S2M Living

Thanks to everyone for the great arrival celebration...  way over the top surprise, could not have been any better.  Just a few quick photos to show the finish of our ride from San Diego to New Smyrna Beach FL. We are both happy to be done!!! My friends set up a finish line for me.  Felt great to arrive to such a warm welcome.  The winner of The Tour de France gets a colored jersey and a bear.   We found the bear during ride.  I declared Sandy the WINNER My Mom (Pat) and Dad (Bruce) My son Bradley road the final leg with me.   What a joy to have him come along. Bradley and I ready to ride My brother Tim Austin in the background  During the final ride, We passed a place that sold these unusual things  One final morning for the cardboard number.  There will not be a 54. Cupcake cake at party Buddy Bob popping the bubbly Day after... Haircut and a shave He cleans up ok

Tonight’s blog is the last from the road… tomorrow my son and I will finish the final 55 miles to New Smyrna Beach FL.  Rather that cover todays ride I thought it would be good to reflect on the overall ride and try to sum up a fantastic journey.   The total ride (with an estimate for tomorrow) will be 53 days on the road, 49 days were ride days and 4 rest days.    Over the 53 days we outside camping for 35 nights and we spent 17 nights in hotels/B&B/home – the final night is in our condo.   Of the nights inside 8 of the nights were around the 4 rest days.   That leaves 9 nights where it was too cold or to wet to be outside.   The longest stretch inside was 5 days going through Arizona and New Mexico when morning temperatures were in the upper 20F and howling winds.   The longest stretch camping was 9 nights followed by a string of 8 nights.   As near as I can remember, we went 5 days without a shower during the 8 days stretch. ...

The countdown is two more rides.  A very short ride tomorrow of ~30 miles then ~55 miles on Saturday to a much-anticipated finish on the beach by Breakers.   All my FL friends know where Breakers is…  no Rum Runners for me.                                              The highlight for today is a camp with no caterpillars, Sandy is super happy.  We woke up this morning to tent loaded with the pesky little things.  Sandy found a few hitch hikers that came with us that needed to be taken care of at this end.  Fitting that we include Fred in our morning picture. Nick name - Caterpillar Camp  Today’s ride was very interesting.  My son told me about a trail that covered the first 15+ miles of the ride.  The path was a combination of perfect asphalt to sugar sand horse paths to single track mountain bike trails.  Super fun an...

Count down to the finish line…  3 more days of riding.  It will be a great ending, cannot wait.  I figured out last night after posting Day 49 that I passed 3,000 mile yesterday on the adventure.   My estimate is about 3,200 to finish.  For you statistics people, I have climbed 17.5 miles and road for 9 days. Today’s ride was all about horse country (Cathy B).   I road through Ocala FL and there were horses everywhere.   I took a few pictures, but it is hard to capture the essence of what I am riding through on camera.    The fields were beautiful, I watched a horse roll in dirt and the roads were perfect.   You can tell where the money goes when the ranch roads are perfect, and you get into town and they suck.   I will also mention that there are hills in Ocala.   Over 1,000 feet of climbing today in flat Florida.     This is a sample of the thousands of horses I road by today. We woke up in a very peaceful Fl...

Count down to finish is 4 more days of riding…   For at least the third straight day, the best part of the day is the after-ride fun.  We finished today in Manatee Island State Park after a very easy 44 miles.  The park is classic Florida with old oaks, plenty of Spanish moss and a fresh-water spring.   We are camping and the weather is cool already and will be chilly in the morning.  I finished very early in the day and we took advantage of the time to go kayaking on the Suwanee River.  Aside from listening to Sandy sing the Suwanee River song the time was very cool.   We saw an alligator with turtles right after leaving the dock.  All along the way we saw plenty more turtles sunning and swimming in the water.  Unfortunately, we did not see a Manatee, for us this is ok, we see plenty by our condo in NSB.   What was cool and a few first for me….  We kayaked into the cypress trees and around the cypress knees....

Time to start the count down...   5 more days of riding!!!  We know we are in Florida, the mornings are chilly but nice... in the evenings the noseeum's come to get you and eat you up. We are forced inside our tent just before sun set and able to get out just after dark. The start of Day 48 was cool, but nice. Today’s ride was much like yesterday but on more populated roads.  The shoulders were good for most of it, and you can tell by the average speed the winds were ok.  It also helped that the roads were pan flat.  My Garmin had 424 ft. of climbing and I am not sure where this came from.   There was really nothing interesting to look at most of ride, pretty boring frankly.  So cool, wish there was more of this to look at. The highlight of the day was the post ride tour of Steinhatchee – all 20 minutes.  There is not much in town and being a Monday, most of the restaurants were closed.  This has been a general theme for most of the...