Bike Ride to Lake City

Palatka to Lake City: 82.1

Total Mileage: 152.9

During the morning route meeting, we were told that the ride would be a cool 63 miles. Before we headed out that number was increased to 70, but no big deal, something that we could totally handle. In our way out of town we passerby some of the murals that the locals told we should check out.

A few miles down the pad we picked up the Rails to Trails path which was beautiful. Unfortunately the bike path ended way before we were expecting and we had to reroute ourselves. With the rising temperature made a quick pit stop to chill out in a beer refrigerator.

After lunch we got some update directions and headed off. We somehow ended up missing the turn and went too far down the pad. Thanks to trusty google we were able to find ourselves and after some debate about whether we should turn around or continue on to find route 100. Thankfully we chose to keep going down route 100 because the group who had gone down the original turn found themselves faced with a sand road and had to backtrack to then pick up the route we had found. This picture pretty much sums everything up:

The ride was a long and hot one; we were on route 100 for about 36 miles until we found signs for Lake City. Now things would not be so bad except for the fact that we were facing a pretty strong head wind, a slight incline and there was little cloud coverage to keep us out of the sun. About 20 miles away from our final destination we passed a small general store. Being EXTREMELY late for our 4 pm check in we decided to bang out the last few miles. Unfortunately the cue sheet had the wrong street names once again so we decided to keep to the highway to find our church destination. We did ask some locals if they. He hear d of the church and thankfully they were able to get us to where we needed to go.

Shockingly we we the first group to arrive and got there a little after 4:30. We profusely apologized for being late and the hosts were nothing but nice and completely understood which was great. With the promise of taco salads for dinner and a shower at the local pool we were beginning to feel a bit better. Unfortunately there were a few riders who had a bit of a rough time, something which is totally understandable, and the last group arrived right before 8. Needless to say we SCARFED down dinner once everyone had arrived and followed it up with some amazing homemade cakes.

The hosts were fantastic and definitely set a high bar for future ones to come. Two of the women from the church had paid for a router so we could boost the Internet and get caught up with emails and blogs posts. Another gentleman had received two Fulbright scholarships to travel the world and another had visited almost all of the states.