Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Ride Day 54

I spent last night in Tallahassee with a couple of other bikers I met on the road yesterday. We had a good time together and rode together again today. The ride today was fairly long at 80 miles but it was not too hard. Those people that told me how flat Florida is are not correct. We had rolling hills most of the day. Still nothing compared to Texas though. I enjoyed the ride from Tallahassee to Madison Florida. Tonight we are staying at a bed and breakfast in Madison. It is very home style and Linda the owner is very friendly. We are sharing some beers with her right now. We headed though Florida State University from our hotel and ate breakfast at O'leans Cafe where we ate a big breakfast before we rode though the city to get on the big trail south of town. We rode the bike trail for about six miles and then headed out east on country roads. The miles piled up as we rode down quiet two lane roads through small towns. It did get hot and humid as the day went on. I took very few pics. I am sorry but the scenery was mostly the same old pine and oak lined country roads. There was a bit more agricultural use but still it was the same as I have seen for the last few days. I did have one disappointment today. I have been scanning the roads for live snakes to take pics of for this entire ride. Well today a beautiful 16 inch long green snake came out of the grass onto the road in front of me. It would have made a great pic but unfortunately it came out onto the road right in front of me and I ran over it and killed it. It upset me to do that. I did my best to swerve and brake to avoid it but it was just a suicidal snake. I left it as roadkill. I almost took a pic of it on the road but in the end I did not. It was bad enough that I ran it over and killed it without taking a pic of the carcass. Such is life and death. We are very close to the east coast and are debating which route to take. The ACA route is a lot longer than the direct roads, like 70 miles longer. The debate is will we miss something good if we take the shorter route and are the shorter roads bike friendly roads. We have not decided yet. More later.....