Originally, I had planned out a route that attempted to avoid as much highway as I could (the red line in the map). Unfortunately, a closer inspection of the route via Google Maps showed this wasn't a great route. The first 10 miles or so was on busy highway and the wiggly part in the middle turned out to be unpaved farm roads. So we went to Plan B; follow the direct route, the same route as Speedy. This is what I rode, mostly (the green line).
View Anistasia to Rodman Compared in a larger map
It wasn't particularly picturesque and had four artificial hills (bridges) and a short real one, but it was nearly 10 miles shorter than the original route. After finding the secret back gate out of the park, I headed west across St. Augustine to connect with Route 207, which went about 25 miles, all the way to Palatka. There were two bridges on the way, one over the Intracoastal Waterway and one over a railroad line.
Ellen caught up to me at the intersection of 312 and 207, having stopped to do a little birdwatching on the way out. But she was quickly out of sight, not to be seen until Rodman Lake.
Both 312 and 207 had bicycle lanes until 207 crossed under I-95. After that the road had a good smooth shoulder which was indistinguishable from a bicycle lane. The traffic also lessened significantly after I-95. Shortly after passing the incongruously named Vermont Heights, not even a molehill to be seen, I came across the bicycle trail.
I'd read that there was a new bicycle trail in this area, part of a planned 100-mile bicycle trail from St. Augustine to Lake City, FL. This was only a short section, but it was the best part of today's ride. After paralelling 207 for about a mile, it headed into the woods. The trail was about eight feet wide and smoothly paved and flat (this is Florida, after all). It was a cool ride with shade provided by the trees on both sides. I could see farmland beyond the trees and occasionally a back road would appear crossing the trail. There was no one else on the trail, except for a Great Blue Heron.
The heron was hunting in a ditch next to the path and as I approached, it took flight, straight down the trail. It flew about a quarter mile and set back down in the ditch. As I approached again, it did the same thing when I got within about 50 feet. This was repeated for a mile and a half or so, until it finally landed at a spot where another ditch ran off from the trail. It wisely went that way when I reached it.
Unfortunately, the quiet, smooth path was much too short and it was only about five miles through the woods. It unceremoniously ended back at Route 207. More of the abandoned rail line was visible across the highway, waiting its turn to become a great bike path.
At Hastings, I stopped at a roadside farm stand in the middle of farm country. Hastings is the potato capital of Florida. I don't often think of potatoes and Florida together. The farm stand had many more fruits and veggies than potatoes. They had beautiful tomatoes, perfectly vine-ripened, as well as many kinds of oranges, naturally, and some luscious looking dark-red strawberries. None of these things were really transportable for 25 more miles on the bike without getting mushed (maybe the oranges would have been okay). I asked if a white camper van had stopped in, hoping Ellen had taken advantage of the bounty. Alas, she had not. I settled for some local orange blossom honey (we'd forgotten to bring any) and some datil pepper spiced peanuts.
It was onward on 207 to Palatka and the next bridge. It spanned the St. Johns River and had only one lane open for traffic. The bridge was a steep but short climb and hard pedalling at 30 miles into the ride. I took advantage of the closed travel lane to get away from the traffic until over the middle where there was a truck doing some bridge work. Palatka was at the bottom of the bridge.
Lots of traffic and noise in Palatka. I was able to see that there was a grid of side streets on the tiny map on my eTrex and shifted over a couple of blocks to avoid most of the downtown. Unfortunately, I didn't notice that there was a riverside route, which I'd plotted on Plan A. It would have been faster and quieter. I came out onto Route 20, which was a busy, narrow street with no shoulder and a curb. It also had the first natural hill of my Florida ride. After traversing the worst part of today's ride, it was onto Route 19 and the last leg. More hot, flat and unshaded road. Two lane now but with a fair amount of truck traffic, mostly empty logging trucks going in my direction.
I was really flagging when I reached the last "hill", the bridge over the Cross-Florida Barge Canal. At the bottom of the bridge was the turn-off to the Rodman Recreation Area. Another four miles of rough chip-seal and I pulled up to the campground gate. The ranger asked if I had just ridden from St. Augustine. When I answered that I had, she replied that Ellen had said to expect a bedraggled guy with a white beard. I fit the bill.
Ellen had set up camp at a picturesque site overlooking the barge canal. Rodman Campground, while on the edge of Ocala National Forest is a state park campground on Rodman Lake, also called Lake Oklawaha. It is a dammed lake and the end of the canal. The Cross-Florida Barge Canal was supposed to run from the St. Johns River below Palatka to the west coast just above Crystal River. It was stopped due to environmental protests in the 1980s and only the section from Lake Oklawaha to the St. Johns River and the western coastal end were built. Ironically, the path of the canal is now the protected Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway, named after the Boston-born biologist who lead the opposition to the canal. In any case, the section of the canal which we are camped by is quite pleasant. Probably even more pleasant by the absence of barge traffic.
Ellen had been relaxing for about two hours when I arrived, tidying up Speedy and reading. She was a bit surprised to see me, expecting that I would be a little slower. She is, however, able to monitor my progress on this trip by looking at the Mapshare page supplied by DeLorme that plots messages from my new inReach satellite messenger. In addition to allowing me to send messages as to my location (it powers the map at the top of the journal), it also has a tracking mode were it broadcasts a tracking message every 10 minutes. The track, along with any direct messages, shows up at http://share.delorme.com/StevenMagnell2.
After a shower in the nice new campground showers, we took a short walk along the canal and onto one of the forest roads. The only notable sighting was a Piliated Woodpecker ... aside from the snake. Yes, Ellen saw her first Florida snake. It wasn't a python but she'd seen a poster of Florida's venomous snakes at the campground office and was really keeping her lookout during our walk. In fact, she was looking for birds and nearly stepped on it. It was either a pygmy rattlesnake, although I couldn't see any rattles, or a king snake from what I can determine from the Florida Museum of Natural History online guide to Florida snakes.
After that encounter we returned to Speedy. Ellen took another short walk, along the paved road this time, while I uploaded GPS data and generated maps of today's travel.
By that point, it was time for dinner followed by the daily journal entry as we listened to the frogs along the canal.
A few flat photos today
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