May 16, 2021
Day 1; while not every day is a headwind, today it was IN THE FACE
Yes, we were riding ENE from Tampa to Lakeland. Yes, the wind was blowing from that direction. And, my friends, it was relentless. Kath (riding buddy) stayed on my wheel the entire time. Thank you, Specialized e-bike - what a great invention.
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We made it past a futuro house sitting on top of a strip club. While the house has some historic value, I don’t know the historic value of the strip club, except that maybe it’s linked to the worlds oldest profession.
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After departure from the airport area, we headed straight through downtown and then through Ybor City. Ybor City was a HUGE cigar rolling center of commerce through the 1930s. After that we’ve passed through some “less than desirable” areas in which we passed some meth addicts and I just smiled and waved - they didn’t bother us at all - just shouted to the air at something as they walked through the center of the street(1)
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And then we hit the part linking Tampa to Lakeland. The first thing that comes to mind thinking about that is bicycle infrastructure is not built for the touring cyclist. Heck with that, it’s not even cycling friendly regardless of the cycling type. It seems the only infrastructure is built for the 4-wheel internal combustion variety. Which is really a shame. And yes, it was my choice to plan a route across the Florida peninsula but it’s just such a shame to get from “nice place A” to “nice place B” you have to traverse these nasty 4-lane divided highways with 60+mph traffic.
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We did make it to the Florida aerospace museum, found an empty outlet next to a vending machine to plug in kath’s e-bike for a bit. The museum was under renovation so a lot of the exhibits were closed. Of course chatty me gets into a conversation with another tourist who tells me all about his experiences with aviation, traveling to Vietnam with his adopted daughter to meet her family, and other aviation museums around the country. If I didn’t already have a dinner date with my riding buddy I would have asked what he was doing for dinner and we could have continued the conversation then. One of the best parts about travelling is theserendipitous meetings with others. And opening up and chatting with them
Made it to Lakeland and the navigated through the southern Florida university campus, with buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact, it’s the largest collection of his buildings all in one place anywhere in the world. more about this at http://franklloydwrightatfsc.com/
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After what Florida threw at us today it might seem anti-climactic to let you know we arrived at the hotel safely and went immediately to the pool. Well, maybe not immediately, we DID have to check in first and then change into swimwear in the room. Stripping down in the lobby to our swimwear would have been awkward. Dinner was a walk into town to a seafood place where we’d had fried green tomatoes, shrimp and pasta (Kath) and Mahi mahi on a Bed of arugula(2).
(1) while I have no proof they were on meth, it was Sunday morning, they were disheveled, missing teeth, and walking down the center of the street shouting incoherent insults at someone.
(2) every time I think of arugula, I’m reminded of Steve Martin in”My Blue Heaven” and requesting it at the grocery store.
Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 50 miles (80 km)
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