Day 174, Jan 15, 2017. Sarasota to Punta Gorda, Fl

Pretty much all of Florida

A portion of the old rail.

 At the suggestion of Dennis and Jane our Warm Showers hosts, we headed to the Legacy Trail near their home to begin our our trip to Punta Gorda. It is a Rail to Trails project that stretches from Sarasota to Venice, Fl. The whole length is paved, stretching through open countryside until the north side of Venice where is runs along the Inner-coastal Waterway. The Inter-coastal begins in Boston MA and ends in Brownsville, TX. Supposedly there are dolphins and Manatees, in this section, not that we saw any :-)

This was to be a work day: get up early and pedal straight through. It was a plan we made together and then both ignored. After a chatty breakfast we took off. Once on the trail I called a old friend of ours. She had left a message on our blog letting us know she was in Florida and leaving her phone number. It turned out that we were literally pedaling past her condo on our way down the trail. Long story short, we met up.

The old train station has been converted into a way station for
cyclists and a city bus stop.

Phyllis and Doug are old friends from college and young children before careers consumed our lives. they met us on the trail for a ride, many laughs and a wonderful lunch. It was as if no time had passed. We plan to spend a night with them on our way back.

The Peace bridge is a mile and half long bridge that spans the Peace River
just outside of Punta Gorda. 

We still had to get to Punta Gorda. Unfortunately, US41 was our only option. While it has a shoulder to ride on, it's heavily used. It sucks to spend four hours listening to traffic wiz by.  With ten miles to go, a second serendipitous event occurred. A car whizzed by honking its horn and waving. I looked over expecting to get a question about our destination or a "She's not pedaling" comment when I  recognized the driver! I knew Alice was in Florida with her husband Ed, but did not expect to run into her on the highway. We pulled into a parking lot for a chat. It was a welcome break from the noise and stress of US 41.

Eventually we made it to Jeanne's, not the way we planned but there none the less. Like much of this trip, things did not go as planned, they went better.