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We have to allocate a few Heroes of the Day for this 12 days – John Cheetwood gets one for the awesome bird watching tours, for letting us use his campsite, and for being a source of great conversation. Mary Held gets one for finding and getting us the mosquito repellant, Beat It, and for being so seriously funny and earnest, all at the same time. Mike gets one for actions above and beyond the call of duty – loaning us his car, creating the pedal wrench for us, helping us take down the bikes, getting Rosemary’s pedals off, getting us to the bus station in time, and getting our bike boxes off to the shipping location after we left. Bill gets one for being so incredibly nice, for inviting to us the get-togethers, for all his help and support and enthusiasm, and for just being wonderful. These folks are really awesome.

July 25th, 2007 – August 6th, 2007

Getting there…

Our ride up to St Augustine was great fun for the first part of the day. The road was easy and we had some really beautiful sections. At one point well along in the ride we stopped for a short break at a conservation area, and while waiting to snag the precious bit of shade that was there, we got to talking with two Audubon bird watchers. We had great fun telling them what we were doing, and listening to their stories about bird watching. When questioned, they strongly recommended Anastasia State Park, and told us to ask for John Cheatwood, who is an AmeriCorps volunteer there.

We started getting really hot and tired by the time we reached the outskirts of the city, so we stopped by a farmer’s market that was just closing down. We managed to score some great freshly baked rolls and some kind of really awesome natural root beer at one of the stands. We were beginning to get used to being quite a sensation when we pull up someplace, and this was no different – we had a small lineup of people who wanted to talk to us. One fellow in particular kept talking to us, and finally offered us a place to stay for that night. He was there with his daughter – she looked to be about 12 or 13, and his daughter’s friend. When this guy told his daughter that he had invited us over for the night, she nearly flipped out and actually took her dad aside and had a small tantrum. Needless to say, we weren’t too thrilled about having to spend a night with someone like that, so we weren’t in the slightest bit bothered when he came back shamefacedly and told us the invitation was off.
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The fact that it was Chelsea’s birthday must have cast a bit of magic on the day, because we had the prettiest and quietest ride yet on the trip. Getting out of Daytona was easy, and we rode through a beautiful quiet tree-shaded area for much of the day. We decided to stop at Beverly Beach, and the rain started just as we checked into the campground. One of the maintenance men who was at the counter when we checked in suggested a particular site, and it was just perfect. It was right next to the women’s bathroom, and had a big overhang where we could put our bikes out of the rain.
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The key characteristic of our time at Evelyn’s house was nurturing. We hadn’t actually seen Evelyn since we stayed at her house at the start of the St. Augustine to San Francisco trip last year, so it seemed really fitting to be there again, doing another big trip. We love Evelyn’s house – it’s roomy and airy and peaceful, all things that tired cyclists living on the road love to have.

Starting from the afternoon we arrived, we had awesome, simple, healthy food. Evelyn certainly gets our Hero of the Day for several days running for so patiently driving us around on errands, and thinking through places where we could get what we needed. We had one, and maybe two long days with stops at multiple health food stores and the like. We stocked up on great nuts and seeds and dried fruit to make our own trail mix; we finally found powdered polenta and couscous; and we even found Avon Skin So Soft lotion, which had been recommended to us by a number of folks as being a great mosquito and no-see-um repellant. The woman at the Avon kiosk also recommended a mosquito repellant they have that uses Picaridin, which comes in a spray bottle. She told us that they are “sending it to the boys in Iraq”.
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One of the things we loved the best about Jim and Laurie Hall is that they are inveterate travelers and adventurers. They are both airline pilots, though Laurie has recently “retired”, and this has given them great opportunities to see the world. They’ve got two daughters, and the whole family has gone on numerous trips, both as a family and individually. That means we have a lot to talk about – sharing stories, if nothing else!

Laurie was so delighted with what we are doing that she sat down and sent off a few emails to local media, and guess what? By return email (meaning instantaneously) she got a reply from a television station out of Orlando. She called them, made the arrangements, and less than an hour later we had a TV crew at their place, filming us! Laurie and Jim got it on tape when it was on TV later that day, so we’ll try to get it put on the website. (We haven’t figured out the video side of things yet). We were all delighted, as you can imagine, and we celebrated by going out for a massive pizza.
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Deciding on improvements

As I lay on my sleeping pad, hot and miserable during our raccoon and mosquito experience, I decided that this was going to be the low point of our trip, and that everything from now on would be greatly improved. I wasn’t quite sure how to pull it off, but I started imagining what it would be like if things were wonderful. It sure felt better than concentrating on how awful things were! I must have done a great job, because things started improving really fast.

Our ride was really pleasant. We made great time in the morning, and we had great rest stops. Even when we got a little bit lost, we had great people to straighten us out, and the “mistake” we made turned out to be a really pleasant road – quiet and shaded. Our moods were improving dramatically.
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Heat, heat, and more heat

We feel like we’ve died and gone to heaven right now, as we are in air conditioning for the first time since last Sunday morning in Port St. Lucie. We say heaven, because we have been dealing with daily temperatures over 100 degrees – on Sunday morning it was 96 degrees in Vero Beach at 11:15 a.m.! And that doesn’t count what the heat index was – they told us Sunday morning as we left Port St. Lucie that the heat index had been 115 the day before…and I can tell you it sure felt like that!

Riding in this kind of heat has been really tough. We are getting up at 5 a.m. and we are riding away by 6:30. We can make about 20 miles fairly well, and then the heat starts becoming a very serious factor. With this kind of humidity we can’t cool down, so we ride about 3 miles or so, and then we have to stop in the shade somewhere and take about 20-30 minutes to cool down. The hotter it gets, the shorter the time in between stops, and the longer the stops are. It makes for slow going!
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The wheels of adventure are rolling again! The alarm went off at 5 a.m. and it only took us 10 minutes to get out of bed. We had an extremely efficient process for getting out the door. We had no tent to take down, and we had packed up everything possible last night. We were on the road by 6:30 a.m. and we made nearly 25 miles before taking our first real break!

We knew by checking our map that if we were going to stay in an air-conditioned hotel for $39 (the rate Jesse got for us), we were going to have to alter our route. As we sat at our break trying to decide what to do, our incredible good luck held up. We had stopped at Seabranch, a few miles shy of Port Salerno. It’s a starting point for some hikes near the water, and it turns out to be a place where cyclists park and then set out for their longer rides. A group showed up just after we got there, having finished their ride for the day, so I headed over to ask their advice.
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Getting out the door

We finally made it out of Delray Beach, and it was a real whirlwind getting out the door. Chelsea and I have closed Compass Rose and we have started a new company called Traveling Roses. We spent that last day before leaving running around opening and closing bank accounts, making bank deposits, and getting last minute supplies. We did make it up to a Wal-Mart super store and got some wonderful flip-flops (those public showers can get pretty yucky) and we stocked up on instant oatmeal and the Thai noodle bowls.

Great neighbor

Our neighbor Ivar Rohats has a moving company and Alex has worked for him for over 6 years now (since Alex was 14 yrs old!) Ivar has always been really gracious in helping us out when we need help, and this was no exception. He was gracious enough to lend us his van, and Alex dropped us off at Canoe Outfitters on Tuesday, up at the Loxahatchee River in Jupiter, in the midst of blistering heat.
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