ENTRY #46 DAY 37

I think I slept about 3 hours last night between the heat and the rain but I felt ok, I guess because I was getting so close to finishing so I was feeling pretty optimistic, I loaded up the bike jumped on and thought boy the bike feels really smooth today like a Cadillac, that’s when I looked down and saw I had another flat tire, the back one again. I rode it over to this pavilion by the water figuring that the breeze off the water would keep the bugs away. Felt optimistic again once the tire was changed.

Even this bad Larry doesn’t have the meaty claws like a Maine lobsta.

Found this little oasis and soaked my feet. I love the color of the water down here.

Probably some of the prettiest views on this leg of the trip, of course the nice tail wind might have influenced me, these are the prevailing October winds I have been waiting for.

These are two of the Firefighters I stopped to talk with in the city of Marathon, they gave me ice for my Camelback after I filled it up with water and even set me up with a PBJ sandwich. That ice water was awesome during the rest of the ride.

For the kids.

You cant tell from the picture but this is looking back after I crossed the 7 mile bridge, I flew across in 26 minutes thanks to the ice water the PBJ and the huge tailwind, I felt like such a good rider.

When I checked in the Ranger in the campground office told me I had a waterfront site, I thought she meant this swamp but I guess she meant across the street. If you look in the lower right corners of the picture you can see me looking through binoculars, maybe I was birdwatching.

If I had taken this in black and white I could have passed it off as an Ansel Adams.

I realized after taking theses pictures that I prefer sun rises to sun sets, sunrises are more hopefull of things to come, maybe I was just feeling a little melancholy because my trip is coming to an End

When I came back from the restroom I saw that someone else had a messy dump of a site
But then I relized, nope that’s just my site.

I wanted to make this Mac and cheese tonight but the only milk the store had was chocolate, strawberry or a big half gallon of whole milk, so I thought I would try Muscle Milk, when it was done it kind of tasted like somebody made Mac and cheese using the prep solution for a colonoscopy, at least I got a lot of protein with those carbs.

My cousin Lee has texted me almost every night of the trip to check on me, like I told him tonight I am 37 miles away from Key West I can already smell the Key Lime Pie from here.