Day 174: Rockledge to Hutchinson Island South, 93 miles
Day 175: Hutchinson Island South to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, 91 miles
Day 176: Lauderdale to Florida City, 71 miles
Day 173: 9/01/14
Happy Labor Day!!!! Woot Woot! I got to be honest I don't remember much about this day... What I do remember can be summed up by this Robin William's quote from Good Morning Vietnam, "The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut." Yeah, that! It was freakin hot. It was a long work day for me continuing the trek down A1A. Lots of stops to get into air conditioned buildings and rehydrate, lots of stops at public beach access points to dunk my head in the outdoor showers/swim... Basically anything so that I wouldn't overheat. I ended the day riding down through Cocoa Beach and ended just south in Rockledge at a warmshowers host who took me in last minute!
Day 174: 9/02/14
Left Rockledge and got riding again out onto A1A and Rt. 1 and again the whole day was damn hot. I had already contacted warmshowers hosts in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea for the next day, but that meant that I had to do 184 miles in 2 days... So I knew I had to get up into the 90's for miles and so I kept the pattern from the day before and would ride for an hour or two and then get inside somewhere or in shade and chug water and kept repeating it throughout the day. By about 7:30 p.m. when the sun was setting I was only in Fort Pierce Inlet and only at 80 miles so I hopped onto the sidewalk and continued to ride. When I hit 90 miles at about 8:30 p.m. and it was pitch black I then started looking for somewhere to sleep and I finally found a public beach that had an overflow parking area off to the side of it where I popped the tent and tried to stop sweating and sleep.
Day 175: 9/03/14
At around 4:30 a.m. I started to feel the slight pattering of rain against my tent and figured it would pass and turned over and tried to sleep again.. Bad idea! About 15 minutes later the real rain came and I had to make a mad dash to grab my rain fly and cover the tent and get back in. The rain and wind came down pretty good but, I stayed relatively dry and was able to get a few more hours of sleep. At about 7:00 a.m. I jumped out of the tent and packed up (thankfully the rain had stopped) and got on the road.
There was more cloud cover this day and it stayed a bit cooler during the day which I was grateful for especially knowing I had another 90+ mile day ahead of me.
The riding went well for the day although I definitely felt more tired than I normally do. I'd lucked out without getting rained on for the rest of the day until 2:30 p.m. and then I got absolutely downpoured on for about an hour and then it cleared again and I dried out quickly (except for the shoes!)
I got to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea by about 6:30 p.m. feeling really tired... Thankfully, I walked into the house of one of my best warmshowers hosts yet. And I don't think it was only because as soon I walked into Ray and Denise's house I was offered a cold beer and a dip in their pool.... The rest of the night we spent hanging out and talking about our mutual love of travel, biking, and interesting people over a few more drinks and some good old-fashioned New York style pizza (Ray and Denise are also native New Yorkers). They've had some amazing guests staying with them. One British woman spent 2-3 travelling around the world, literally the entire world, and they were her last stop. Another younger guy has been travelling by bicycle for the last 2 years on a perma-tour.
Day 176: 9/04/14
After some coffee and breakfast in the morning I left Ray and Denise and made my way down through Miami which was quite the adventure getting through to say the least and then ended the day in Florida City at the Everglades International Hostel (at the recommendation of Ray). And the place has not disappointed. I got a nice bunk in the currently empty bunk house, got a shower, am eating at an awesome Mexican restaurant next door and have been promised all-you-can-eat pancakes in the morning! I'll take that!
And I can't believe I'm saying it but, I'm only two short days from this little adventure of mine being over... Tomorrow I'll push down into the keys somewhere and then Saturday I land in Key West... Craziness.
Some of Miami from the bridge as I was crossing...
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