tomorrow we will set the alarm (ugh) so that we can ride to Key Largo on Card Sound Rd. We want to be at John Pennekamp State Park by 1:30 to go snorkeling.

On to Day 51