Day 51: Sunday 04/24/16 High Springs, FL to Palatka, FL

Early morning view of the road we traveled a few miles out of High Springs, Florida, on Day 51. The Florida roads that had any traffic always had a nice shoulder for bicycling.

 

Day 51 distance: 84 miles

Total miles:  2804 miles

Elevation gain: 1514 feet

Map of today's ride:

As mentioned yesterday, most of the riders were concerned about Day 51's 84 mile ride, the day before our final short 36 mile ride into St. Augustine, Florida. As it turned out, the concern was only mental. The day was nice and I am not aware of anyone struggling with the ride once we got started. Nor should we have struggled, as everyone had shown weeks ago they were capable of daily long rides. By a little after 2:00 pm, some of the faster riders completed the ride and started arriving for the night at the Palatka, Florida armory, and by 5:00 pm, everyone had arrived.

We had dinner at 6:30 pm, and after dinner, the final rider meeting was held. Bubba had everyone sit in a circle where we reviewed the past 51 days, giving our thoughts on questions such as: Which day was the hardest ride? ..the most scenic?, ..the windiest?, ..where was our favorite overnight stop?, ..our favorite dinner?, ..etc. There were a lot of different opinions, but everyone's thoughts were interesting. Each rider was then presented a 2016 C2C engraved framed picture of him/herself taken at some point during the ride by John Murphy, this year's C2C staff photographer. At that time, each coaster briefly talked about what the experience of the ride across the country meant to them. We heard everything from funny experiences, thank you's to their fellow riders and staff, to the impact the ride had, or will have on that rider's life. It was a very emotional experience. Lights when sleeping in a gym are always out at 9:00 pm, but on this night, we did not even finish the evening's agenda until well after 9:00 pm, and the lights were finally shut off at 10:15 pm.

Early Sunday morning, when riding through the town of High Springs, Florida, on our way to Palatka, Florida, I counted 11 buzzards at this house. They were feasting on a dead armadillo (on the grass) that apparently had been hit and killed by a car during the night. I saw my first dead armadillo in East Texas, but once we rode into Louisiana and beyond, I would guess I saw at least another dozen road killed armadillos.

In the Gainesville, Florida area, we rode about 20 miles of today's ride on a beautiful canopied bicycle trail.

Anne's last dinner of the 2016 C2C was tacos.

Finishing dinner and after dinner discussions.

This year's Wolf Pack. These young people are a very hard working group. They set up each night's sleeping facility, pack everything up after the riders leave the next morning, and then transport and set up the next night's facility (tents, armory, or motel) before the riders arrive that afternoon. They also received a well-deserved framed photo commemorating their effort.

This year's SAG staff receiving their framed photo commemorating the big effort they made to make this year's C2C a success.