Ready, Set, Go

Joan's View

An absolutely beautiful sunny day today!  Tony's preplanned route took us through some nice residential areas that were fun to look at.  We had our 1st armadillo sighting, albeit a little past its prime, about 17 miles into today's ride.  That information is for Laura Schwein's curious 1st grade class at Emerson Elementary School where I get to volunteer.

A little farther on down the road we stopped at the
Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve.  An estuarine is basically where salt water and fresh water meet and has lots of wildlife.
The Eagles were busy doing their Eagle thing outside of their nests, but we got a great view of an empty Eagle nest.   We did get to chill out with some feathery friends.  I guess it's not manatee season right now either.

We arrived at our hotel in Vilano Beach and ate outdoors on a deck with takeout from an excellent Asian restaurant.  The owner was from China, and he was thrilled to hear that we had just recently returned from a visit to his homeland.  Thank you again, Carol & Clyde, for being amazing hosts to us in China!

Around 4:00, lots of excitement as our ONU college friends, Tom & Cindy Winslow, arrived! Tom is riding with us the next 2 days, while Cindy does her beach thing but remains our access to a vehicle. After the hugs and some fast catching up, the Winslows took us to Castillo de San Marcos, an old fort built in the 1500's. The canons were very ornate, and Tony did a closer inspection of them.

We walked around old St. Augustine and roamed around historic Flagler College. Tony, was doing his usual shopping and found his favorite bike trip food - ICE CREAM! Tom was happy to join in.

 

 Tony' Side Notes

Well I was just super excited that our tandem didn't breakdown today and it ran great. It was only the second time that I put it back together from being taken completely apart. Yea! The trip along the shore not on the busy road has some really nice houses, one right after another for miles. Since I like houses that was amazing. Instead of dead groundhogs along the side of the road like in Ohio, we saw roadkill armadillos.  Wonder if they have armadillo day instead of groundhog day down here?  Overall it was a great first day, we got to do a lot and I got my ice cream.  My good friend, Ken, and my brother Jerry would be proud.  They like ice cream too!