February 26, 2015
Day 24: Fort Myers to Arcadia
It was pretty restful being rocked by the waves as we slept on our bunk in the bow of the Horatio. The wind was actually quite brisk, though not cold, and was refreshing when we walked down the dock in the night to visit the onshore restrooms.
John and Kelly made sure to wake up and make us coffee, toast, and fruit - what a sweet couple!
Our way now leads north, through Arcadia, and Bartow, before we make our way toward Polk City and the Van Fleet and Withlacoochie Trails. The first 10 km leaving Fort Myers was remarkable, because it was almost all lined with used car dealers. How can there be that many used cars, and that many dealers? Anyway, as we cycled past them all, I kept hypothetically looking for a fine one for us - just fantasizing a bit about not having to pedal all the way to Arcadia.
Pedalling was actually easy, at first, as we had a tail wind. But the darn thing turned around and started to blow at us. At the same time it started to rain. This was not the violent and sort of quick storm that we had seen in Fort Lauderdale, but rather was an all day soaker. The road north, CR 31, has good and bad aspects. On the good side is a decent shoulder. But all other aspects were on the bad side: lots of fast moving heavy trucks - noisy and splashy, no services at all, and little to look at save endless orange groves. Actually that is not quite accurate. Before the orange groves came sand and shell mines. Yes, shells. As we had learned in the Park, Florida was once entirely covered by a shallow sea. The mines, though, attracted hoards of speeding and very noisy dump trucks. Yeeechh.
The trucks and traffic made drafting too dangerous, though we tried it for a bit. Fortunately the wind dropped enough for Dodie to make barely acceptable progress, else we really could have been stranded in the middle of nowhere. As it is, soaked and chilled and with the light failing, we abandoned our plan to camp at Arcadia. We found a really nice motel - the DeSoto, $55. The room is large and clean and free of any odours, and the owner sweet and helpful.
Tomorrow's forecast is for direct headwinds that will be 20 kph. That could really slow Dodie. Since there is no alternative but to reach Bartow, we'll see if it happens!
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Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,222 km (759 miles)
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