We are at the Camellia Rose Inn, B & B in the historic district of Gainesville, just east of downtown and just north of the Univ of Florida campus.
To say that life is good doesn't begin to cover matters sufficiently. I'm sitting on an enornmous front porch, glass of wine beside me, listening to the fountain burble in the front yard, looking out at the the big, old trees that line the street with Spanish moss hanging down, the picket fence along the sidewalk, and the potted flowering plants hanging from overhead. It's about 80, the sun's shining, and there's a gentle breeze. Kathy might post a picture of the place if she gets tired of oohing and aahing. Upstairs, our room--with 14 foot ceilings--has a porch of its own and a shower with 5 shower heads!
This is a VERY bike-friendly community, with bike lanes aplenty, and the locals pedal past my veranda regularly, many looking as tho they ride quite a few miles.
Hah! What do they know about big miles? Not much, I'm here to say. On the other hand, they could whip my sorry, tired butt even if they left one leg on the couch.
We are definitely ready to spend a few, or maybe quite a few, days off the bike. And tho it sounds contrary, we are ready to ride a nice, LIGHT racing bike again. But both desires have to wait a bit. We have about 95 miles to go. We, plan to do it in two days to let the trip wind down mileage wise both psychologically and because we are getting tired. We both notice that the first 50 miles or so go by very nicely every day but the miles seem to get a lot longer after that.
Another lovely ride today, with purple wildflowers, tunnels of trees to ride under, and blessedly flat terrain. Neither one of us can imagine doing this trip east to west and having all that climbing at the end. At this point we see the ramp to a bridge over the freeway as a major obstacle!
A friend of Kathy's and his sister, who has a farm outside town, will pick us up soon and we will go to a vegan restaurant for dinner. Our hostess promises a southwestern quiche for breakfast. No food problems for a while! Another point about eating on the road as we have--if we were eating really good 'training table' food the whole trip, we would be leaner, and likely stronger, than we are. Hard to imagine how much fat I have consumed via whole milk, butter, fake butter, etc. along the way. And it is even worse, imagining how much trash we have created via fast food containers, plastic forks, bags...
Well, I guess all this is just more reasons why a trip like this isn't for the faint of heart! But it does detract a bit from the hey-buddy-you-earned-this feeling I enjoy sitting on the porch here in Gainesville as thirty or so bike-racer dudes buzz by heading out for their Thursday night group ride. I suppose they think they're tough. We've learned a lot about toughness the last few weeks.
Doug
Doug,
ReplyDeleteYour post sounds kind of bittersweet. On the one hand you're thoroughly enjoying where you are, the lovely surroundings and the impending meal. On the other it sounds as though you're getting ready to be done with this trip!
It's hard to imagine going that far on a bike in such a relatively short time. You've not only covered a lot of miles, but seen sights along the way that filled up your senses and stimulated you in a way riding the same three or four routes around Kalamazoo can't do.
It also has to be satisfying to know that you and Kathy have the discipline to set a course and stick to it. A lot of things had to go right, for sure. But I'm also sure that the time you both took in planning and preparing for the journey played a big part in its successful (near) completition.
So just a couple more days. There's a big storm moving from the middle part of the country toward the east. Pedal fast and don't get soaked! Have a safe last handful of miles...
Zolton