Finally, A Nice Bike Ride - Monday - January 16, 2012

Our life has been a little frantic the past week.  Today was the first time, since we left South Carolina a week ago, we have had a chance to ride our bikes. We decided to forego our morning walk and save our energy for a 20+ mile bicycle ride.

After showering and eating breakfast,

we drove Northeast to the Green Pond Trail Head

of the

General James Van Fleet Bike Trail. 

This is one of several Rails to Trails bike trails in Florida. 

It is a 29 mile long paved trail

along the eastern border of the Green Swamp.

We rode through the swamp on Rt 471 on our travels from Silver Springs SP to Hillsborough SP. While we will just be riding the trail today, The Green Swamp looks like a great area to explore when we have more time.

Since we have not done much biking lately, we were not going to ride the entire trail.  We decided that 20 miles would be a good distance.  We could ride from Green Pond and go 10 miles north to the Bay Lake Trailhead, have lunch and ride back. It was a beautiful 73 degree day and the trail was great!!

Off we go…

 

Rail Trails are usually built over former train tracks. 

 Therefore, many are long and straight!!

This one had several bridges over the swamp.

I stopped on the county line ;o))

As you can see, the swamp is GREEN!!

The warm weather is making it come to life!!

It also brought out the critters to enjoy the sunshine!!

I almost ran over a little Ribbon Snake. 

It never moved so we rode back to be sure he was OK.

All’s well, it was still sunbathing!!!

Approaching Bay Lake Trail Head, the halfway point.

We turned around and headed back.

But first, a stop for lunch and photos ;o))

As we ate lunch, we watched the birds in the sky!!!

Hey Dan and Tricia, here’s that Vulture following us again.

We haven’t identified this bird species yet ;o))

Here comes a REAL cyclist…  he was flying!!!

As we headed back, the weather warmed up

and

the trail got more crowded.

I love the look and color of the Saw Palmettos!!

Just before we reached the Green Pond Trailhead,

my cell phone rang.  It was our realtor’s office calling to say the appraisal and inspection had taken place.  There were no problems with either.  Heck, we didn’t even know they had done the inspection.  We’re really enjoying this LONG DISTANCE way of selling our house ;o))

We’re leaving Hillsborough River State Park tomorrow and driving to Myakka River State Park about 2 hours south.  Let’s see, this week we sold our house, went to the RV Supershow twice, ordered a motorhome, spent time with RV-Dream friends, ate Cherry Pie, hiked, kayaked, biked and really didn’t get much ‘down’ time!! 

But, what a week!!  We’re really excited and are thankful we could share our excitement with our friends and blog followers.  I promised Nancy that we will relax and get some rest while we are in Florida. 

So far, I haven’t kept my promise...

There’s Always Tomorrow!!