Home Again, Safe and Sound... Asleep.



As the sun was rising in Florida, the moon was setting.



We made it home... after a detour through the local grocery store to pick up basic supplies for dinner and to have items on hand to pack for our lunches tomorrow.

We tried to watch a little TV and realized that we're not going to make it to our "normal" bedtime... we're probably still used to "Florida time".  The big -- and very welcome -- difference is that TONIGHT we finally get to sleep in our own bed!

And so this blog gets put back "to sleep" until the next time...

The Return...

It's 7:20 in the morning, and we're in the Tampa airport - final Florida Starbucks in hand.  They're already giving boarding instructions, so this is officially the beginning of the end of our Florida excursion.

Finishing this up on the plane; we fly to Las Vegas and change planes to finish our flight to Boise.  And then... it's game over and back to work tomorrow...

Tuesday Begins...

Made the last minute early morning trip to Starbucks in The Villages, Florida.  It is STILL cold thanks to the after effects of Hurricane Sandy; it was in the low 40's as I "zoomed" along in the golf cart to my destination.  But I DID get to see a pretty decent sunrise as a consolation prize for freezing my butt off!

We're packed and awaiting our ride back to Tampa; Valerie wants to do some shopping at a couple of stores that we don't have on Boise, so I guess I might as well snoop around the mall looking at all the little electronic techno-gizmos that I'll never be able to justify buying.  But they're still fun to look at, no matter what the bank account says!

Monday, Winding Down...

Monday… I feel like it’s Monday. And, what d’ya know? It IS Monday!


We took a ride this morning, starting out right before 9:00 AM. It was 46 degrees, with a driving wind; we got back home and it was merely in the mid-fifties. The sun was out, so I guess that counts for something.

We came back to where we’re staying, and I hummed and hawed for a while, and finally got to the business of breaking the bike down and putting it in its case. That task is done, and now it’s time to pack up the other odds and ends and find a place to stuff them in our cases.

Valerie’s sister is currently here with us, and today is Valerie’s birthday. She’s older than me for the next week; I’ll live to remind her of this every chance I get!

Sunday Morning and The Night Before



Who knew that bicycling jerseys
could be so stylish?



The Sunday ride went off without any big hoopla or fanfare, Again, we chose the longer of the two routes and came in long after the other folks had finished. We won’t bother mentioning that instead of making a left turn I went straight for another mile or two and then realized the error. We came back to the road we should have been on and then made a short cut out of the next series of turns by remaining on the same road, so our wrong course didn’t actually add any extra miles on the trip. Today’s total mileage was 56.

Last night’s banquet was spectacular. A quilt had been made out of parts of other people’s tandem event shirts and then was given away in a drawing (Valerie had two squares from shirts she donated, in both the upper and lower left hand corners). When I had first heard of the project, I didn’t think too much of it. But seeing the completed work in person certainly changed my mind. I was actually hoping they’d draw our number. Of course, they didn’t.

The highly coveted quilt.

The one they drew belonged to a couple who have become synonymous with tandem cycling in the area, Gabe and Diana Mirkin. We both agreed that being as how we didn’t win it, nobody probably deserved it more than they did. (Even if we had won it, they probably would have deserved it more!)

The wind was still blowing this morning, and many of the couples complained of the chill in the air. I have to admit that I was a little on the cool side myself for most of the ride today. The big difference was that today the sun came out; yesterday it remained behind a layer of clouds.

The Miles Are Getting Longer (or I'm Getting Older)

Let me start off by saying that we just finished riding 69 miles. If I sound incoherent, I probably just haven’t had enough recovery time prior to writing this!


The day was cloudy – all day. It was also windy, because of Sandy. You remember her? The former hurricane, now just a tropical storm. Fortunately, the first half of the ride actually sent us pretty much straight into the wind. The second half put the wind at our backs, but also threw in a few rolling hills just to see if our legs could take it. I’m still debating as to whether or not a nap would be a good thing right now…

The rides available were 33, 44,54 and 63 miles in length; we chose the 63 miler knowing that, although we aren’t the fastest cyclists to invade this planet, give us enough daylight and we’ll finally show up at the end. And so it was today: last at the lunch stop, and last to hit the finish point. But we did the big ride and we made the distance, even if we only averaged 14mph.

Lunch was at Grand Oaks Resort; this evening will be a buffet for the tandem riders at the Lake Miona Recreation Center here in The Villages. And now… I need to go pass out for a little while!

Fighting the Wind on Friday

Straight, narrow and practicall car-free
roads were the order of the day!

Today’s ride options gave us a choice of 22, 26, 32 or 36 miles. The organizer’s decided that the “fast riders” should do the longest option, and the slower people should do the shorter rides. We wanted to do the long ride, and being slow riders we knew what to expect. After the first five miles the group of ten tandems we were with started pulling away from us and that, as they say, was that.

The route led us up and down many a rural road, some shaded by stately trees while others were wide open with horse farms or cow pastures on either side of us. It was beautiful, pretty quiet except for the occasional passing car and mostly flat for the whole route. The only problem we experienced was a nasty headwind given to us courtest of Hurricane Sandy as she heads north in the Atlantic.


There were some occasions when we were riding along at 25mph, feeling like there was no air moving around us at all. (Tailwind.) Then there were LONG stretches of road where I could barely get our speed above 8mph and holding a straight line due to all the buffeting was difficult. (Headwind.)


We showed up at the usual meeting spot and found a couple of the tandem teams still there; most had already come and gone. We drank and ate a little bit and then continued on into the wind for a little while longer, reaching home just after completing 50 miles.


Tonight we’ll register and receive our ride packets for the rally, and get to talk with some of the riders at the traditional “Ice Cream Social” that officially kicks off the rally weekend.

Thurday: Riding on Bikes, Riding in Cars

It’s been a LONG day. It started out with the usual group tandem ride; this must have been one of their “fast days” because when the ride was about half-way through we lost contact with the group and never saw them again! There’s nothing more humiliating than to have a bunch of “old” people leave you in the dust like you were still using training wheels. I’ll either have to learn to get used to the humiliation, or really work on my conditioning to keep up with them. Hmmm. Humiliation and I will become good friends!

The ride’s distance was 29.5 miles. The temperature was around 75 degrees. And the wind, coming from the northeast, was rather brisk. This is apparently being influenced by a hurricane currently off of the Atlantic coast. Hopefully it will stay away from us – I’d hate to have our tandem rally turn into a soggy affair!



We went straight home, rather than stopping for the usual after-ride snack and iced tea because we needed to get cleaned up and hit the road to go visit Valerie’s grandmother. We rented a car for the day and headed northwest to Archer, Florida to pick up Grandma and then headed into Gainesville to do some shopping for her.

Dinner followed our little shopping expedition, and we took Grandma to the Bonefish Grill where she took on a plate full of King Crab legs… she left no trace that there was ever any meat inside the crab legs. Ever. Those things were picked clean!



We drove Grandma back home and bid her farewell, arriving back in the Villages just before 10:00 PM. I dropped Valerie off at the house, took the rental car back and deposited the keys in a night drop. A quick trip through a local grocery store and here I sit at 10:45 PM… unable to download the photos that will accompany this story, so I won’t post this until my server comes back on line.



Friday, 7:40 AM – The e-mail server is back up, so I could download the photos I had sent to myself. You’ll see three pictures; one is Valerie’s view as we rode with the group on Thursday, another is the view out of the car window on the way to Grandma’s place (not what people think of when they hear the word “Florida” and the third is Valerie and her grandmother just before the crab demolition began.

Wednesday's Child... Rides a Tandem!



A look down the "main street" at Sumter Landing in The Villages, FL



Thursday is pretty much in our rear view mirror at this point… and it’s only 7:20 at night. The sun has been down for at least half an hour, and I suppose it’s time to relax and get ready for tomorrow.

We got in a ride today, meeting with an abbreviated version of the normal tandem group that meets in the morning. There were some folks riding with us that are here (as are we) for the Florida Tandem Rally, coming this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Apparently some of the regulars are recovering from the Southern Tandem Rally, which was held just last week in St. Augustine, Florida.

After the “official” ride, we continued on to the local bike shop to pick up some chamois cream (we’ve come to really like this product) and then we headed off to look at an open house in The Villages (which was closed when we got there). Then it was back to “our” house – actually Valerie’s Father in Law’s house – where we called it a day for bicycling. The total was 46 miles.

We dined at a small restaurant called the Lighthouse Point Bar & Grille. A decent meal was had by both… and we definitely would eat there again.

Tomorrow we’ll rent a car and drive about an hour northwest of here to visit with Valerie’s grandmother. We’ll take her shopping and then out to dinner afterwards, so there won’t be any incredible biking tales to tell (unless something happens during the normal morning group tandem ride, which we plan on attending before hitting the highway).

Looks Like We Made It...

9:48 AM Phoenix, AZ: Having left Boise on time, winging toward Phoenix with the anticipation of an hour on the ground and a mocha to be rescued from Starbucks, I settled in to listen to an old Jack Benny radio show from 1942 on my iPod. We were probably in the air for about forty five minutes when I realized that my nose felt a little funny. Within a few more seconds I had figured out – and Valerie confirmed – that I had a great nosebleed in the making… a real gusher. Great timing, nose.


I spent several minutes in the lavatory trying to mop things up and somehow get back to “normal”. Yes indeed… this trip is off to a great start!

6:31 PM Tampa, FL: We survived the connecting flight from Phoenix to Tampa. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about the flight to comment on, other than it was sold out. What this means is that Valerie likes the window seat, and demands that I sit next to her. On a full flight, this translates into “I get the middle seat and wait for some big fat guy to come and grab the aisle seat”. Mission accomplished. He showed up right on schedule!

We’re with Valerie’s father in law as we drive north on Interstate 75 toward The Villages. It’s currently 81 degrees, with the sun getting very low in the sky. I imagine we’ll try to find a bite to eat when we arrive, and then I’ll have to try and get the bike assembled tonight so we can join the locals for their morning ride.

Interested in old time radio podcasts?  Search for "Jack Benny" in iTunes or go to:  http://www.podomatic.com/profile/jack_benny

Another Dreary Departure...

Another all-too-brief trip to Florida to visit Valerie's family and to participate in the Florida Tandem Rally.  We left home in the dark, with a light snow falling.  This afternoon we'll de-plane in Tampa with temperatures in the 80's.

This will be the last major cycling we'll get in this year, as the temperatures have suddenly dropped in Idaho leaving me to believe that there's no such thing as an "endless summer".  But for one more week, with the mercury hitting the 80 degree range in central Florida... bring on the tandem cycling!

For Those Who Haven't Friended Us on Facebook...

Admittedly, I've gotten lazy.  Type a few sentences on Facebook, maybe add a photo and then hit "post".  Like the Ronco ads might say; "Set it and forget it!"  But, in fairness for the folks who aren't on my Facebook list, here's a little vacation update just for you.



Our daily route.

 We're in north San Diego county, staying with a friend in Escondido.  We have been riding our tandem almost every day, following the same loop to Oceanside, Carlsbad and then back to Escondido.  51.5 miles... daily.  The route we keep repeating involves a loop, which we ride in a counter-clockwise direction. 

Some parts have a bike lane, some don't.  There's a little bit of road construction going on in one part of the outbound segment, and we find ourselves riding a little portion on the sidewalk because there's no room in the road for us AND a car at the same time.  It's only about half a mile of major inconvenience, and I'd rather stay alive than argue over space in the lane... or the morgue.

The last eight and one-half miles of the ride before we hit the coast is on a dedicated bike path: no vehicles, only bikes and pedestrians.  The downside of this little corridor of safety is that the wind blows directly into our faces for the whole way... and it's always brisk.  It's hard to make good time in this portion of the ride, but it's nice having the wind at our back on the return portion of the ride.



Next to the Pacific in Carlsbad, CA

 One day we rode from Escondido to Chula Vista, where we stayed with a friend for the night, and then goofed off the next day in Coronado, CA.  We racked up 70 miles on that little excursion.

My favorite photo of the trip is a picture of us (Idaho residents), wearing our Florida PANTHERS club jerseys while standing next to the Pacific ocean.  Conflicted?  Perhaps.  Enjoying the ride?  Absolutely!