September 12 Crossing America

Islamorada – Coconut Grove a distance of 89 miles.
Total miles traveled through today 4,961, on my bike for 4,236 of them.

Are you asking yourself why my mile numbers don’t add up correctly for traveled?  The distance traveled through today reflects the fact we drove north from Coconut Grove to Boca Raton to stay at Aaron’s home tonight.  Aaron was another of the riders from Bike the US for MS, who has agreed to allow us to stay the night with him.  Why I would never live in a major metropolitan city.  By freeway and interstate the distance between these two cities was only 44 miles but it took us over 2 hours to drive due to heavy traffic congestion, this definitely is not for me.  Taking into consideration the drive back to Coconut Grove will take the same or even longer in the morning I have decided not to ride my bike on this stretch of the Atlantic Coast route.  That’s not even taking into consideration my consternation of trying to ride a bicycle in heavy city traffic.  No thank you, as previously stated I’m not that much of a purist having to ride every inch of the route to say I’ve ridden across America.

Aaron had planned on riding with me from Boca Raton to Wilmington, NC but a major medical problem has caused him to have to back out of the ride.   Aaron I said a prayer your medical problem is overcome successfully and one day we will once again tour together.

Riding the S-Works today I was able to ride about 3 miles faster but at the expense of developing a saddle rash as I forgot to switch the saddle from Spirit to the S-Works.  By the time I had ridden 33 miles the damage was done but I still switched saddles giving me some relief.  So now I have to deal with that
sore as well as my ankle is still quite painful when I forget to shift down to
a lower easier to peddle gear.  The rest of my body feels fine.

Not much to tell you about today’s ride as the first half was through a forest/swamp area where there wasn’t much to see.  I was hoping to see an alligator or two but guess I’ll have to wait until Georgia or the Carolinas for that.  Wonder how close I can get to a gator for a picture?  A rattle snake is half the distance of its body length but a gator supposedly can sprint somewhere north of 20 mph, I can hardly peddle my bike that fast.  It will be interesting.  As I neared the end of the Keys big city streets were the norm.  Still most
streets have wide bicycle lanes or actual bike paths.  Riding here in the East has not been anywhere near as stressful as riding the Oregon and California coast for which I’m thankful.  I was able to enjoy watching waves roll  onto shore, the Atlantic here in Florida is an Emerald color with white sand beaches.   Then there are the beautiful spacious homes along the coast.  Have I mentioned the multitude of yachts in the Keys?  Simply, put Wow!  There still appears to be great wealth in America.  What a switch seeing this wealth here in Florida after having crossed the vast majority of America over the past 3 months seeing numerous closed businesses, towns that are almost Ghost towns in every State I’ve passed through.  Not to say there aren’t closed businesses here in Florida but this State has fared much better than most of the rest of the Country from what I’ve seen.

Aaron has a new bike and it is beautiful and sleek.  He shared with me he with me riding my S-Works was a fine ride and he decided his next bike would be a carbon fiber thoroughbred and it is.  He further surprised me by saying he will ride 20 miles with me tomorrow.  I look forward to riding with him once again.  Aaron home is nicely decorated and I was surprised to hear he was the one who did the decorating.  Aaron perhaps your next business should be
interior decorating or consulting as you have exquisite tastes.  Speaking of tastes, he treated Mark and me at a local Italian Restaurant which served up humungous portions of great tasting food.  We had so much to eat, thought I
was going to have to be rolled out of the place.  Once back at Aaron’s place I was so full I found it difficult to drink more then one beer while packing my panniers.

Yep tomorrow Mark will head to his daughter’s home in Tampa and I’ll be carrying all my gear on my bike.  I eliminated as much clothes and other gear such as a tent, probably should have forgone my sleeping bag and mattress, too, but carrying them just in case I can’t find a bed to sleep in.  Aaron weighed my gear and I have managed to cut my load down to 60 lbs., 10 lbs may not sound like much but I assure you it is.  If only I could convince myself to lose about 50 lbs riding would be so much easier.

Mark is sleeping on the floor tonight allowing me the comfort of the guest bed as I still have over 1,200 miles to ride carrying my gear.  Just thinking of it makes me tired, I’m going to bed.

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