The Springers at the End of the Biking Road

Joan's View

Today was our last day of biking and it turned out to be 
quite a day. We left our hotel and within 3 miles we were on the 7 mile bridge. Nothing but bridge in front and behind us. Tony was in heaven, but I only let him stop once on the bridge to take pictures. No stopping is allowed on the bridge, but thankfully the sheriff that passed us did not slow down. Traffic was moving swiftly on the bridge while Tony expertly navigated the various debris littering the bike lane. This is a good time to mention that we did not have 1 flat on the entire trip!

We continued on through what seemed like dozens of more smaller bridges all with beautiful views of bright shades of blue and green water. We took a mini side trip about 8 miles to see if we could spot some Key Deer (the small endangered deer of the Keys) and stopped at Blue Hole for a look at the wildlife there. Soon after we took a break for lunch in Big Pine. Tony had a fascinating chat with a girl who approached him while he was waiting outside the visitor center in a shopping center.  She asked if we had been outside of Mount Sinai hospital in Miami on Friday. Unbelievable, but, yes, we did ride through there and she was taking her Mom to the hospital and stopped to let us pass. She had recognized out bike. She was excited to go home and tell her Mom.

Back on the road, we went over bridge after bridge connecting the islands of the Keys. About 3 miles from the Springers on a 4 lane divided section of Route 1, like an interstate, there was road construction and the bike lane disappeared. We got off the bike and crossed to the other side of the road. We crossed back again looking for a lane, then crossed again until we found a narrow bike path. 











As the path continued on the bridge, it got too narrow, actually a sidewalk, for our bike so we had to walk it over the mile plus bridge . At the other side the bike path turned and went under the highway and back up the other side.  It was a relief to see the bike path pickup again so that we could ride on it.  




Another mile or so and we made our last bike stop of the trip at the Springers. Lynne, Steve, Stephanie, Jordan and his dog, Loomis, were there by the pool to greet us.








The Springers kindly welcomed us with a great room, a great meal (Tony even liked Lynne's brussel sprouts) and took us to Sloppy Joe's, the bar where Jordan works on Duval St. Jordan was a classmate of our daughter, Cara, and since we haven't seen him in a long time, it was good to see him in action although his arm is temporarily in a sling. The Springers then took us to Captain Tony's.



FYI, we had been to Key West years ago and did mile marker 0 and Margaritaville so those stops aren't on this trip in case you are wondering.

Tony's Side Notes

Yes, the seven mile bridge was so cool to ride your bike across. I added a couple of additional pictures for some of my geeky friends. There aren't that many of them, but who cares. The bridge along the side that you see was the old Rt 1 bridge and I was thinking it might be cooler to take that one. But when we got to the point where the picture below shows where they made a break for boats to get through, we would of had to turn back after 3.5 miles in. 

I think that is too cool to go this far without a flat tire and for you all out there that followed the TonyChasingWade blog, we had 22 flats. Once again it must have been Wade's bad luck and not me. Just thought I would mention that.

What a coincidence that when I was waiting on Joan in some random shopping center off the beaten path, some 150 miles from Miami, that a random person would come up and tell me she saw us in Miami. I thought she was just coming up to tell me how good I look in spandex, I hear that all the time. Seriously, that tandem provided for many conversations with people coming up to us to just talk about it and ask questions. Definitely something many people thought was interesting. Well, it is late and time for bed.