An Easy Sunday Ride

Tony's View

The day started out by visiting with Mike and Davida Eley. Joan thought that since we got up early we should try to see one more time if they were home. We knocked on their door a couple of times and no answer. Then as I was heading to the carport to take a picture of their Harley to text to Craig and ask if that was going to be his inheritance, Mike came down the stairs and asked who we were. Lucky for us he claimed Craig. We had a great time visiting for an hour or so. The funny thing is if you closed your eyes you would swear you were talking to Craig. 
We headed out from there and a few miles down the road we saw this giant lobster, so we had to stop and take a picture. I noticed that they had Cuban coffee and at one of the stops the other day, a lady told me before I leave the area I had to try some. Cuban coffee is an expresso with lots of sugar, I was ready to pedal after one. If that wasn't enough sugar I threw in a piece of key lime pie. Don't worry we worked it off.

From there we headed to another tourist trap that was interesting. It was called Hungry Tarpon at Robbie's. You go there and buy fish to feed to these big Tarpon fish. We just watched others feed the Tarpon, but there were some really big fish. We took pictures of the pelicans that were standing around begging for fish. One of them really liked Joan and wanted to get a picture with her. The other picture was so cute. The kids had fish to feed the tarpon fish but the pelicans hung around like dogs begging for food. The kids didn't know what to do. 

After leaving there we were cruising along and went over a bridge 2.4 miles long. Yea, I know only an engineer would measure the length of a bridge. I think it is just preparation for our seven mile bridge ride tomorrow. Joan was glad that it had a 4 foot shoulder for us to ride on. 
From here we went to one of the best beaches in the Keys according to Mike and Davida Eley, Sombrero Beach. This was something we didn't know, that the beaches aren't very good on the Keys. We spent time there talking to two older guys about the area. Next, we headed to our hotel called the Black Fin, a reasonably priced hotel for the Keys. The picture is one from the hotel marina showing what it looked like at sunset. Stats for the day: 46.5 miles at 15.9mph. We had a 10mph tailwind. It was nice. Ride time 2 hours and 55 minutes and 4 hours 15 minutes. Spent a lot of time just visiting and checking things out today. It was fun.

Joan's Side Note

I got a roller coaster ride today coming into Marathon!  We rode for a long stretch on a smooth bike path through this thick mangrove type region until we got closer to Marathon and the nature filled path ended. The street didn't have much room for bikes so Tony used the so-called remaining bike route which is more like a wide sidewalk. The bike route frequently goes up to the bike path and down where there is a street or driveway, but added to that are the white bumpy lines at each entrance along with the raised crossing dots. I even put my arms up over an extreme up and down section.  I'm thinking the front seat of the tandem gets the real thrill of the ride just like a roller coaster!