Hello Alabama

Finally we are out of Florida. We saw the best and worst along the way. No one would believe the numbers of Pit Bulls the people of Florida own. Wish I would've counted them. We were charged by two of them but they were called off just as Bob was about to use pepper spray. Fortunately they listened.
Crossed over into Alabama this morning and had breakfast at a Waffle House. The. People there were especially friendly and we enjoyed conversation up at the bar with the cooks and waitresses. The morning was cool and dark clouds hung over us most of the day. Sun is finally out.
We rode the ferry over the
Mobile Bay. It was a 45 minute ride but I met some women from Wisconsin and enjoyed conversation with them. My leg is still bothering me. One of the women was a physical therapist and she told me to tape it. Said her husband is a sport medicine doctor. Haven't found a place to get tape yet.
Had oyster sandwich for lunch. Need to stop eating fried stuff!
We are camping tonight free again. The fire department in Bayou
LaBatre have let us set up in the park next to them. We even all got to shower inside. This is the town that Forrest Gump came from in the movie. It's also the town where the Vietnamese
Father through his four small children off the bridge. There is a memorial to them here in the park. See it on my Facebook. So sad.
It's a little cool tonight, going down to 52. Hope we stay warm.
Camper and truck left us this morning so now we fend for ourselves.

Another site to follow

Our leader Dean has been sending his daughter brief info and pictures. She is then posting it on another blog from her home computer. Its a site for bikers. Go to crazyguyonabike then look for the name Dean Fasette. You'll see pictures as we go along rather than going to my Facebook. I'll continue to post on both.

Looks like a long day is being planned for tomorrow!

Storms/lightening/tornados

We packed the trailer and shipped it back. That was 60 pounds. Hope I can manage easier. We all piled into the camper last night - bodies all over the floor! We slept in our bike clothes in anticipation of jumping right on board in the morning. Well, there were severe storms all night and tornado watches all morning. We scrounged for breakfast and Dave suggested he drive us in groups to the Naval Base Museum in Pensacola. I expected a little community museum with a few pictures on the walls so didn't even take my camera. How wrong I was. General, you would have loved it. Planes, planes, planes! It was like the Smithsonian. Watched the Blue Angels at the IMAX theater and ate lunch there. Dave, Dean and Bob are former service men so they really enjoyed reminiscing .
Sun is out now but still a chance for rain tonight and tomorrow. We are staying put tonight but will head out at daybreak tomorrow. Hope the stronger guys don't kill us by trying to make up miles too fast.
We still have a lot of weight on the bike, four loaded panniers, and equipment strapped to the back and front. No matter how hard I work I don't have the muscle mass and strength of the men. Penny has only about 10 pounds on her bike and she's 10 years younger than I am. Bob carries all the repair tools and first aid kit for everyone. That's a lot of weight.
Going to cook spaghetti again tonight at the campground. Tomorrow starts another new adventure as we begin the next phase with no support truck at all.
Penny had two days to rest up from her cold. Hope the germs are at bay. Sounds like the same bugs are around Michigan. Kate, imagine feeling like you do and having to ride a bicycle for eight hours! Hope you are better too.
Love all of you. Thanks for riding in spirit with us.

Day of Rest Pensacola, Florida

We left our Warm Showers home yesterday morning after a simple breakfast of coffee, toast and cheese around a beautiful table with a linen tablecloth. We felt refreshed and above all, clean. John asked our host Jerry if we could use her scale. We were all positive that the pounds must be dropping off. Dean was the only one who lost a couple of pounds. He also was the one who had been sick. The rest of us are exactly the same! Must be that the marshmallow is turning to muscle! Ha! We have burning around 3000 calories a day but we are eating too and eating a lot!
Monday was our planned day of rest but plans changed a bit. We had to ride 26 miles to find bicycle shops for parts and more tires to have on hand. We landed in a beautiful state campground right on the water. Harold and I went out last night to buy lighter sleeping bags and Harold needed brighter shirts. He was thinking about black not showing the dirt but he is our sweep and Dean was not comfortable with him being at the back and not being visible enough. We had two GPS devices with us but I have no sense of direction and Harold is from Canada and no even sure of USA driving laws. What a pair to sent out! We were lost going out and lost trying to return in the dark. When we finally found the state park the gate was closed and bearing a sign "opened at 8:00AM"! A call to our camp got one of the guys to get the code to let us in.
Bob was up worrying about what could've Happened. It took us over three hours for a simple couple mile trip! They won't let me and Harold out together again!
Today we are just hanging out to rest our bodies. All the guys tore bikes apart. I'm having a hard time pulling all the weight of the panniers and trailer. So Bob tore the trailer apart and is shipping it home. Now he's concerned about the extra weight on the back wheel. If that goes out we're done. The bike is still very heavy and takes a lot of skill to balance it.
Thought I'd hang out on the beach today but it's cool and cloudy. Washed clothes, read email and shared my iPad with others. Nice and relaxing. Lots of rain and storms heading this way. We had made arrangements to all sleep in the camper tonight. All our tents are down. Dave has to leave us now so we ride and sleep wherever no matter what the weather.
Talked to Aubrey and Evelyn today and that helped my homesickness. Talked to Darlene for a long time and she helped with friend connection.
Bob was happy to hear that Janie is going to go visit his mother this week. He loves that Barb is checking on her daily too. Thanks to everyone for your support. Jack, I'm happy you following on the blog and map. I think you should attempt such an adventure some day. Love all of you out there back home.
I

Warm Showers!

We are sitting with an 80 year old couple who giving us a place to sleep tonight, inside their home. But best of all, we all have taken a shower! This couple have bicycled all over the world. They have so many interesting stories to share.
We were going to take a day of rest tomorrow but that isn't going to happen until Tuesday. I pulled a muscle in my left thigh yesterday and today it was a little tough to keep pushing on. I put ice on it when we arrived here and now it's feeling better. Tomorrow will be a very short 25 mile ride to a real campground where we will stay until Wednesday morning. The guys needs to work on bikes. We are near bike shops here so they can get parts.
Bob had to work extra hard today with my lane leg. I'm trying to talk bob into both of us scaling down and shipping some stuff home.
We are going out to dinner tonight with our host couple. Feels strange to be clean and out of bike clothes. Think we're going out for some Chinese food tonight. More later.

Wet!

Headwinds,hills, rain, hail, sore muscles! I'll bet you wish you were here! Radar showed only 30% chance of rain so we were very optimistic that we'd be fine. Thirty minutes on the road it started to rain so hard that before we could get the rain gear out we were drenched. Mud and oil from the road then splattered our legs for miles. By lunch the sun came out and we stop ped in a delightful little town for lunch. A couple there warned us that an arsonist had started a Forrest fire four days earlier and smoke would be drifti ng over I90 where we were riding. Sure enough! So just add that to the rest of the hardship s for the day.
We decided to make our day shorter so onlyrode 60 miles. Camping behind a VFW tonight. No showers, only bushes and trees for restrooms once again.
Bob and I decided to go into town and wash all our clothes at a laundry. I looked so soaked and pathetic that the ladies let us use the restrooms to wash up and even wash our hair. They gave us clean towels to use too. I felt like I had been to a spa.
Cooked hamburgers, and Boca Burgers over a little fire
Dean has been suffering from a nasty cold for three days now. Hope it doesn't go through the group. I don't know how he keeps riding!
At a Warm Showers home tomorrow. Cant wait! More rain forecast!

Perfect Day on the Bike (almost)

Harold had his third flat tire! Everything else was just great today. Woke up to temp of 41 so had to put on a few extra layers of clothes to start riding. By noon it was sunny and hot once again. Had hills again but they didn't have stop signs and traffic lights at the bottom of the hills. So the hills were actually fun and invigorating, with downward speeds of 36 mph. We rode 72 miles today and once again couldn't find a campground. A family has allowed us to set up our tents in front of their property in Bonify, Florida. We are more than one day ahead of the planned schedule. We have traveled 653 miles so far!
Shrimp and tofu are cooking for supper. Dave will leave us in a couple of days then we will be scouting for our own camping facilities and picking up food along the way. Dave goes ahead and does all the begging for us now.
Love hearing from everyone. Keep it up. Haven't been taking any pictures because everything looks like any place in Michigan. Little towns look the same everywhere. People are fun to meet. They all want to talk to us about what we are doing. We passed into Central Time Zone this morning.

What a Day!

Had a great night with Diane, a lawyer, who opens up her home (a former goat farm), through Warm Showers. What a brilliant woman who has her priorities in life in the right order. To look at her you'd never guess she was a lawyer and such an educated woman. The people we are meeting are the highlight of this experience. Thought today would be easier after sleeping inside and showering. We left at 8:00 and headed for Tallahassee . We encountered so much construction, miles of it. So much traffic and high hills every inch of the way. It was Hard all the afternoon. Winds picked up. Bob thought I had just tired so wasn't able to take the hills. I was working like a horse. He finally stopped at the top of a hill. My arm and leg muscles were trembling I had worked so hard. He discovered that my back bread was stuck. I felt like I was in the Biggest Loser Challenge pushing a truck up the hill.
Three of the guys had flat tires during the day. When we got into Quincy Dave, the retired cop who has the camper and is following us for the week found a field where we could stop. He bought some cheese and crackers and wanted us to take a break. The wind gusts had picked up and we were beat. As we sat around laughing about the events of the day a huge tree cracked off and hit the groud immediately behind where Penny, Bob and Dean were sitting. It his Daves truck and did a bit of damage. Those three were about as close to death as anyone could get. What a scare! We set up camp in a field tonight, showered under a cold hose and some of the guys walked to a church for a chicken dinner. The others of us ate oranges and strawberries. Too tired to go anywhere even for food. Ready to crawl into tents now. Going to go down to 42 tonight. Getting out tomorrow will be difficult. Continue to pray for our safety on the road. Most people are courteous but it only takes one hothead to cause an accident.

The People We Meet

Last night we stayed in the yard of a family from Trindad. They lived in a shack of a trailer but were the most generous people you'd ever meet. Once again the women were invited into their home to shower. The man called his wife who was in Trindad and told her of his guests. She Insisted that he give us something. He came out with Lassi and another Indian dessert food. They were so poor but wanted to give us something. We tok up a collection and presented them a card with a nice chunk of money. Yesterday was an especially hard day. Rode over 72 miles in 88 degree sun. Today was easier with only 48 miles. Was a very hilly ride and we all felt tired. I found a Warm Showers host in Monticello and she agreed to let us stay. We're sleeping in beds tonight in air conditioning. The most interesting people! Too much to write about, it will have to wait. We are all clean and well fed tonight as we crawl into clean, dry beds. Love the people we are riding with.

Tumbling Tandem

We are all feeling good and weather is good, so once again we pushed on further than planned. We have a guy who is a cyclist too who offered to follow us with his camper for one week. He went ahead again today and going a free spot to set up camp. He found a place behind the library in high springs along the Santa Fe River. But camping like this means no real showers again. Penny and I haven't been able to wash our hair in three days. With the heat and grime on the road we were feeling terrible. John, one of our riders walked over to the fire department across the street and begged for the two women to shower at the department. We were welcomed in. How wonderful!!! The men were a bit jealous.
In the middle of the day we all decided to stop in Gainsville at a bike shop. The city was crowded, being a college town. As we pulled into the parking area two of our bikes collided. Bob and I went over and the two of us went rolling. Thank God no injuries. Darlene, not even blood! The others behind us said that we did it so well that we looked like professional stunt riders. Guess all those falls I took over the years helped do it gracefully.
We are walking to a little local place for supper tonight.

Officially day One

There are eight of us. We left the campground at 8 AM and headed down the road to the Atlantic Ocean. No one wanted to get sand in their bike gears so we had to find a paved ramp. Tires were dipped and we were off. We had tailwinds most of the day so made it to our planned destination by 1:00. We all agreed to keep going since the day was so perfect. Finding no campgrounds, we called the pastor of a Methodist church in Flafahome, Florida. He welcomed us to set up our tents. We had fun showering with a hose and changing clothes in the little outdoor chapel. We ate spaghetti on the lawn and are now all settled in for the night. The group is so comparable. There are actually two vegetarians. Harold is the other but oddly enough he used to own a large commercial poultry farm. The guys enjoy ribbing him about ringing chickens necks to kill them and now he can't eat them. Just a lot of fun together.
My phone has little service tonight so pictures wouldn't upload to Facebook. I'll catch up when I can. Dean is the leader of this ride. He rides a recumbent bike but can make that baby move. Dean is from Florida, is 69 and recently remarried. He has a three week old granddaughter that he loves showing off in his pictures. I'll give more information on the others gradually. All is dark and quiet on these church grounds tonight. Think we will sleep well. Love you all.

St. Augustine, Florida

Absolutely perfect ride along the coast of Florida yesterday. Winds from the ocean kept the heat of the road comfortable and helped our speed as well. Although the day was nearly 70 miles, it actually went by faster. Bob's knee is bothering him a bit (he had surgery on it several years ago) so we hope it holds up. My bottom end has reached the bruising that takes away my breath each time I stand or dismount. The blisters have started to heal so I soon should have the necessary calluses. Now doesn't all this pain make all of you who are sitting on couches reading this jealous?
When we arrived at the KOA in St Augustine the pool was irresistable. Wearing my bicycle clothes I started in only to find that the water temp was about 60. Obviously, the reason why there was only an 8 year old little Mexican boy in the pool. I went down three steps and he stood there encouraging me to come in. "Come on, you're doing better than me. I stayed on that first step. Ok, now get your arms wet," he encouraged. Couldn't look like a wimp in front of that kid, so in I went. Probably the Ivey water was good for my body.
Today is a day of rest. We rode three miles to breakfast. Now while Bob is cleaning the chain and going over every inch of the bike, I'm sitting at the laundry. We will ride into historic St. Augustine in a bit to take in a little of the culture.
Penny is in St. Augustine now and will set up her tent on the same site as ours tonight at this KOA. Looking forward to meeting her in person and the other three guys who will be riding.

New Smyrna Beach

Great riding today. Temperature registered 99 on the hot road most of the afternoon. My legs were feeling stronger already so was able to push harder. Bob was happy about that! In order to keep the captain and stoker (official names of tandem riders) working equally hard, we wear heart rate monitors. Yesterday I had to struggle to keep mine up but today we were both consistently around 140 except for hills. The monitors also calculate calories burned at the end of the day. Hopefully, our out of shape winter bodies will soon reflect the thousands of burned calories.
Darlene, as you would expect, no matter which way the road curved we had headwinds! It really slows you down so although we tried to keep our pace up to 13 - 15 mph, our average ended up to be only 11. It's going to be long, long days if we constantly encounter headwinds.
Talked to Penny today. She is still in Atlanta but will be joining us on Saturday. She is making her final arrangements. Can't wait to meet everyone in St. Augustine.
Supper tonight consisted of trail mix. We couldn't bring ourselves to sit on that bike again to travel back into town.
Monica wins the award for emailing baby pictures so far. Aubrey is in second. That means grandpa Bob would like to see Lexi, Jackson and Miriam too. Kate, I want to watch and hear about how Landyn is growing too. Thanks for staying with us on this adventure of a lifetime. Love you all!

Hot First Day

First of all I talked to a supervisor at Apple last night only to find out that I can't import photos to this blog because the iPad lacks the needed c drive. When I have more time I may decide to switch to an iPad application. I'll let followers know if that happens. Bob and I enjoyed a healthy and hearty breakfast with Deb and Kirk. We're going to miss his fresh squeezed juice right off the trees in the back yard. Thanks deb and Kirk for all the great times at your home and the grand tours of Disney.
It was a long,hot day on the tandem. The smell of orange blossoms filled our senses down every road. The captain of this tandem is a man so you can probably understand how we went eight miles out of the way. Finally, I stopped another cyclist who hated to give us the news that we had to turn back. And of course it was all uphill! It was 93 on our bike computers most of the day. We are a bit fried!
We are in a campground tonight near Mt Dora, Florida. It's really a beautiful campground.
Hope to get some sleep. Darlene you know how difficult that can be for me After a day of riding. Bob is an excellent captain and has such strong legs. We are pulling a trailer so that adds to the difficulty of each hill. Thanks to all who are showing support by following along. I will post some pictures on Facebook. Check that site too.

Last Day with Deb and Kirk

Kirk worked for Disney and we learned that the staff at Disney is referred to as "cast". Deb and Kirk gave us tours of Disney like no one else can imagine. We ate in different restaurants, toured the most elegant hotels of Disney, saw what happens behind the scenes and of course were delighted by many of the shows. We visited every park! So we tasted Disney enough to know that we would love to return some day. It is summer in Florida. We went swimming every day in a 89 degree pool here in the community where Deb and Kirk live. They treated us like we were the most important guests at the Disney Resort. Thanks Deb and Kirk!
Bob and I rode the tandem every morning. This morning we added the trailer to test the weight. We only rode 22 miles today but it all went smoothly. My lack of riding over the winter isn't hurting too badly. No aching muscles yet and the aching butt will inevitably come after another week on that seat.
Tomorrow morning we begin the journey toward St. Augustine. That will take a couple of days. The forecast looks great. May it continue.
This blog has not been so easy to navigate from my iPad. I spent a long time on the phone with the support geeks at Apple last night so I will attempt to add a photo to this again here. If it ends up with no photo it's because I was unsuccessful and will be back on the phone with Apple.com. Thank goodness I have someone "out there" to whine to. Well here goes....

Heading Toward Florida-snow?

Left Bishop airport in a rental Chevy Traverse. Tight squeeze but everything fit inside. It was rainy and cold but in our minds we saw warmth and sunshine hours away. No coats, hats, mittens or boots any more! Ha! It went from rain to rain and snow to all snow followed by a few hours of rain. We stopped in Corbin, Kentucky for a bite to eat and decided to call it a day as it turned to freezing rain. In spite of the weather the time passed quickly. All of my kids were in contact throughout the day on Facebook,texting and phone calls. Monica even sent a video of Reagan Jayne. It's so great to be able to stay so connected. Thanks for stain with us.

Still Mastering Blogging Skills

Spent the last two days trying to correct the grammatical error I found in my first post. I edited and when I tried to repost the whole thing delited. Spent another hour finding the original and decided that it would be left as a "see if you can find the error" game. The teacher in me cringes to leave it but I'm resolved to the fact that there will probably be many more that I will be too tired to catch along this journey.
Bought some bubble wrap to protect my ipad to the max while traveling and prepared small bags of vitamins. Wonder if I need a double dose each day.
I'm not in the shape or condition I'd like to be in to start this trip but ready or not we'll soon be off and riding.

The Countdown Begins - One more week

Today begins the final week of preparations for the big bike trip.  My clothes are ready.  Amazing that three months supplies fit in one small grocery bag.  The biggest preparation is adjusting to being away from my kids and grandchildren all that time.  I'm going to miss the fun times like last week's swimming with all of them.  I'm also going to miss Kate and Landyn, pictured here in the pool too.  

Heading to Florida to spend a few days with Deb and Kirk, practice riding the tandem with Bob, visit Disney World, and then head out to St. Augustine where we will meet our other cyclists and begin the pedal by pedal trip across the United States.

I will post as often as I can.  Please check in and let us hear from you too.