Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Bicycling the "Florida Overseas Heritage Trail" - Day 1

The Florida Overseas Heritage Trail is a 106.5 miles bicycle trail in very southern Florida from Key Largo to Key West.  ML and I had read about it a number of times and we planned to go - but never seemed to set a date.  When Glenda said she and brother Bob were coming to Florida in February and wanted to bike some, we said sure and convinced them of the Keys adventure.


The other three tripsters let me do some of the planning.  I figured that we wouldn't be able to stuff one car with all 4 bikes and gear, but there was a ferry to Key West from Ft. Myers, near where Bob and Glenda were based.

All trips have some time when you're "getting ready to get ready and then getting ready."  We're loading the bikes for the ferry.










The early morning light looked nice on these shrimpers.  I'm a sucker for commercial fishing boats anyway.












One of the best parts of the whole trip was being by the water almost all the time.  The water is clear and a variety of shades of blue that makes it just pretty to look at.

The ferry was fast, but crowded.  It took about 4  hours to get to Key West.











We did have to get up early, so a nap was in order.
















The sidewalk was also a bicycle trail right beside the ocean.

Ironically, we made a wrong turn and rode another 6 miles than we wanted to.  This is headed south and we were going north!!!  Should have brought a compass.







 Lunch at the "Lime Tree Food Mart."  Key West has such bright colors.












Yep, that's a bike lane.  Doesn't look too wide to me, but ML is cruising right along.

I was trying to catch our shadows on the road without getting killed by a car.










There are some outstanding Florida State Parks in the Keys but there were NO available campsites at any of them.  The hotel rates were outrageous at the time of year, so we mostly camped in RV Campgrounds.  Here's our first one.  Not bad, some shade and not too close to anyone else.

We were supposed to ride 15 miles but it turned into 25 by the time we arrived.  Seemed like a lot to me for the first day!

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