Thursday was going to be my lowest mile day, so I opted for took my time getting ready and rolling. I made and enjoyed coffee at the campsite.
Overall the miles rolled really easy on Thursday, which was nice after good, old Day 3. I even got this nice reminder about doing hard things along the way.
The only times the path got hard was when I missed turn-offs for the path. (i.e. I made things harder than they needed to be…) I’m not sure if they were well-marked, and I just missed them, or if they weren’t well marked.
The blue line is the path I actually traveled and the orange on is the one I apparently ignored. Now in my defense, I was looking at two different maps: one that some folks from the FL Coast-to-Coast Facebook group created. In that moment, I swear I was following the line in that map to the ‘T.’ But whatever happened, I ended up in some interesting places.
Looking back at a satellite map, there is no clear trail when the proposed path first turns north in the southwest corner of the map. It’s some sort of easement, so no wonder I missed it, and I would have passed it by anyway.
So I chose the blue path instead. The area circled in red was one I was cursing. You can see I bypassed the path at first. And I looked for a way through, and I found one!!
At the time I thought that was THE trail, and I was cursing whoever set me on this path. I rode my bike nearly to the top, but got a bit afraid when I approached the top and walked it the rest of the way up the hill. Hey, it wasn’t perfect, but the path still took me in the right direction. I rode the highway for not too long (~1/2 a mile), but there was a good shoulder most of the way.
Then I missed another turnoff that would have made my life easier for a couple of miles. I’m honestly not quite sure how I missed this turn off. I remember this intersection. I looked all around, and I saw a bike lane pick up on the path I took. If I’d looked left a little harder, I would have stayed on the Seminole-Wekiva Trail.
I do not recommend riding 414 east. That was the only highway riding I did where I felt unsafe. Cars did not get over 3 feet. I even saw some drifting into the shoulder. Which is why I started looking for a different route, which made me realize I’d gotten off-track. So I took back roads to 434, which was better. If I recall, there was a bike lane along there until I reached the Seminole-Wekiva.
Once I got on the trail again, it was smooth sailing. I enjoyed riding through some underpasses and overpasses along the way.
There was a cool section of the trail where the fences were painted with a continuous mural. And the mural was even painted so that if you were riding the other way it would look different. If I’d been thinking, I would have taken video of it, because it was so varied and very cool to see. The below is the only picture I stopped and took in this section. The 3D butterfly wings were too cool to pass up.
The temperature was in the 90s that day! Good thing it was my shortest mileage of the week.
And with such intense heat, obviously I stopped for a smoothie break when I had the chance! I had a nice conversation with an older man while sipping my smoothie. His daughter had ridden the coast-to-coast trail: Virginia to Washington. A little different than my coast-to-coast trip!
Soon enough I was crossing over into Volusia County. I was glad to be riding trail for this bridge crossing.
At this point I’d ridden in seven counties: Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Sumter, Lake, Orange, Seminole, and now Volusia. The next day I’d enter my last county: Brevard.
I was slightly overheated when I pulled into my campsite. It was 90F (32C) afterall. I took a quick picnic table nap before setting up camp. I hung some laundry that was getting pretty funky out on the line.
I’m always amazed how much dirt your legs pick up from the road. And from camp sites.
A pesky raccoon was doing his rounds too. One of the perils of bike touring is you don’t necessarily have a secure place to store food. I have a bear cannister, and I thought about bringing it just for this but didn’t.
After I got camp set up, I went to take a shower. I put my food in one of my panniers and zipped it up. When I came back out, the lady staying across the road from me was heading into the showers. She told me said the raccoon had knocked over my bike and tried to get my goodies.
He was still there when I got back. I clapped and chased him away. He wasn’t really scared of me, and even hissed at me. But still respected my wish for him to stay away.
I feared the worse for my panniers, but he’d been polite and unzipped them to get to the food. So that was nice. He went for the coffee, so that’s the only thing that got damaged. I duct taped the bag so the coffee wouldn’t leak everywhere. Next time I’ll take my bear cannister, bulky though it is.
After my shower, I took another look at some of the injuries I’d gotten on Day 3 of the trip. (Good, old Day 3.) The bruises colored in nicely. They didn’t really hurt, nor did the lacerations, but they sure looked yowie.
That day I ended up logging 35.9 miles.