January 23, 2024
Day 4: Hasting to Goethe State Forest
A tailwind and an audible
Last night, I convinced Jude not to set up the tent and just lay our sleeping pads and bags out under the picnic pavilion. This morning I realized my mistake: the difference with overnight temps in the 30’s compared to temps in the 60’s is all the bugs come out. We woke up countless times with mosquitoes in our ears and no-see-ums biting us left and right. And in the morning we discovered chigger bites all over our hands, face and feet. I learned my lesson and we decided to set up our tent every night going forward.
After very interrupted sleep not just from mosquitoes but also from the garbage man at 3am who drove his truck within 10 feet of our heads to empty the trash, we got a later start to our day than usual. We ate a proper breakfast, made use of the outlet behind the park bathroom to charge our portable batteries, read, packed up and headed out by 8:45am. That’s normally late for both of us, but the sun had only been up for less than an hour. We made our way back down the bike path through potato and vegetable fields, crossed the St. John’s River in Palatka once more, and then headed out of town on a different route than we had taken in the prior day.
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We traveled some 30mi on SR20, another beautiful Florida road: a four lane divided highway with bike lanes on both sides, a sidewalk in one side and a bike path on the other.
With a tailwind today, we made great time to Hawthorne and picked up the Gainesville-Hawthorne bike path for 16mi through gorgeous preserves, sinks, hills and hollows.
We abruptly came out into the UF campus and made our way through and out the west side.
A few roads without sufficient bike lanes or a path made it a little more challenging, but quickly connected with SR26 and enjoyed another bike lane and bike path at various intervals. I led for most of the afternoon and could tell Jude was lagging a little. We stopped at Publix in Tioga just outside of Gainesville and Jude picked up his go-to snack: trail mix. I’m hoping that keeps him going for another few days. On SR26, we passed through the town of Newberry and I made a quick audible to adjust our final destination when it looked like our camping spot for tonight was actually private forest land and not state forest land. We made our way to a state park with campsites 7mi further south and arrived around 5pm after 85mi of riding. At the north trailhead campsite of Watermelon Pond, we were the only ones there and looked forward to a good freeze dried dinner and a good night sleep.
We’ve been assessing how our bodies are adjusting to the long days in the saddle, and how sleep, diet and effort levels affect our bodies both physically and mentally. We’ve also been discussing the positive impacts of doing this together and the challenges Jude may face alone on the journey ahead. While I’ve tried my best to stand back and let Jude figure some things out by himself, there are certain things that are just easier to do together and rely on each other for. I know Jude will figure it all out on his own and learn and grow so much. Tomorrow is a big transition day as we’ll only be riding half the day together before I break off to pick up the truck.
Today's ride: 85 miles (137 km)
Total: 286 miles (460 km)
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10 months ago