I woke at 1am to see space X launch and was happy it was scrubbed so I went back to sleep. I got up at 630am to see the sunrise at my favorite drift wood beach and boy was it amazing. You really can’t take a bad photo. It is really cool to be able bike on the beach.
I biked into “town” and had breakfast and then continued biking the entire beach. At the south end there was a large group of people watching a big flock of birds. It was a program to help locals to be able to ID birds. They were super nice and let me look thru their spotting scopes.
I feel like a broken record but boy was it a nice day. I have yet to put on my suit or go swimming but I’m fine with that as it’s been great biking weather. I’m loving my new ebike. I’ve done over 60 miles in the last two days.
While biking on the island I passed a small ranch house for sale and looked up the listing…1.25 mil!!!
I met my friend Terry and we had ice cream for lunch for the second day.
I was so happy to find a dog wash station at a beach front hotel to wash all the sand and salt off my bike.
It was hard to leave Jekyll on such a beautiful day but I have reservations in Key West so I had to head south.
I thought my route avoided I-95 but I was very wrong. Ugh, what traffic on a Friday afternoon. It was a very stressful 3.5 hour drive.
I had heard about Ocala National Forest and camping and clear springs to swim so that was my destination. I really wanted to just boondock in the forest but I didn’t have a map and the ranger station was closed. So I ended up at a campground in Ocala Ntl Forest as Salt Springs.
I’m sure in its day it was a nice place but it was very run down. The road thru the primative campground was one lane with giant pot holes and not very clear paths to the not very private sites. But I was tired and cranky so I stayed.
The salt springs is a cement walled swim area in very clear water that is allegedly 72 degrees but it felt colder.
I did not swim but waded and noticed how slippery the algae covered steps were. It was kinda sad.
Tomorrow I will continue south towards the Keys.