January 31, 2023
Tarpon Springs to Brooksville
Day Two
There was a McD’s a few blocks from the Inn and I grabbed some breakfast and hit the road about 7:45. The morning was gray and misty. I rode the sidewalks making my way through Keystone Road alongside the morning traffic. The trail steered into a section of Brooker Creek Preserve that was old ranch land. With the birdsong, the cool weather, the lack of cars and the mist, the morning turned magical. The ranch land, melded into a golf course and then a route under high tension lattice towers. Eventually I was back on a path alongside a road. The paths parallel to the roads are good, they are separate from the traffic and safe, a rarity in the US. When you ride a nice quiet path in a beautiful setting you want all of the route to be like that. The C2C put me into the Starkey Wilderness, the quiet path was back. The Starkey was busy with dog walkers and road riders, the mist had burned off but the cloud cover held. It was still pleasant.
The Wilderness was tamed by the Suncoast Parkway Trail which ran adjacent to the Suncoast Parkway for the next 24 miles. The Suncoast Parkway trail is a master class in fencing. The trail is fenced in a dozen different ways. Fellow bicyclists, I suspect the powers that be are on to our evil ways. The State of Florida knows something about bicyclists I have never surmised in my hundreds of encounters with you, obvious felons. There were barbed wire fences, plastic fences, six foot cyclone fences, ten foot cyclone fences topped with barbed wire, wood fences, brick fences, three and four rows of fences. It was mind boggling. The fencing became less dramatic the further north I traveled, but it was always there.
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Just before a ziggurat pedestrian bridge I headed east, riding the sidewalk and bike path along Cortez Boulevard and other roads into Brooksville. I met Mrs. Brown at the very nice Ardendals Guest House. We hightailed it to catch the last Mermaid Show at Weeki Wachee. Mrs. Brown told everyone she met that the last time she was there she was 12; they were fascinated. The show was an underwater masterpiece.
Famished from the depth and insight of the water works production, we stumbled upon the Florida Cracker Kitchen. Our luck was holding, we ate some tasty BBQ. After an early dinner, (it is Florida) we headed back to the B and B and strolled around town. Twenty minutes later we were back in our room planning tomorrow.
Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 96 miles (154 km)
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