We have arrived!

Our last. Everything was "our last". Even though I didn't want to think that way, it seemed to creep in. I woke up without the alarm at 5:30 and went to the other room for coffee. The other early coffee drinkers were there. We were all wearing our Coast to Coast jerseys together for the first time. When we left the Pacific Coast we didn't wear them because one jersey had mistakenly not been ordered. One jersey looked different though. Hmm. Rich, (who has an understated sense of humor) only halfway got the message that we were wearing the jerseys. Well, I guess it wasn't spelled out...

We started out into a cloudy day which was a blessed relief from the day before. The route wound around through the countryside. We reached our only SAG stop which was next to a beautiful little church tucked in under some large live oaks. No one seemed in any great hurry to leave the SAG stop.

Just before leaving we looked up and there were three Swallow-Tailed Kites! I stood there with my mouth open and didn't catch any pictures. We had been looking for them all through Florida and to see them on our last day, especially so close, was a blessing!

Just a short while later Dave saw a sign for a Swallowtail Farm. We stopped for a photo. The kites must regularly nest in that area.

Just a little further down the road we got another blessing. A wood stork flew overhead and landed in a tree in front of us. He stayed there while I took pictures of him and when other riders rode by and Alan stopped to get a picture. Alan is a Forest Service person and is always interested in outdoors flora and fauna. He said when he heard me say "endangered species" he wanted to see the bird. I didn't realize until I looked it up online today that the status has recently been upgraded to "threatened". In part this is because their territory has expanded from just being in south Florida in the Everglades.

In very little time we biked into Saint Augustine and arrived at the restaurant overlooking the Intercoastal Waterway. Many Coasters had taken over the upper outside deck of the restaurant.We also found Stephan and Stephen, other self supported riders traveling solo that we had met at different times in Texas. 

We finished lunch too soon. I wanted to just bask in the knowledge that we were so close. It seemed like time was moving too fast for me.

We headed over the Stone Lions bridge and headed to a McDonald's on A1A. And then we waited. It turned out that Captain Don, who was going to head up our parade of riders down to the beach had missed the turn....

Staff drove after our leader and brought him back. We gathered for some pictures at the "Welcome to Saint Augustine" sign with our flags from the five countries represented on the tour. Quite an impressive sight.

Then in single file, following Don and Dean, we rode behind the staff truck with Bubba standing in the back hollering that we had just ridden from San Diego to Saint Augustine across the country. Ed honked his horn at every car we passed and people sitting outdoors at the restaurants we passed were cheering. Quite a hoopla, but it was fun.

We reached the hotel and people who had friends and family saw them outside with cameras and signs. 

We went through the front door and out the back door and out to the beach. The funniest part of that was an enterprising young man who was renting beach chairs and shouting "aww you don't want to drag your bikes all the way down there. You're tired! You just rode your bikes a long way. You want to rent one of my chairs and sit down!"

And the it was all bedlam as we got to the water and people dipped their front wheels, traded cameras to record triumphant smiles. Friends were bringing flowers, staff was handing out champagne in plastic glasses. Really, really fun.

Everything after that was a bit anticlimactic. We cleaned off the sand from our bike tires using the outdoor shower. We ourselves took showers and headed to a restaurant across the street. The next few hours also went quickly. After dinner we gathered in the breakfast area for some tongue in cheek awards (Cecil, the most flats). We also received plaques with a picture of us on them and said a few words. I think mine were a bleh bleh since words escaped completely out of my head. I was in a sort of keyed up emotional exhaustion as shown in the last picture.

Our camp mascot, Cocoabean, doesn't seem too impressed.

Postscript: the following day both Dave and I were in kind of a let down funk. Dave reacted by sleeping a lot. I felt too keyed up to sleep and felt I couldn't settle the experience enough in my mind to blog about it. I went in and out of the lobby, wanting to talk to some of the folks that were still around, but not wanting to say goodbye either. Dave and I finally got a taxi and went to a movie just to immerse ourselves in something that wasn't too emotionally demanding. Today (Wednesday) I feel a little more together, not so scattered.

Also of note was the fact that on Monday, in the midst of all the celebrating, when Dave picked up the car from where it had been stored, he had a hard time getting the brakes to work and they shuddered violently. It turned out that they had rusted terribly in the warm salt air. The following day we got it to the dealer for a brake job which delayed our return home by a day. Not too terribly sad about that since spring has been very slow in northern Michigan. So we're unwinding in Florida for an extra day.

2nd to last day (Revised)

Sunday, April 26 O'Leno State Park to Palatka, FL

Dave and Loren, 84 miles

During our rest day we had another casualty of the trip. This one was also not bike related. Beth got up to head for the bathroom/shower house in the middle of the night and missed the steps down from the cabin. She had two very sore ankles. She was able to bear weight on one, but not on the other. Her roommates helped her back into the cabin and in the morning she went to the hospital. The diagnosis was that her ankle bone was cracked and the other has probable torn ligaments and a severe sprain. She was able to walk slowly with crutches. Her broken ankle was actually less sore than her other ankle. She has decided to stay with the tour but her bicycling is over for the time being. A couple of the riders will take her home with her car and then continue home in another car.
On Sunday Dave remembered to attend the last devotional. I had programed it into my phone with a reminder. It reminded me, at 7 am which was the eastern time zone equivalent of the 6 am central time reminder in my calendar. I'll have to remember to un-smart my calendar if I cross time zones!
The day started out with cloudy skies. The air was very humid and sticky so I was hoping it would stay cloudy. We biked on nice shoulders and then got into Gainesville under a tunnel of huge live oaks in an area of ranches. (1st photo). We got to our SAG stop in a Starbucks and stopped for a snack. While we were there we had a cloudburst where it just poured. Since we were indoors we sat and waited it out. Other riders were not so lucky, but they found shelter in various areas, gas stations, etc. and waited it out. After about 20 minutes or so the rain stopped. We continued on our way and got on a very nice bike path that runs from Gainesville to Hawthorne, a distance of about 20 miles. At one point on our route sheet it told us to take the left fork of a Y that wouldn't be marked. We came to what looked like a Y (although not at the right mileage point) and were a little confused and asked a trio of guys about the turn. They told us it was further on and we talked a bit about our tour. The person that seemed to know the most about the trail had Harley paraphernilia on, so it seemed a little strange to see him on a bicycle.
By this time the sun had come out. We continued on the bike path which was shady and we knew it was much cooler in the tunnel of trees than the road would be. The trail goes through a state park, the San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park. There is also a spur trail that leads to the Payne's Prairie state park that we stayed at a few years ago. There were some phenomenal live oaks with Spanish moss in the state park. There were a few of those ancient oaks on the trail too.
We came out at Hawthorne and found a SAG stop waiting for us. I really like this aspect of a supported trip. I drank down an entire bottle of a water Gatorade mix. I had been pushing myself to take lots of sips of water on the bike, but it doesn't taste very good lukewarm. I also poured some over my head in a futile attempt to get cooler. It was too humid to evaporate very much.
Then we went out on the road. Even though we are creating a breeze for ourselves the asphalt absorbs the heat and reflects it back. We had a good tailwind but the only negative effect of a tailwind is that you go as fast as the wind so you don't feel a cooling effect. We had some rolling hills and I did feel some breeze coming down the hills. By the time we got to Interlaken I was sweltering. We stopped at the first place we came to and found Don and "Coach" sheltering from the heat. They were concerned about my overly red face. I drank a big glass of water and iced some pulse points in my neck and felt much better. The problem with being a slower rider is that we are out in the afternoon sun much longer than a faster rider. So that makes us better at endurance, right?? Anyway once we got started again it felt a little cooler. Maybe the sun had passed its zenith.
We got in just before dinner. We spent the time after dinner in a series of reminisces with the whole group and staff. Graham (from the UK) reduced me to hysterical laughter as he recounted several episodes. One of them involved our hilarious-in-retrospect night at the hurricane evacuation shelter where most of the lights are wired to be permanently  on.  Graham went to the kitchen and slept with his head under the sink. He woke up in the middle of the night thinking that his life had come to a new low as he gazed on the plumbing from underneath. He also told of an incident where in his groggy early morning state of mind (complete with sound effects of all the zippers on tents as other Coasters got up) he brushed his teeth with what he thought was toothpaste but instead turned out to be "butt paste". He warned all those that are keeping blogs that he'd better not see it on the Internet. Rich told him that he had just uploaded it to YouTube! By then Marianne and I were in tears from laughing so hard (as were several others).
Then it was off to bed and lights out at 9 PM as is usual on this tour. I was afraid that I'd be too keyed up to sleep on our last night, but I fell asleep quickly. I did notice that during the night Dave shifted positions frequently. He is having more shoulder pain again. He's an orthopedic doc's dream patient. We have specialty clinic near us with a different doc for every joint. Dave could use three of them. Hip, knees and shoulder.
We are very proud to have come this far. We are both happy to being close to being done but sad too.

The canopy of trees outside of Gainesville. 

Bike rack that was painted to show the difference between a venomous coral snake and a kingsnake. "Red touches yellow, kill a fellow". It's a dangerous world here in the south!

The bike path was beautiful!

Forgot to include this from our rest day. Linda created a traveling Madonna from items that she picked up off the road throughout the south. It was an appreciation gift to Bubba who said he would put it in his man cave. I'm sure it is easily the most unusual thing to adorn a man cave in the history of man caves!

Linda was dressed in things also found on the road. I had seen that wig hanging on a line at the girl scout camp in Louisiana and wondered about it. I kind of thought I would see it again...

Our last night in gym-type accommodations.

Day 47 and 48, Moving through north Florida

April 22, Wednesday  Dave and Loren 85 miles
Our route continues to be on 90 with nice shoulders. The surprise was how hilly it became during the afternoon. Tallahassee was especially hilly. Bubba routed us through the city on a zigzag path to avoid the worst of the traffic. The busy roads that we did have to take had bike paths. Now that the weather has cleared up it gets quite hot in the afternoon; it was 86. I found myself getting a little woozy and I realized that I had not been drinking enough. I forced myself to drink a full bottle of water and a Gatorade and that got me to the motel. It was great to just step into the shower rather than having to walk over to a shower house and try to keep clean cLothes dry and dirty clothes together while trying to dry off and get dressed standing on one leg. Why? Invariably there isn't a chair or bench to put clothes on and the water jets out into the changing area (if there is one)which leaves the floor all wet. That's problematic when trying to put pants on. Ah, but I'll miss it when it's done...

April 23, Thursday, Dave and Loren 48 miles.
Today was nice and short. We stopped in Greenville which is Ray Charles birthplace. It has a nice bronze statue of him so we all had our pictures taken there. Our destination town has a nice community college where we are overnighting in the gym. Bubba had a woman who knew Ray Charles come and talk about his early life, but also how she put herself through college and got a Master's degree while raising 5 children. Determination. She advised us to use the same determination to get up the hills!
Tomorrow a 77 mile route to High Springs and then a rest day at O'Leno Sate Park. We only have three more biking days left!

A welcoming sign at a bakery rest stop.

A cypress swamp at Lake Miccosukee.

We stopped at the Madison Post Office which has original woodwork. One patron stopped to talk to us and said the mural was somewhat controversial but they left it because it is historical.

The Florida and have been so friendly and talkative, maybe more than any other state we've been through. They all say "stay safe".

Even the fast guys get sleepy. "Rocket man" Jeff.

Lots of big old live oak trees and Spanish moss. The little town of Monticello.

Our last night in a tent!

We had a singer and Karaoke night Last night under the stars. Nice to listen to music outdoors. The rainy weather has finally moved away.
Our ride today was again on U.S.90. The road is smooth with great shoulders. The nice surface doesn't make for an interesting blog but it sure makes great riding. At lunch today in the little town of Chipley I saw a couple of DOT workers and told them how much I liked the road especially compared to the same road in Texas. Later we drove by the DOT offices. I suppose they would have thought me weird if I had gone in and told them how much I like the smooth shoulder but it would be nice to tell the decision makers how much we appreciate the added expenses that these type of roads take. The Florida drivers seem mostly respectful although the other day I had a twenty-something move in on me until I shouted at her. Dave said that he could see that she was texting.
Another rider posted his GPS reading that we have done 2600 miles. I figure I may have missed about 600 miles nursing my leg. I haven't figured it out exactly and my odometer seems to be overstating our miles each day but we've probably both ridden 2000 miles.
We've had better luck with dogs recently. No riders have had close encounters like we did in LA and AL. I have started wearing a whistle around my neck. My close encounter with a dog happened while I was leaving the RV park this morning. A woman had a schnauzer on a retractable leash which ran at me. She cooed to him "oh come here sweetie" while the thing was snarling at my ankles and she didn't use the stop button on the leash to keep him close to her. But I outran it and didn't look back to see if she was pulled off her feet by him. I have never met a schnauzer that was pleasant even though I usually think there are no bad dogs, just bad owners.
We rode through a couple of areas with overflowing rivers. Luckily a high pressure system has come in, lessening the humidity dramatically. Unfortunately it has led to snow at home but we sure appreciate it. It was actually chilly last night and we both pulled out our down sleeping bags.
Well, heading to bed. Tomorrow we lose an hour about halfway through the route to Tallahassee. We will be on Eastern time again. We have been in the Central time zone since Van Horn TX.

The oldest continuously operating library in FL in Defuniak Springs.

The rivers are overflowing.

US 90 is named after a former legislator who campaigned by walking from Key West to Pensacola.