February 17 Jacksonville, FL - Flight & Assembly Day

Tony's View

Well, we got to Jacksonville on the scheduled time of 11:00am, but we did have a delay in Dayton.  We were able to get right off our plane and board the next plane to Jacksonville in Baltimore just in time. The good news is they held up the plane to get our luggage on it (that means the bike could arrive with us). 

At the Dayton airport we ran into my next-door neighbor when I was growing up in Leipsic, Matt Hiegel. It was fun catching up with him on all the things in our life over the last 25 years, small world. 

When we got our bags in Jacksonville, we used Uber to get to our hotel 30 miles away. It was our first time with Uber, and it only cost $10.36.  What a deal! We spent the afternoon putting the tandem together.  It took longer than I expected, but we did get it together. Yes, there were times when it didn't go the way I expected it to go. We will find out how well tomorrow morning. After it was together, we brought our luggage to the UPS store across the street and sent them to Springer's in Key West, our friends where we will end up at to conclude the cycling part of the adventure.  

At left, Joan was waiting along the street with the bike cases for me while I ran back to get the address.

Afterward, we went to a tasty barbecue place called Bonos for dinner, and the food was pretty good. We went for a nice walk after dinner in the warm air.  Well, for Ohio it was warm, about 60 degrees.

Joan's Side Notes

     Thanks to Wade for waking up at 3:03am so that he could take us to the airport.  We amazingly walked out the door 5 minutes later (Wade planned it that way). Besides Tony running into Matt, I had a fun conversation with Peggy, a person I met on the flight to Jacksonville, who plays tennis and volunteers, just like me.  She & her husband were heading home to Amelia Island and told us some interesting facts about the area.
     Finally, Tony took a short rest on this chair on our walk tonight.