We’re at the Atlantic Ocean!
We left early into a very foggy, misty, cloud which stayed with us until about a half an hour before checkpoint.
Mad truckers on the road! They honk and honk, they don’t want us here! It was true what I had read about Florida drivers and bicycles (at least in this part of Florida) – they hate us, it must be part of their drivers test. I only had one really close call, but others had stories of even when they were riding on the shoulder, the trucks swerved onto the shoulder just to run them into the ditch.
We hit our 3000 mile mark about 18 miles into the ride, there was the usual hoopla and picture taking, and this time we were also awarded little cheap medals – Woo Wee! We rode through a lot of pretty country, slightly rolling, green, with lots of horse stables. Added another “bob” to the trip by adding some extra miles to make our century before turning onto Cracker Swamp Road – another beautiful road with large trees forming a canopy over our heads.
Finally we turned and could see the Atlantic, found a nice place to stop and I pulled over to take in the view. I had made it! I had crossed the country, ocean to ocean! Who knew what would happen since I saw the whales at our first campsite on the Pacific. People got sick, crashed, broke bikes – lots of possibilities for physically not making it, but mentally too – getting fried in the heat and wind or just giving up. It left me wondering what it would have been like if I hadn’t rode with Bob so much, its hard to say… I’m sure I still would have rode all the miles, I just would have been more tired.
The pelicans are so cool, up to 20 at a time would fly in formation the length of the beach, turn, and do it again, I loved watching them.
We had lunch down the street from our hotel with some of our people, they tended to talk about tires, I’m thinking “we just rode across the whole country and you’re talking about tires?” Had drinks with Bob before dinner at this outdoor place on the second level so we could see the water. Later we had more wine on the beach as the day slipped into night.
102.6 miles