Yesterday Dee and I finished our eighth day of biking, 594 miles from Key West up the coast of Florida to Amelia Island to launch our East Coast Greenway trip. Today we are soaking up all the luxuries of our first day off: Sleeping in, not checking the weather before we put clothes on, sitting over a second cup of coffee, and more.
Reflecting on our week up the coast, the first adjustment we had to make was more about weather than biking. It's been hot, with temps often in the 90s, plenty of humidity, and frequent headwinds out of the east (as we headed east in the Keys) and the north (as we turned north). We've been slathered in SPF 30 sunscreen and still fried our skin; shade is at a premium. We've crossed too many bridges to count — often presenting the only hills we had to climb but also challenging this slightly bridge phobic cyclist. At one point we were calling this the Too Much Tour: too much sun, too much wind, too many bridges, too much stuff in our panniers.
But the joys of Florida have been plentiful, too. We have hugged the coast, truly, from long rides up quiet streets along the rivers of the Intracoastal Waterway to long stretches beside the beach and Atlantic Ocean. Here are a few of our favorite places.
