Oddlings

 I am at home, and had a grand time on the trip. There were problems with my blog coming up blank after my last post. I spent a lot of time yesterday and finally got it fixed. But that took up my time from entering a final post for this adventure. So am doing that now.

I was very happy to be given the opportunity to ride some extra miles on my own. Often, when on a tour, they do not allow use of their bikes when you are not riding with the group. Amy let us use the bike whenever we wanted to. I took advantage and rode some before our group day began, and to the meeting place of the van carrying other bikes, and around the area in the other direction before meeting up on our final day.

On a few of these rides I found mailboxes that are representative of Florida.

At this point I will apologize to Uncle Bill Scudder for spelling his name incorrectly ;'-( Sorry uncle Bill.

Florida is VERY, totally FLAT. Not too bad for cycling, but you do not get to coast down anything. Except for crossing that bridge I talked about, I don't know that I shifted gears much at all. I missed our mountains! It is nice to travel, to see new and different places, to meet people and to experience a different environment, but .... there is no place like home, and I was ready to return to the PNW.

 We had 24 on this trip. Some trips stay in one location and do day trips from that hotel. On this one we moved each day, and depending on the day, we had two or three leaders so riders could go at different paces and would meet up at lunch and then at dinner. 

Speaking of eating! We had way too many full meals on this tour. Very full breakfast, full restaurant lunch within a short time of breakfast, and full dinner in the evening. Ours was the very first group to do this trip, and many of us have suggestions for future trips. One is about the food. I came home having gained four pounds!! And I made a few better choices at some of those meals!

I mentioned about Palm "trees" being a cross between tree and grass. Here is an example of what the "roots" are. Not like the roots of a tree.

 This ends my adventure for this time. I met some great people, had great weather, and loved cycling in a new place.