Day 57 – 3000 miles of paddling and pedaling!

Miles Completed: 51.5

Cumulative miles: 3028.3

Miles to St Augustine: 88

Public Service Announcement #3:

Pedal The Cause just announced their 2025 donation total of $5,042,167. This annual event has now raised over $56 million over its 16 year run. 100% of that amount gets used to fund critical cancer research. My blog readers helped raise over $4,000 this year. Amazing! My final THANK YOU to all that donated.

And…back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Today we rode from Ichetucknee Springs to Gainesville, FL. Six of us in the group chose to kayak in the Ichetucknee River this morning. We rode our bikes about 5 miles to the state park launch area. We were in our kayaks by 9:30 for a one-hour ride. We paddled up river against the current first and then had an easy float back to our starting point. It was a beautiful ride through the state park with clear spring water where you could see to the bottom of the river.

This was only the second time in my life I’ve been in a kayak. The first time was about 20 years ago in Lake Petersburg near Springfield, IL. The lake was perfectly calm and I remember how easy it was to slowly glide in the kayak. Well…not so much today. Even though the current on the river was slow, I didn’t feel as confident in the kayak. Don’t worry, I didn’t tip over, but I didn’t go nearly as far as the others. After about a half hour paddling upstream, I decided that was enough. I then let the kayak just float downstream to where we started. That was amazing. It was so quiet and beautiful being alone floating down the river. A deer came to the edge of the river for a drink while I floated by. After about 20 minutes, I reached the launch area and managed to get myself out without getting wet! About 15 minutes later, the rest of the group arrived and I helped them get out of their kayaks. Everyone enjoyed the experience.

Now back to biking. By 11:00, we were back on our bikes and had about 45 more miles to Gainesville. That gave us enough time for a ride with a few stops along the way. Once again, we had a combination of bike paths and good roads along the way.

Felix picked the High Springs Brewery as our first stop, but we arrived too soon as it didn’t open until 2:00 on Friday afternoon. So we took a short break at the pizza place across the street.

Back to riding and a new destination, the Daft Cow Brewery about an hour down the road. It was open! Felix and Dana and I enjoyed a nice afternoon break there.

We then rode the last 15 miles through Gainesville. Traffic through Gainesville was heavy on a Friday afternoon, especially because there was a University of Florida football game tomorrow vs Tennessee.

I reached the final big milestone of 3000 miles today. It’s crazy when I think back to all the cities, states, campgrounds, sites, and people I’ve seen along the way. I’m so glad I recorded some of it in this blog to jog my memory of the many things I’ve been able to experience.

Today’s camping site was at the rural home just outside Gainesville of a couple that enjoys hosting cyclists. We camped on their 5-acre property and they made dinner for us. Just another example of all the generous people I’ve met along the way as this adventure is getting close to the end.

Tonight will be the last night in my tent, as we will stay in a hotel tomorrow night. I didn’t like putting the tent up and taking it down on a daily basis, but I slept very well in the tent. I am pleased with my tent, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, and camp pillow I purchased for this trip. They did their job!

Our hosts allowed us to use their showers, and one of those was an outside shower. It was a beautiful 80 degree day so I used the outside shower. As I was showering I thought to myself that this will likely be the last outside shower I will take in my life! Even though it was a wonderful shower, I’m okay with it being my last outside…

Our host, Tom, loves fire and he made a roaring fire in a large fire pit while we sipped a glass of bourbon. A nice way to end the day.