Beach After Beautiful Beach

Day 45, May 16, 2011, Beach after Beautiful Beach

93.9 miles, averaging 13.4 mph

Route from Hollywood to Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Hobe Sound, FL

Best Moment – The sunset as we returned from dinner was astounding!   The sun was a huge red ball turning the entire sky was red and silhouetted the trees black.  The photo does not do it justice.  To make the scene even more fantastic, the full moon was coming up in the opposite sky.

Worst Moment – The Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood International Airport has got to be one of the worlds busiest and there are only freeways around it.  There was a route that went around, without going into the airport or traveling the freeways, the trick was to find it.  After several attempts I found Perimeter road without getting on a freeway, but it wasn’t easy.

Hollywood Beach, Dania Beach, Fort Lauderdale Beach, Lauderdale by the Sea, Hillsboro Beach, Deerfield Beach, Boca Raton, Highland Beach, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Ocean Ridge, Manalapan, South Palm Beach, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach, Juno Beach, Jupiter Island.  Okay, I think you get the idea of the route today.  It was really beach after beautiful beach.

Sometimes I was right on the water, cycling along the beach watching the waves, catching the action and smelling the salt.  Sometimes, I rode along the opulent, sumptuous mansions of the rich and famous.  Jupiter Island is where Tiger Woods and Celine Dion live.  Sometimes, the housing was mightily run down impecunious blot on the landscape.  I don’t think that I was ever not in a beach town, so had to watch for traffic, turning right, right in front of me; drivers encroaching on the bike path without looking and other drivers ignoring the stop lines and signs altogether.  It was both an exceedingly beautiful and an exceptionally challenging ride.

There was an interesting camper next to us.  There was one guy in a tent, but he brought a full sized refrigerator – to store beer maybe?   I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years camping.

The white box with the black tarp is a full sized refrigerator!

Neita has wanted to have Florida lobster and Maine lobster on the trip.  Going through Tequesta (just south of Jupiter), I saw the Lobster House.  We checked their online reviews and the menu both looked good.  We took off on Rocket, the place was only about 4 miles from the park.  We got to the place and found that they had just started closing on Monday’s.  L

That, as it turned out was probably another “Best Moment” because in the same mall was an amazing Italian restaurant called Evo.  The bread was amazing, the arugula salad with caramelized onions, roasted pine nuts, and watermelon was astounding – what great flavors to put together.  I had a pasta dish and Neita ordered their fish special – both marvelous.  To finish was a warm chocolate brownie with coffee gelato – both homemade.  Amazing!  Astounding! J

Back at Ruby, we toasted our first quarter of the ride with champagne and watched the moon rise.  (The mileage I’ve ridden so far is just under the 25% of the total estimated ride.)