November 15 - Tallahassee to Near Monticello, FL

November 15 - Tuesday, Tallahassee to KOA Near Monticello, Fl, 42 miles.
Last night's stay at the University Inn & Suites near the Florida State University campus was very nice. We were up and going about 7:30 am this morning. Since the motel was off the map route we had to take an alternate route to get back on track. We stopped for breakfast at a cafe we'd seen on the Google map of the alternate route. It was vegetarian. Those of you who know me also know that I am about the farthest thing from a vegan that there is. I had a bagel with cream cheese, iced tea and orange juice. [I was reminded of a line from the movie Jerimiah Johnson where Robert Redford had the Indian squaw and the crazy woman's son who he called Caleb. They were trying to eat food the woman had prepared and Jerimiah finally spit it out and said to the Caleb - "take notice of the traps and go fetch some proper food"]. Too bad I didn't go with my instinct and hit the McDonald's across the street from the motel - though I'm not a big McD fan either - but I could at least have had pancakes. We were back on the map route shortly after leaving the cafe and rode about 10 miles on the very scenic and very nice St. Mark's Trail; a rails to trails path. I took a couple of photos over my shoulder of some of our group. We exited the trail in Woodville and tried to find a "real" restaurant for breakfast but there were none so we stopped at a convenience store for a short break. The road leaving Woodville was very nice with hardly any traffic. I think we were passed maybe 12 times in 20 miles. It was overcast and very humid which detracted a little, but it was very wooded, remote and very flat. Speaking of flat, Tallahassee itself was pretty hilly in contrast to the relatively flat miles before and the miles after. Anyway, we stopped next in Wacissa at the only place open; another convenience store (and a pretty rundown one at that). We ate a lot of what we had packed for lunch yesterday and bought a few other items to munch on. Then we were off to Waukeenan where we stopped at another convenience store and bought groceries for dinner tonight; a concoction of mac-n-cheese, sloppy joe mix and green beans. We arrived at the KOA about 1:15 pm and set up camp. I had to dry my tent as it was very wet from camping two nights ago. Then showers and laundry and more snacking in the KOA recreation room. Dinner was sort of good. The sloppy joe mix did not have meat as we had thought so we bought some hot dogs at the KOA store. Gary and Vicky cooked and the mac-n-cheese with hotdogs was good. However, on my first bowl i added the sloppy joe/green bean sauce on top - bad choice. The second helping of just mac-n-cheese with hotdogs was pretty good. A photo of tonights chefs is included as is one of "The Royal Order of the Third Eye" (seemed funny to us, but probably one of those thinks where you had to be there...).

Aside from not being sunny (until shortly after we finished riding for the day) it was another very nice bicycling day!

St. Mark's Trail - Gary (forefront), Vicky (rear left) and Ray (rear right).

St. Mark's Trail - Dan (left) and Ray (right)

Tonight's chefs - Vicky and Gary (nice hats!)

Royal Order of the Third Eye (this seemed really funny at the time!?)

Tomorrow we ride to Suwanee River State Park - about 53 miles. After tonight, there are only 3 more camping nights before the end of the tour. I've always enjoyed camping but had never done it so much at one time. On my next tour, I'll likely plan to stay in cheap motels a little more often and use WarmShowers wherever possible too.