Day 3

Rode from Hawthorne to Newberry to visit my great niece Jen. She and her husband were kind to host me and let me stay over. I met Jen on the road to her house when she was on her way to work. Spent the evening with her husband Andy. He’s a cool guy and we had a good time yakking and eating chicken wings and drinking beer at the Copper Monkey. Jen is a cop with the Gainesville PD and worked the overnight shift. I got up at 3:30 a.m. when she got home, so we could visit awhile. I went back to bed then and slept till 8:30! Man, a bed in an AC room sure felt nice.

Miles today: 52

Miles so far: 144

Here’s the map from yesterday. It’s missing 10 miles though. I forgot to turn the GPS back on after eating breakfast and the it just filled in the shortest route to connect the two tracks up. So, I’m counting it as 52 miles. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Some of the photos are from day 2. The internet connection was too slow to upload them.

Photos from Day 2

egretegret and meswampy vista, lotsa frogs singingquiet country road camping spot at the Eden Baptist church All set up for the night The Eden Baptist church, nice folks!Day 3

Breakfast: 3 eggs, 4 slices of bacon, grits, big plate of hash browns, 2 OJs, 2 cups of coffee. That held me over until 1:30. Another quiet country roadBucolic Gainsville-Hawthorn bike trail A preserve along the trail I was taking a break when these two ladies stopped and asked where I was heading. San Diego. What? Are you crazy? Yes. We talked for a while about the adventure and exchanged emails. Sorry, I can’t remember their names. They live in St. Augustine and drove up for a bike ride while their hubby’s were golfing. A little overlook boardwalk into the swamp.