Ft. Lauderdale to Homestead, FL

August 17.

The trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Homestead was 78.9 miles of mostly city.  Some of the city biking was not to bad–about the first twenty miles or so.  We were traveling then on multi-lane roads with bike lanes.  But soon the bike lanes petered out and we were just a part of the city traffic.  There were several times when someone turning right would cut off the lead cyclist.  A couple of times I had to put the brakes on quickly to avoid a collision.  Other times a car came close enough that I could have knocked on the window without any trouble.  It was too close for my comfort.  The other bad part of this city cycling was that it was hard to go much further than a couple of blocks before stopping at another light.  Stopped at a stop light, the heat surrounds you with no escape.

I got to a round-about that had about six exits, and I knew that I had taken the wrong one.  I was stopping to reconnoiter and try to figure out which way to go when the sweeps, Larry and Scott, rode up.  I had not gone far enough around the round-about–it was the next exit.  By that point, I was fed up with the traffic, but I figured I could make it another five miles or so to the next rest stop.  It would be difficult for anyone to pick me up where I was.  With all three of us together we were easier to see though the traffic was still bad.

I got off my bike at the rest stop and said, “I’m done with this!”  Apparently I was quite adamant.  It became part of the story-telling for the group.  A couple of the people that I had been riding with throughout the week, but had taken the day off after their hundred mile day, laughed at my exclamation.  I got a ride to the next rest stop.  After that, we had been told, was more country roads.

So I got a ride to the next rest stop, at a marina.  The marina had warning signs on how to avoid manatees (sea cows).  In certain areas, the boats were not allowed to run their motors, or maybe just small motors, to avoid harming the manatees.  I never did get to see a manatee.

I think this was the day that Ky had an encounter with an iguana.  An iguana got caught up in the spokes of his front wheel.  From there, it managed to somehow get to his left leg, climb up, across his waist, and then jump off.  How he managed to keep riding through that encounter, I don’t know, but he did it.

I saw mostly little lizards by the road.  The longest was probably about a foot in length and very bright green.

After I got in the car at rest stop two, I was glad that I did.  There were even more narrow roads and lots of traffic.  We did get to a section that I wished I could ride, though.  There was a bike path and lots of pretty banyan trees on both sides of the road.  And then we learned about banyan trees by looking it up on Google!  They start when a seed lands in the crotch of a tree and starts growing.  As the plant grows, it sends its roots down to the ground.  Eventually, the host tree can be totally enveloped by the banyan (a type of fig) and then the host tree will die and rot.  That is why banyan trees have such interesting configurations.

Homestead was cool and the people there were very kind.  There is a place to go called the Coral Castle that I would like to see someday.  It was built by a man who was rejected in love.

I did not take any photos in all the traffic.