Sweatin’ With the Oldies

The last "welcome" sign along our route.

No longer will I bring you tales or updates from the Great Northwest.  From this point on, unless we’re on the road, all written fabrications or other alterations of the truth will be based out of the Southeast.  We are official residents of the Great State of Florida, insofar as the DMV is concerned, or as it’s called here, the DHSMV – because we have to be different from other states!  (For those who are curious, I believe that stands for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.)  Whenever someone asks us for our driver’s license, they will be presented a Florida license with a Florida address.

So why are we here?  Every morning I wake up, asking myself the same question.  This journey started several years ago, while Valerie’s mother was still alive and using her gift of guilting to get Valerie to come and visit in the greater Tampa area.  She and her husband were often flying here and there for vacations, golf trips or visits with friends – but Idaho was not on the itinerary.  While this is a point of contention with me, a vision of Martha Stewart assured me that “it’s a good thing”.  Indeed, having to go there as much as we did was a good thing.

They had acquired a place in a retirement community called The Villages, which was about 70 miles north of their home in Wesley Chapel, which is roughly 25 to 30 miles NNE of Tampa proper.  While the Villages is touted as being a golfing retirement community, and there are courses everywhere within The Villages, there is a lot more going on than just trying to club those little white balls.  We found out back in 2009 after getting our coupled Santana (which allows the tandem to break down into three sections and pack into a travel case for flying) that the Florida Tandem Rally was hosted in… yes, that’s right… The Villages.

Yes, there are old people running loose everywhere in The Villages, and a vast majority of them seem to be active.  What attracted us were the cycling clubs, particularly the presence of several members of the Florida PANTHERS (Partners Aboard Neat Tandems Happily Enjoying Riding Simultaneously).  So it was that we began flying back in the end of October the attend some of these tandem rallies, spending time in the spare home in The Villages.

We found that the “old folks” who were out riding daily were able to leave us in the dust.  Of course, the fact that they were able to ride daily never left us.  That was the planting of the seed that inspired us to move from an area that experiences winter to an area that often “hears about” winter.  We chose not to live in The Villages, but about 55 NNW from there, in a rural area that is close enough to “the big city” without actually having people crammed together elbow-to-elbow.  We can still drive down to The Villages to join in for group rides with the tandem club, or simply ride from our new home along country roads in an area known locally as “horse country”. 

We have made our first Florida cycling related purchase:  the book Florida’s Paved Bike Trails (Third Edition), by Jeff and Gretchen Kunerth.  Already it’s helped us find some local rides, and will open some doors to other rides in the region.  We have been trying to get out and ride daily, with a minimum goal of around 30 miles; anything above that is “gravy”!

The outside looks like a home.  The inside...
...well, Rome wasn't built in a day!

It’s roughly a 19 mile ride from our “currently under construction” doorstep to the southwest corner of Gainesville, where we can shop for pretty much all we need and then cycle back home.  Here in the town of Williston, there are three grocery stores that I’m aware of with a Winn-Dixie being the major one.  So if we need something that requires refrigeration, we can pedal up to a local market rather than drive.  The cars will think we no longer love them…

We left Idaho May 10^th, 2016 and arrived in Williston, Florida late in the afternoon of May 14^th.  While we have no real home yet, we watch as the construction of our new house continues and are hoping that by sometime in July we might be starting to move in.  In the mean time we are staying with Valerie’s sister about 15 miles west of our new homesite, and often cycle a loop from her home to ours’ and back, giving us about 34 miles each day.

And so our lives begin.  Again.