A little background: my business's owner is a great guy to work for. Among a number of perks he offers, he owns a beach house out in St. Augustine and all of his employees get one free weekend a year there on request (obviously, since he rents it out to folks as a place to stay as well, paying customers have first call, but...still, it's a wonderfully nice gesture on his part). This past weekend, the back of house night crew decided to go. I wasn't informed of this until Friday night...
Since I had things to do Sunday that couldn't be shifted around, I decided to leave late Sunday afternoon and ride over on the bike during the evening. I left Gainesville at around 5:30, beating the majority of the rain that pounded the area earlier in the day.
I rode down State Road 26 towards Melrose as the waning light of day fell behind. I stopped in Melrose, at about mile 20, at 7:00 or so for a refill of the Camelbak and some food. I normally don't endorse fast food places as good places to stop; they're all pretty much the same fast, cheap, crappy food. However, the Subway in Melrose has some of the nicest folks I've ever met working in a restaurant--especially a fast food place. I highly recommend stopping there if you're in the area.
Having eaten a sub, filled the Camelbak, and grabbed a couple of cookies for the road, I continued on into the gathering darkness. By now, it was twilight, and I was riding through the most worrisome portion of the journey. The shoulder along SR 26 past Melrose is the narrowest portion of road riding along the route I chose, and it has the shortest line-of-sight of the route as well. Of course I was going to be doing it in twilight, the portion of the day when I was hardest to see. Man, I gotta work on this whole trip planning thing...
However, I made it to State Road 100, about mile 25, in less than an half-hour, and my confidence in my ability to finish the trip without a detour to the hospital or morgue soared. I turned right onto 100, and continued on towards Palatka.
Passing Florahome (my usual stop on these trips, at about mile 30), I paused for a moment to eat the cookies I'd stuffed into my Camelback bag. Continuing on, I was soon alone but for the occasional semi thundering past. The complete darkness enfolded me, and I began to feel the mental fatigue of having nothing to see or do but the tiny area illuminated by my headlight, the white line to my left, and the burning of my quads and glutes. Still, I pedaled onward, dodging the occasionally-suicidal love bug as it tried to find my headlamp.
I passed the sign for the FL Trail crossing of 100, and it lifted my spirits considerably. Why, I was less than ten miles from Palatka! (Never mind that I'd been that close since I left Florahome; this was a personal psych-out.) Soon, the warm orange glow of sodium lamps enfolded me once again as I entered the thriving metropolis of Palatka at about mile 45. Traffic picked up, and I realized that I would need to stop soon to refill the Camelbak and eat something once again.
It was now about 9:15, and as I rolled up on the McDonald's there, I realized that I was perhaps ten minutes too late to eat there. The chairs were in the middle of being stacked on tables so that the crew could clean the floor. Shrugging, I continued onward until I reached a gas station. A pair of Pop-Tarts, a glass of OJ, and three liters of water later, and I was back on the road. I headed towards East Palatka on US 17 after the merge between it and SR 100. Walking the bike across the bridge there (the only significant elevation change on this journey) gave my quads a rest for a little bit.
I reloaded up on the bike and continued onward. Soon, I turned onto SR 207 and headed northbound towards St. Augustine. Riding onward into the deepening dark, my spirits began to flag a bit. The exhaustion of a long day and the ride had begun to take their toll on my psyche. Normally, I love the feeling of physical exhaustion that comes during and after a long ride, but I was cursing under my breath as I fought the burn of lactic acid in my muscles. To top it all off, my headlight was starting to dim--I had forgotten to replace the batteries before setting out on my journey.
I stopped in the small community of Hastings, at about mile 55, to get replacement batteries and eat a pair of Snickers bars to try and bring my energy levels back up. It worked, too, for a while, anyway...
I left Hastings and continued on into the darkness. There was still some traffic on the road; 207 is a fairly well-used throughway between the center of the state and the coast. Most of it was polite enough to give the crazy guy on the bike a little room, but there was the occasional person who--through indifference, ignorance, inattention, or just plain malice--insisted on buzzing me as close as they could get to the line. Meh. It was just one more thing to ignore as I continued on through the gathering dark.
Soon, I turned onto SR 206, which runs all the way east to the beach. My spirits lifted, for there would be much less traffic on this road, thus decreasing my chances of being lifted off of the pavement with a spatula. My quads and glutes disagreed with me about that being a good thing, for it meant that there was to be less of a chance of me hitching a ride. I told them sternly to shut their mouths and quit their whining; after all, they were my muscles, not the other way 'round!
Soon, I passed County Road 305, one of the few major roads to intersect 206. Turning the slow curve to the northeast after that, the stoplight at I-95 hove into view. My spirits soared. Why, I was almost to US-1, then! Yeah, about that...
After fifteen minutes of riding towards the green light ahead of me, I realized that it had to be at least five miles up the road. The sheer flatness of the roadbed, combined with its straight shot and the pitch-black environment around me had confused my optic nerves into assuming that the pinprick of green I could see ahead was much closer than its actual distance. Well, crud.
I almost considered stopping there and stealthing in the woods next to the road, but I'd told everyone from work that I'd be in some time between midnight and 1:00 AM. So, I grabbed my phone out and turned on some music on its speaker (I strongly prefer to avoid wearing headphones while riding my bike; not only is that illegal in FL, it's a good way to get killed by someone coming up from behind that you didn't hear in time). The soaring strains of various artists raised my spirits enough that, by the time I reached A1A (at about mile 73), I was singing and occasionally sprinting along out of the saddle. Go figure...I guess I passed through the endorphin wall...
Soon enough, the turn off to A1A Beach Boulevard and the Publix there raised its sodium-lit glory out of the night. I made the turn off to it and continued on for another half mile before reaching the turn off to the beach house. Rolling into the driveway there at 12:45 (about mile 78), I parked the bike downstairs and grabbed my towel, clean shirt, and ditty bag.
Climbing the stairs to the second floor, I found my coworkers engrossed in a game of Lunch Money (a card game I'd never heard of before) and very happy to see me. I was invited to grab a beer from the fridge and jump in the ocean, but I honestly wanted a hot shower before I did anything else.
An hour later, I had finished my first beer, showered, changed into clean clothes, and hung the hammock on the balcony. The next twenty-four hours were spent swimming, conversing, playing Scrabble, drinking a few adult beverages, and generally being a beach bum.
Tuesday morning rolled around early, and I hit the road once again. The ride back was pretty much the same as the ride out, except hotter. Gotta love love bug season.
I got back in early last night, took a shower, and hit the hay. I woke this morning feeling great and wondering when I'm going to get the bug to ride out there again...
Pictures (it happened!):
The hammock, along with one that lives there perenially (I find that one to be a little too narrow and short for my liking):
The hammmock, with the netting stored in the BB bag:
The view from the hammock:
Dawn from the hammock:
Friends don't let friends put on sunblock Before Coffee:
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Originally Posted by Hiknhanger
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