Day 58 - 38 miles. St. Augustine FL

WE DID IT!!!   Great ride today mainly on extremely nice bike paths. We all met up for the final ride and ceremonial wheel dipping. It was hard to say goodbye to all our friends, but now we are relaxing on the balcony of our hotel room looking at the ocean with the bike packed up and ready to go. Life is good! - Sue

During the grueling moments of our ride, I would visualize the tremendous joy I would have when we hit the Atlantic Ocean,  but that's not what happened today.  I realized that the joy was in the journey, the whole 58 days of riding across the US.

  Now it's time to go home, and pick up our cat Flyod and Nelson our dog, and get back to our wonderful life in Stillwater. - Annie

 

Day 57 - 53.8 miles. Palatka FL

Somehow today's ride was shorter than expected by about ten miles. What a treat!  The skies were overcast and a lot of the distance was on two bike trails in good condition.  We started out with a trek in the woods, and then popped onto the bike trail.  Martha, one of our hosts from last night led the way. Our hosts were great. They made us lasagna, did our laundry, and generally entertained us. Now we are at Crystal Cove Resort in air conditioned rooms looking out on the Saint Johns River getting ready for our end of ride celebration.  It's hard to believe! - Sue

Wow we are going to make it, our last ride is tomorrow and only 40 miles to St Augustine.  What great trip this has been! - Annie

 

 

Day 56 - 52 miles. Gainesville FL

We had a short 52 mile day today into Gainsville, Fl and are camping on the lawn of a beautiful country home.  This is our last day of camping, yeah!  Tomorrow after a 70 mile ride we are staying in cabins, which is a real luxury.  Everyone is excited that our trip to St Augustine is nearly done at which point all of will scatter and go back to our normal lives.  I will miss these folks, but I can't wait to get home- Annie

I can't even begin to imagine getting back to 'normal life'. I think I'll need to keep riding around and sleeping in the tent! -Sue

 

 

Day 55 - 71 miles. Ichetucknee Campground

Another hot day!  We rode through more country and across the Suwannee River and are camping next to Ichetucknee State Park. The park has cool (72 degree) springs that were very popular.  I didn't go in, but Annie said the water was great.  Tonight is our last night of group cooking - things are winding down!

 

Day 54 - 67.4 miles. Jellystone RV Park near Madison FL

Today's ride out of Tallahassee was gorgeous.  We rode about 15 miles on the Canopy Road which was tree-lined with huge oaks with Spanish moss overreaching the road.  It was wonderful, later on the heat went up to 90 degrees with high humidity, and it got tough. - Annie

Yes it did get hot! But now we are at Jellystone Park in a pleasant grassy campground with more gorgeous trees. - Sue

  

 

Day 53 - 0 miles. Tallahassee FL

Our last day off was spent doing laundry, resupplying ourselves a Walgreens, and basically taking it easy.  We met our new trip co-leader who will be with us for the remainder of the trip. We also started planning our end of trip celebration. Everyone is counting down to the end - how many riding days, how many times to set up our tents, how many dinners we will cook....

Sue

 

Day 52 addendum

Forgot to say that an American Eagle flew right over us, about ten feet over our heads! 🦅