4: one grind, marathon at pinecrest bakery, african queen, christ of the abyss, charlie and larry

March 21, 2025

Tavernier to Key Largo

I decided to spend another day in the area and will only be traveling ~8 miles today for several reasons:
1. I'm pretty tired after a 40-mile day because I'm still ridiculously out of shape.
2. If I ride today, I'll have another strong headwind. By waiting one day, I'll have a tailwind.
3. The fires. Wanda texted me this picture:

Apparently, the State Highway Patrol has been closing the road between Key Largo and the mainland every day around 1:00 for the past couple of days. From what I've been hearing, the normal 1.5-hour drive has become a 4-hour drive, and people are just sitting in their cars with the engines turned off. I don't understand why it's a scheduled road closing at 1:00, but that's what they're doing.

I loaded up, unhurried, and started riding toward One Grind where I can get something to eat and drink.

Shortly before leaving Tavernier the bike path was closed. Although you can't tell in the picture, there are "rumble strips" just to the right of the barrels, making it impossible to ride on.

I stood there straddling the bike for a minute deciding whether to risk continuing the same way, or to risk crossing the street to find out if the map is correct and there really IS a bike path on the southern road. Once I decided to see if the grass is greener, I continued to stand there staring longingly across the street for no less than five minutes waiting for a break in the traffic.

Fortunately, there was a bike path.... THIS time.

I got avocado toast and a mocha, both of which were really good, but set me back almost $30.00. I'm going to quit complaining about the cost of everything here in the Keys [read: until tomorrow], but if you're planning on riding in this area be aware that everything is expensive.

I was mainly hoping for a place to park and work on my journal but this wasn't the place. No wi-fi and not much breeze, so I rolled down the road a ways and came across the Pinecrest Bakery.

This is where I spent the next five hours uploading pictures and writing. It was so nice to be outside.

At 4:45 I realized that I should go over to my next Point of Interest, the African Queen. This is the boat in the 1951 movie of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. It was built in 1912, in England, and originally used in Africa to transport cargo, missionaries, and hunting parties across the Victoria Nile. When director John Huston saw it during a hunting trip he chose it because of the riveted steel design and the vertical boiler.

After the film it continued to be used in Africa until it was abandoned in the late 1960s. In 1968, it was found partially submerged in Cairo and transported to the United States for restoration.

In 1982 it was moved to Key Largo (also the name of a movie starring Bogart) where it’s now being used for canal cruises. It was officially recognized as a National Historic Site in 1992. I'm adding some trivia about the movie in the comments section just in case anyone is interested.

Off I roll to the dock, only to find the boat isn't there. To my utter surprise, they hadn't held it there all day, waiting for me to show up and take some pictures. Duh.

I had considered taking a "canal tour" on the boat, but read the reviews and apparently you just sit in the dock for a while listening to trivia (which I've already read about), then tool around a single canal listening to some more trivia. It actually does sounds fun, but not for $65.00. Plus, they don't use the boiler as an engine; they use an outboard, which takes away from the authenticity.

I remembered that the tours were at 12:00, 2:00, and 4:00, as well as a dinner tour at 6:00. It was now shortly after 5:00, and I guessed they'd be returning around 5:30 so I waited.

At first I thought this was a fake bird because of its location and complete immobility.

The African Queen somehow slipped past when I wasn't looking so, unfortunately, I didn't get a single good picture.

They had already hoisted her out of the water.

Another picture of the ocean. In this case, you're looking at the Christ of the Abyss.

On 25 August 1965, a nine-foot-tall bronze statue of Christ was lowered into 25 feet of water off the coast of Key Largo. It's called the Christ of the Abyss, and, after plenty of debate, was submerged off the shore of John Pennekamp State Park. It's only the third of its kind cast from the original Italian mold, and arrived in 1965 but had to wait until the huge concrete base was constructed. Eventually, the taller-than-the-actual-Jesus statue was lowered to the base and attached. The base and statue stand in 25 feet of water.

The top of the statue is about 8-10 feet below the surface, making it visible to snorkelers. SCUBA divers get the best pictures, and they come from all over the world.

I grabbed a sandwich from Subway and headed to John Pennekamp State Park for the night. Of note, it's actually called the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park because the Florida Keys have the world's third largest coral reef, and the area by this park is exceptionally beautiful.

The Park Rangers are getting better with each successive place. Charlie and Larry could be a stand up comedy duo, and Charlie in particular was extremely helpful. He used his golf cart to take me to a couple of different places and let me take my pick.

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Overall, a pretty good day, and very relaxing.

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Today's ride: 10 miles (16 km)
Total: 110 miles (177 km)

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Mark BinghamIn case you're interested in some additional trivia on The African Queen:

In 1998 the American Film Institute ranked the African Queen as the 17th greatest movie of all time.

Humphrey Bogart won the only Oscar of his career for this movie. In his acceptance speech he stated “it’s a long way from the Belgian Congo to the stage of this theatre. Its nicer to be here. Thank you very much.”

The movie gave Katharine Hepburn her fifth Academy Award nomination. She said of the movie director John Huston “He told me to base my character of Rosie on Eleanor Roosevelt when she visited the hospitals of the wounded soldiers, always with a smile on her face. Since I as Rosie was the sister of a minister my approach to everyone and everything had to be full of hope, a smile" It was the best piece of direction I had ever heard.

To show her disgust with the amount of alcohol that John Huston and Humphrey Bogart consumed during filming, Katharine Hepburn drank only water. As a result, she suffered a severe bout of dysentery. Just about everyone in the film crew came down with dysentery except Bogart and Huston. Bogart explained "all we ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and drank Scotch Whiskey. Whenever a fly bit me or Huston it dropped dead."

Because the boat used in the film was too small to carry cameras and equipment, portions of the boat were reproduced on a large raft, in order to shoot close-ups of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Interior and water-tank scenes were filmed in London, as were most of the scenes containing secondary characters.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesHow is the elbow? The helmet? How are you?
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1 week ago

Gregory GarceauTo Mark BinghamI remember watching "The African Queen" with my dad (a classic film buff) sometime during my teenage years. There was one scene that haunted me for a long time afterward. It was when Bogart had to get into the river and pull the boat with a rope. I can't remember why he had to do that, but I do remember that when he got back onto the boat, leeches were stuck all over his body and he had to painfully rip them off. I've gotten over the trauma since then. In fact, I might have paid $65 for the African Queen tour if they recreated that scene and there were real live leeches in the canal.
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1 week ago

Mark BinghamTo Gregory GarceauThat's pretty traumatic. I'm surprised you ever got into water again, or even took a bath after that. I'd definitely pay $65, or more, depending on who played Bogart.
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1 week ago

Mark BinghamTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI'm doing really well, and shockingly didn't even have the Day After Soreness I was expecting... or maybe I was in such bad shape that it didn't hurt any more than what it had been. :-)

More about the helmet in a later post.
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1 week ago