Our New Orleans to The Villages Ride was a Joy

"Who says the Journey has to End When you Reach your Destination?" ~ Author Unknown

 New Orleans to The Villages bike trip summary

Miles ridden: 663.5

Elevation gain: 9,575

# of States: 4 - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida

# of people who rode with us - 1 Tom Winslow (supported by Sherpa Cindy)

# of flat tires: 2

# of times the chain fell off: 0 

# of bicycle light malfunctions: 1 - the strap tore

# of diabetes monitoring device malfunctions: 4 - shipment received of new devices & repairs were made.

# of dogs that came running after us: 4 - We still laugh about the one that stopped to wait for Tom

# of people asking us about the tandem, taking our picture, yelling out positive comments: hundreds

Blessings to be thankful for on this trip:

• Tom & Cindy Winslow
• The small world we live in and the surprises come from it. (Joy noticing us on the highway)
• The oversize loads that moved over.
• All the other thousands of motorists that moved over for us.
• Porta-Pottys at construction sites.
• An insurance company willing to overnight replacement diabetes pump supplies.
• Bicycle lanes on bridges.
• Bicycle lanes anywhere.
• The people that said they would pray for the angels to watch over us.
• The thousands of smiles, waves, high-fives, thumbs ups, positive comments from all the great people along the way.
• Anne & Dean Morrow for allowing Luna to indulge at their doggie resort.
• Marla for making a day trip to water my plants & visit Luna.
• Wade for car sitting our car in several different places in Indianapolis.
• The faithful readers of this blog that give Tony the incentive to keep doing 1/2 of it even when he wants to go to bed.
• Our neighbors Kade, Korban & Kellon who fed the cats and collected our mail.
• The City of Sidney personnel that cleaned up the fallen tree from the wind storm blocking our driveway before we arrived home.

Back home in Sidney reflecting on our trip, we are so thankful for all the blessings and joy that we experienced on this trip. The memories created with Tom & Cindy were priceless. We laughed and enjoyed great food all along the way. Tom has now earned more great  nicknames for himself on this trip, and Cindy has set some new goals for herself beyond being a Sherpa.

Our prayers now include all of the Hurricane Michael victims. Our awareness of their loss was large for us, but small in comparison to what they truly experienced. The strength of those affected communities is inspirational.

And now, a few final pictures for this trip:

Tony sweating it.

A true Villager for the day.

Cindy showing her winning form

Bocce - another competitive match

Who won??? 

Anne spoiling Luna just one more time

Saturday Activities in The Villages

Joan's View

We all got some much needed sleep and woke up early enough to start some activities. Tom took

Cindy, Jayne & I in a pose

Tony for his first pickle ball experience and then to a bicycle shop for a deal on some new bike lights.
Cindy & I went to a yoga class that her next door neighbor, Jayne, taught. Even though the class was crowded, Cindy managed to get me in with her neighborly connections.

Back at the Winslow resort, attorney Tom poured over
yesterday's blog for something to dispute while Cindy started something yummy in the crockpot.

We ate a great lunch and watched Tony disassemble the bike further until the much anticipated arrival of Stephanie. Stephanie gave the update on her eye catching football injury.

A black eye& swelling

 for the doctor-to-be

From there, we left for pickle ball. We rotated players between Tony, Tom, Stephanie & I. Cindy did photographer, ball duty, and driver. The temperature was in the upper 80s again and we were playing in the middle of the afternoon. It felt like summer in Ohio, but it's February in Florida and still hot. Tom, the pickle ball semi-pro, took it easy on us, but all the games were competitive and fun.

We took a break back at the Winslow resort and watched the white pelicans in their backyard pond do their synchronized fishing. They are such a pretty bird and watching them fish together is amazingly graceful and smart.

The next activity was the oversize putt-putt course on the other end of the villages. For my college friends, Sherri, Janet and Joyce, you will remember it is the one that we played on the last time that we were here when we played until dark. Stephanie went with us old folks (remember she is on a geriatric rotation) and got a nice lead after she sunk her hole in one. Some of us had to use Cindy's ball retriever to get the balls out of tall grass and such where the snakes live. We got about 14 holes in before dark settled upon us this time.

We had a nice shredded chicken dinner that Cindy made in the crock pot earlier, and enjoyed some rest time for the evening.

Tony's Extras

Had a great day today learning how to play pickle ball. It is a combination of ping pong, tennis, racket ball and badminton. Tom is a great teacher. While taking the bicycle apart, this gecko came by to watch. Probably trying to sell me some insurance. Tom took me to the woodworking shop in The Villages so I could check out their machines and dust collecting system. They are going to build another one because of the demand. He also took me to the bicycle shop to get some brighter tail lights. I even got Tom's extra special discount.

The Final Stage to The Villages

Tony's View

Today was hilly, hot, humid and wonderful. It was 85 degrees and humid, which caused some major sweat for me. I enjoyed every minute of it, and it was great to have Tom riding with us and Cindy as our Sherpa. We started out and first thing we went through Payne's Prairie Preserve. It was cool. This morning, however, it was very foggy. We did walk out on the Observation Deck though and saw a very large alligator swimming by.

 We got back on our bicycle and continued on the foggy road. Our Sherpa, CIndy, said there were no hills on our 66 mile ride today. As you can see from the picture below, there were plenty of hills. She got grief for that one. 😀 Tom would catch up going up the hills and we would lose him going down. We nicknamed him Billy Goat today.

Then when climbing a hill, I told Joan it seemed like we had a flat tire and it was hard to turn the wheel. We got off and it was partially flat. I had just filled the tires with Tom's pump before we left, so I was thinking that maybe I didn't close the valve and it just slowly leaked. We stopped in a driveway in the shade as you can see in the picture to the left. I was having struggles with my pump and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I figured out later that the release valve was sticking. I used Tom's pump and shortly thereafter our Sherpa showed up with the better floor pump. We were then off on the road again only to find out there was a small leak, so about five miles down the road we stopped at a gas station. I decided to get the new tire and tube out and throw away the old ones.

Joan got a picture of Cindy bringing the pump again. Tom helped hold the bike so Joan could get another picture. The picture below shows me putting on the new tire and tube. The trashcan in the background is where I tossed the old tire and tube. I just wanted to be rid of it. That tire has served us well though with over 4000 miles, and tires usually only last 2500 -3000 miles.








From there, things went well for the tires for the rest of the day.


Cindy found us a nice place to eat in Ocala called Harry's, where we ate outside right by our bicycle as you can see from the picture below. I ate too much with such a hot day. It took me a while to get my energy back. After we traveled about 15 miles from lunch, we came to the start of The Villages and I told Tom we were turning left. Tom said "I know where we are at and we should go right" and he took the lead. About a 1/2 mile down the road and after going up a big hill, Tom decided to turn around. We now call him turn-around Tom. We met up with Cindy's parents at one of the Fire Station and Joan took a picture as you see below to the right.



















After Tom taking us the last 18 miles to their house at 18 mph, we arrived in time to get our celebration selfie picture. We went through many round-abouts, that seemed to work pretty well. The cool ones were the ones for the T roads where the opposite side had a by pass that skipped the round-abouts completely.

Tom got home and thought it would be a good idea to dip his rear tire in the pond behind his house. I decided to spray our bike down with water to get the grit off before I started to pack it back up again for the flight home.




Joan's Extras

Once again, on our last day of riding, we find another Nick (Nicholas) sign. Maybe, it's because they like Christmas down here so much that we found so many Nick's. 

We all did a celebration high five after our long last day of this ride. Lots of great memories and great people in our few short weeks. It feels great to be in The Villages though.

I apologize for the late post today. I was tired after a long, hot ride and the Winslows kindly took us to the strawberry festival at the Brownwood Paddock Square this evening. Actually, we were all tired because Cindy & Tom got up extremely early to meet us in Gainesville. Tony stayed up the latest working on this blog. Can you all believe that?  


Another first for us is that we are allowing a non-Schroeder to add some comments to our post, and because he has so fervently fought the wind, and managed to keep up with us, and put up with us, here is Tom:

Tom's Tidbits

I had a first yesterday while riding a bike.  I have warned before about cars, golf carts, bikes, pedestrians, runners and walkers but never a train, especially one that was moving.  As we approached a train track, I looked right and saw a train.  I cautioned "train right".  Just after we crossed the train tracks, the warning signals activated and the gate crossing guards started descending.  Hope I never have to warn about a moving train again.

The Day to meet UF student Stephanie

Joan's View

As most of you know, Marla is in grad school at UF in Ohio (The University of Findlay). Tonight, we were fortunate to hang with a different UF student, Stephanie Winslow. Yes, we found another Winslow! She is in medical school here at the University of Florida. She is doing a geriatric block right now so picking us up for dinner fit right into her rotation. Haha. We came up with that at dinner. We got a mini tour of Gainesville too which was a great opportunity for us because she leaves this area when she starts her residency this summer.  She even took Tony to an ice cream shop since he really wanted ice cream today (see below).

Stephanie with her car named Sunny 😍

Thanks Stephanie!

Let's back up to the start of our day. It was pretty warm when we left Cross City. We thought we had passed the last lumber mill as we left Cross City,

One of many lumber mills in this area.

but then we saw that more lumber loaded semis were heading in the same direction as us. 

We rode on a smooth bike trail for the first 20 miles that was converted from a railroad track. At one point, we stopped on this cool old railroad bridge over the Swanee River and chatted with another bicyclist. In case you are too young to remember Bing Crosby singing Swanee River, here it is:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Swanee+River+Bing+Crosby&&view=detail&mid=D4DB5534F36AA021DFEDD4DB5534F36AA021DFED&&FORM=VRDGAR

Back on the road, we saw this cool name for a business. I think it's a sign that Wade & Linda will be getting a house soon.😉









There was more variety to see today. We were on the bike path with the usual rabbits, squirrels, birds and snakes, but today we were also dodging some sort of flying grasshopper. At the end of the bike path, in Trenton, we took a break and the local community was holding their food pantry at the park pavilion. They were calling numbers for who could pick their food next, but everyone could have as much cabbage as they wanted. Pretty kind thing from whomever donated all the cabbage in the big box.

On the road, we saw lots more businesses. We passed through the small town of Newberry and ate lunch at the Country Kitchen. It seemed like one of the few eateries in town so lots of locals were there too. Coming into Gainesville, Tony took us through some residential areas. He was really hoping that we would pass an ice cream shop, but we arrived at our motel before we could find ice cream. 55 miles today and we are gearing up for the last day of our ride tomorrow, 66 miles. The temperature is warm again tomorrow in the 80s, and we get our Christmas tree & Sherpa back for the last leg of the trip. See you tomorrow, Tom (aka Christmas tree) & Cindy (aka World's Best Sherpa)!

Tony's Extras

Another beautiful ride today. It sure feels good to be sweating in 80 degree weather. When we were going through the residential streets, we came across Anthony's Lawn Service. Notice the phone number ended with 1001, the same as our home phone number. You need to just leave your pain in the grass to Anthony's Lawn Service. There were a couple of big intersections that I took us through. One had 2 left turn lanes, 3 straight through lanes and a right turn lane. We were in the middle left turn lane, and I looked at Joan and said, "Pretty intimidating intersection, huh?" What a fun night out with Stephanie tonight. Good food, good IPA beers and then ice cream. I now have a new favorite WInslow. However, I am looking forward to seeing my 2nd and 3rd favorite Winslows tomorrow. Last day of bicycling tomorrow. Bummer!

Another Long Straight Route

Tony's View

Today was another turn right out of the parking lot of Hampton Inn and then 42 miles later turn left into the parking lot of the Putnam Lodge. Very few pictures today, however I did check out the exercise room at Hampton Inn for ideas for my exercise room. I liked the way they did the mirrors and the interlocking floor. Notice not a lot to talk about today. When we left the parking lot the shoulder was recently ground and was very rough. There were 2 lanes and little traffic so I decided to ride in the right lane knowing they could easily pass in the left lane. At least I thought. A big semi truck came screaming pass and blew his horn and swerved into us. I guess he thought my idea was not a good one. It scared me enough that I went back onto the rough shoulder even without traffic in the area for the one mile it was rough. The rest of the route was four lanes with a grass median and a three foot shoulder, similar to an Interstate with a narrower shoulder. There were only trees and swamp to look at. Most drivers would get over in the left lane for us. 

 We were traveling down the road and came upon this sign. It read, "Iron Horse Mud Ranch" with an entrance that looked like Cedar Point and Wally World. Iron Horse Mud Ranch is known as one of the best off-road parks, mud holes and trails in the country for monster trucks. Found this out from their website.

We then continued down the route. We took a picture to show you what it was like on the below left. The picture on the right shows reflectors in the shoulder before all the narrow bridges. The narrow bridges had no shoulder. There would be 1/4 mile of these reflectors to dodge. We made a game of them to see if we could make it through without hitting any. Keep in mind Joan sits on the front wheel, so it is hard to judge with precision. Just so you know, I won on the last bridge before the hotel. Being the last one, there was enormous pressure. But, I handled it. Ice in my vains.😂💪☺

When we got to our next destination, Putnam Lodge, it was really unique. It is a historical hotel. We walked out back to see some chickens, roosters walking around, peacocks and cats. There was a cage of small birds of all colors. I think the kitty cat would have loved to get in there. Below you can see I ran into my gold buddy, Buda. 

Joan's Extra

Last night we had the choice to take a 58 mile route today that was on a smaller highway with no shoulder or take a shorter 42 mile route 98 that was on a 4 lane highway. Tony checked the street view and since the 4 lane highway had a shoulder along with predicted high winds again today, we opted for the shorter route along the bigger interstate. Fortunately for us, traffic was light.

Dinner tonight was at the Cypress Inn Restaurant. We learned from the locals about the pine logging going on around here as well as some facts on cypress since the restaurant was built from cypress back in the 20s. We also learned what "all the way" means on a sandwich.

At the Putnam Lodge, Tony, the cat magnet, gave another back scratch. 😆

The Road to Perry is Oh So Very

Joan's View

So very long. So very straight. So very windy. That pretty well sums up our ride today. 
As we clipped in to our pedals this morning, our GPS announced, "Turn right in 52 miles." Yep, 52 miles of straight road surrounded by trees and nature. We managed to ride on an

The end of our bike path at the T

excellent bike path along the road for the first 10 miles until we found a roadside restroom at a T intersection in the bike path. The bike path turned left and we guessed that direction was a straight shot to Tallahassee. We needed to go forward, however, so from there we were on the shoulder of route 98.

We were in an archeological area

We made our own rest areas along the road and took pictures at some of our stops.

7 miles down the dirt road was an impoundment

Me checking out what's beyond the gate

The only establishment that we found along our long stretch was JR's, a gas station, a push pole seller, a bait seller, and an air boat ride service among other things. This multi-service facility was about half way in our trek and was frequented by lots of truck drivers. They also had some loud roosters in trees along the side of their building.

How many rooster do you see?

The worker there told us the next stop for water was about 18 miles ahead. We forged on. We continued to be passed by frequent heavy load trucks carrying timber and whatever was mined from the mining areas that we passed. The smell from the fresh cut trees was nice even though we had to dodge the debris of limbs and branches they shed in the wind. We noticed that when the trucks coming on the other side went by, we felt the effect of the wind gust at us. However, when the trucks passed us on our side, we felt very little push from them. Funny how that worked.

When we finally reached the next establishment/oasis in Perry for a water refill, I hung around outside and got a picture of this dog enjoying his ride. There were other dogs in cages underneath him, but he got the cool ride with the wind in his face like us.   ↧

We made it to the Hampton Inn and were so ready to get our showers, but due to illness among their staff, they were behind getting rooms cleaned. We had to hang in the lobby with our bike and wait. We got more questions on the bike because some others were waiting as well. The Hampton staff consoled Tony with free beer.

Dinner tonight was at Old Mexico restaurant, which reminded us of Linda & Wade's upcoming wedding in Mexico. Fiesta!!!

Tony's Extras

We've been facing headwinds the whole trip so far, but today was the most brutal. We were bicycling in 78 degree weather, so who can complain though really. As Joan noted, we got to the hotel and had to wait for 1 1/2 hours to get our room. After 1 hour they offered me free beer, so my mood got much better. 
Last night after we posted the blog, I was walking to get another decaf coffee. There were guys standing outside their room drinking Natty Lights. They said, "You are getting your exercise tonight." I said that I would rather be drinking Natty's with them and laughed. When I walked past them again, they handed me a Natty. I noticed that they were contractors for traffic projects. We started talking about their projects, traffic lights, etc. They said that they were working on a round about and started making fun of traffic engineers that design them. We now had something in common. We spent the next 15 minutes or so making fun of traffic engineers who like round abouts. I tried to stick up for Mitch and say that when there are accidents, they are at low speed with minor accidents. They informed me that 2 people were killed on a round about right outside of of Tallahassee. So much for trying to agree with Mitch. Round abouts are stupid. I really do enjoy pushing Mitch's buttons. It is just too bad he wasn't there. Lovin this weather when you all are expecting snow.