Fox Lake Kayak

 

Kayaked 3.4nm today. One hour and 32 minutes of exercise.  The red arrow is the launch ramp location.

Fox Lake Kayak - April 25, 2020

Kayaked 3.4nm today, 1 hour 32 minutes of exercise.  The red arrow is the launch ramp location.

Kayak & Rocket - April 22, 2020

Karen & I kayaked a couple miles to a great spot to observe today's rocket launch.  Lots of wildlife including a large 10- 12 foot gator who seemed to be considering us for dinner!  We got within 10 miles of the launch pad.

Dunedin - St. Pete: Day 8

Downtown Clearwater, the trails were busy with cyclists, but no auto traffic.

Karen & I completed our Florida Coast-to-Coast bicycle ride!

Today's ride was through Clearwater & St. Petersburg, a Very Urban ride, but it was an excellent experience. Lots of bridges (10), but they reduced the bad traffic crossings significantly.

We pedalled 27.9 miles today. Our stats overall include:  262.2 miles averaging 11.3 miles per hour (includes pauses at intersections but not multi-minute water & snack stops).

Beautiful trails for an urban environment. They often had a separate pedestrian trail!

One of the longer bridges over multiple streets in St. Pete.

We pedalled over this bridge across a large lagoon (Long Bayou) on our way into downtown St. Pete.

Downtown St. Petersburg has dedicated bike lanes
with protective curbs. Wonderful for cyclists!

That's Tampa Bay off downtown St. Pete.

She busted open her chin, both knees and bled enough
to soak my handerchief (Day 3)! And then continued
cycling 5 more days to complete the entire ride!

These are the trails we actually pedalled.  The gaps are where
the FL Coast-to-Coast Trail has yet to be completed

Seven Springs - Dunedin, FL: Day 7

The first few miles ran under the power lines. We're
fine. Zap, zzzzz, poof, ugh. We forgot our aluminum foil hats. 🙂

Urban trails today from Seven Springs to Dunedin, but entirely dedicated to cyclists, pedestrians, roller skaters, etc., NO motorists! 🙂 Some shade, LOTS of folks getting their exercise and too many roads to cross. We finally got a view of the Gulf of Mexico! Our last few miles were southbound, we've run out of land to our west!

Much of the trail had separate paths for pedestrians & cyclists.

Downtown Tarpon Springs, very nice but everyone seemed
to be staying at home or on bike paths. 🙂

Beautiful trees (and lady cyclist!) on the trail today.

Some folks along the trail really go whole hog beautifying their piece of the trail. 👍

These orangutans were dozing trailside.

That open water in the distance is the Gulf of Mexico!

Our trail for most of today: the Pinellas Trail.

Bicycle track

Suncoast Trail, Spring Hill, FL: Day 6

This is the intersection where we started our day.  Karen
nearly vetoed the ride, but persevered and
we enjoyed the rest of the day.

Definitely NOT rural! We're in suburban Tampa pedaling the Suncoast Trail which was a pleasant rail-trail but required crossing some major multilane highways. NOT Karen's (or my) favorite activity. Several sections of the trail, especially north of FL 50, we're a bit hilly (Ok, not per our mountain friends). The uphill slogs were quite taxing to us old folks, but we made it! (Check our "ascent" of 1,100 feet, the sum of our uphill climbs.) Our parking for the day was in a local park which was closed by the virus. We had to park a few miles away and made up the lost biking miles by riding beyond our planned end point so we still covered the 31 miles planned for today.

Much of the trail ran directly alongside the Suncoast
Parkway, FL 589, a major highway.  While a safe trail
dedicated to bikes, the highway noise was intense. 
We love truckers, but we have to admit we like pedaling the rural trails better.

One of the intersections we crossed: one entrance ramp, one turn lane,
two traffic lanes, two more traffic lanes, one turn ramp, one exit ramp.
A bit disconcerting when drivers are looking for other vehicles and
bikes are invisible. 🚴‍♀️🚴😮

This tree beside the trail had hundreds (thousands?) of wind
chimes, hanging decorations and several memorials

You can hear the wind chimes!

The bridge over FL 50 that we crossed twice. It's a BIG Hill! (for FL)

The Suncoast Trail runs alongside a few small farms.

Bicycle track

Brooksville - Withlacoochee: Day 5

A nice photo by fellow cyclists, but given the
required social distancing, I had to wipe down my hands,
phone, and bike with sanitizer, before proceeding.

While the bruises on Karen's chin & knees may not show it, she is fully recovered! With the purple still bright why would I say that? Well, we began today planning to do 38 miles, the amount required to pedal all the miles on the Good Neighbor Trail to Brooksville as well as those "gaps" where the Coast-to-Coast Trail doesn't exist yet.

The old train station and now museum in Brooksville with the trail to the left

As this was the cool, sunny, perfect day riding flat, rural, sparsely populated, beautiful trails, our enthusiasm got the best of us. First we thought we'd round up to 40 miles, then when we reached that point, Karen suggested we do a full 50 miles! So we did!
The trail and weather were so wonderful, we just wanted to keep riding.

Our turnaround point on the Withlacoochee Trail

Bicycle track