Meanwhile, in our privileged lives, our bike trip goes on...... Today's route was from Port Orange FL to St. Augustine FL. It was advertised to be one of the prettiest routes of our days in the Sunshine State. We've had such great days that I'm not sure how you can choose, but it was a nice one.
Just a mile or so into our ride a turtle was crossing the road. He was in lane 2 of 4. I signalled to a car coming up behind me. The car came to a stop. It happened to be a police car so he turned on the lights and was going to stop traffic until the little guy got across. But - the officer was on his way to an appointment so had to speed things up by picking the turtle up and carrying him across. The turtle lives to see another day, but judging by the roadkill around here he may yet end up squished if he doesn't learn to stay off the roads.
We've left the 156-mile long Indian River behind and were now riding parallel to the Halifax River. We followed roads with the river to our right. Nice residential areas and then into downtown Daytona with views of bridges over to the beaches. Really quite a cute string of shops and a few parks. Quick picture taken as the light was about to change. Also in my defense I would like to add that with bright sunshine and dark sunglasses it really is a guess about what I'm taking a picture of.....
Nice little park with a statue of turtles....
After Daytona we passed through the subsequent communities of Holly Hill and Ormond Beach. Then some elevation for the day - the bridge over the Halifax River. Then north on John Anderson Drive for about 15 km. Beautiful residential street with large homes backing onto the river on our left and the ocean out of sight (for a while) on our right. I've noticed that they build houses differently down here. Rather than the wood frames that we have at home, they use cement blocks down here. I'm sure it must have something to do with hurricanes......
Then it was back to ocean views and within spittin' distance of the recommended ice cream shop.
Just as I pulled in to the (closed) ice cream shop, the skies opened and we (Pam was already there) waited out the storm for quite a while.
We headed north to clearer skies, although into a bit of a cross/head wind. The scenery was nice but not spectacular as we continued north on A1A through several more small towns. Stopped for lunch in Crescent Beach. Scenery picked up as we approached St. Augustine.
I dawdled a bit coming into St. Augustine. This was the terminus of our Southern Tier ride in 2013, but it was raining so hard that I didn't slow to look around or take pictures.
Climate appears to be so warm and wet here, that vegetation even grows on top of street signs :)
Still made it into the hotel in good time. Had to wait for our rooms, but all is good now. Dinner momentarily.
Stats for the day:
105 km
Still haven't made it over 1000 feet up or down in a day. Not sure those climbing muscles will be available when called on somewhere down the road.
A bit of a ramble today. Must be time for a rest day.... yay!
Yes, Sue, the news out of Nepal is horrific. In the Langtang valley north and a bit west of Kathmandu (where we trekked in 1990) they say over 80% of the buildings have been destroyed. It will take days or even weeks to know all the casualties and injured. And such history lost... It is terrible...
ReplyDeleteBut, on a happier note, your day looked pretty nice. I would like to go to St Augustine someday... heard such good things about it. Safe riding!