Day 50: Manatee Springs State Park, FL to Ross Prairie State Forest FL (Near nothing)

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 Florida forest.  On my walk to the springs this morning to see Manatee (there were none) I had deer right in front of me.  They have been very domesticated by all the visitors.  Sandy cranked up a great breakfast this morning and I was off for a 60+ mile ride.  I decided to take the longer route and see more of Central Florida, good choice.   Did I mention that today is Day 50!!!

Day 50, not to many more to go.


Last pictures from camp this morning.

It does not get any better than this for a Florida Spring...

Camp tonight I would describe and functional.  The best part of camp is Fred, the horse and the caterpillars that are driving Sandy crazy.  Literally these things are falling from the trees.  

Yes, the picture on the right is a bug on my leg.

Fred the horse...

After setting up camp we went for a walk.   We were on a mountain bike trail which would have been cool to ride.  We had great Florida trees and plenty of the green bugs. After the caterpillars this was all Sandy needed.

Todays Ride Stats:

Start Time: 10:02 AM East Coast Time     Finish Time: 3:00 PM East Coast Time

Elapse Time: 4 Hr. 58 Min.                         Ride Time: 4 Hr. 20 Min.

Distance: 68.9 Miles                                    Average Speed: 15.9 mph

Climbing/Descent: 1074/1112 Ft.                TSS: 143

Average Power: 168 Watts                           Normalized Power: 180 Watts

Calories: 2633                                               Ave/Max HR: 124/146 bpm

There was no SAG lunch on today’s ride.  I stopped at two gas stations along the way; at the first I had a Gatorade, banana, and bag of Cheetos at the second I had two Gatorade’s with an apple.   Prior to all of this I had a Cliff Bar.  

All up hill today... ha!

Tomorrow we are off to Salt Springs to see what is in that area.  The ride will be a lazy (I hope) 50 miles before we set up camp. 

I showed these flowers yesterday, but today they were amazing.


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