April 28, 2017
Day 1: Home to Gainesville, FL
Today, after months of fun planning this trip, we finally took off. Our friends Gail and Jerry came over to se us off and took pictures and video as we rolled out of the driveway.
We had one of our longer planned routes today - 66 miles - and the forecast was for a high of about 94. It wasn't bad at all. There was enough cloud cover to keep us comfortable most of the day and we were in our motel by 2:30. The ride from home to Gainesville is one Kerry has done a few times before. It is mostly level and there is a good shoulder/bike lane the whole way.
Our first stop was at a convenience store in Inglis we visit a couple of times a week. Lu cooked us our first breakfast of the trip and all the regular crew wished us well.
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We rode up US 19 to Hwy 121. Once on Hwy 121, we rode through the Goethe State Forest and then past miles of peanut fields.
This area is home to some large peanut farms. The fields didn't look like they were planted and the processing facility was closed. We took a few pictures, but I guess this is a quiet time for peanut farmers.
We stopped for lunch at McDonald's in Williston and had the first (of many!!) Diet Coke of this trip.
Tomorrow we will do a group ride here in Gainesville, the Ride to Remember. We've done the southern loop of this ride, out of Flemington, several times and it is a beautiful ride through Florida's horse farms. This will be the first time we've done the northern loop between Gainesville and Flemington.
After taking a short break and a LONG shower at our motel, we got back on the bike and rode a short distance to pick up our registration packets. Then it was a short walk from our motel to a Chinese buffet for dinner. We finally settled in for the night around 7PM.
Today's ride: 71 miles (114 km)
Total: 71 miles (114 km)
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