first post, with reflections on our first trip

Emily and I are starting this blog as a way of keeping track of our bike touring adventures, with hopes that some of our friends and family will be able to use it to keep up with us when we start on an adventure this summer.  Despite the fact that we will be lucky to be moving at 14 mph, we hope that there will be a lot to keep up with.

In terms of keeping up, it has already been over two weeks since Emily and I loaded up our bikes and made our first attempt at living on them.  A trip to a local camping store Friday (Brasington's) after work and class lead to some last minute purchases at Walmart and the Super Cool Bike Shop on Saturday morning, and then an afternoon departure - heading west for Cedar Key, FL from our apartment doorsteps in Gainesville.  

After circling the parking lot, getting used to our loaded bikes, and making some final adjustments, we started off south on 34th street.  The beginning of our route was not unique from my normal commute to work, but it felt different.  After 34th we headed west on Archer road until we reached Cedar Key.  The fast food chains that line the sides of Archer that we are familiar with quickly transitioned into the next city, Bo Diddley's headstone, rolling hills, farms, and a tunnel of pine trees that nearly defeated us.  Little did we know that parts of Archer are straighter and longer than any road we knew existed in the world.

Biking into the wind on a seemingly infinite stretch of pine trees as the sun set in front of us, we were relieved as the landscaped transitioned into that of coastal Florida.  As we rolled over our 54th mile we approached the RV park that we were intending on staying at.  We looked on the sign in the front of the park advertising barbecue and ice cream with excitement, but resisted until we had made sure that we had a place to stay.  Needless to say, the ice cream, the rack of baby back ribs, and the hot showers made for an excellent end to the day.  Happy that we received a demonstration the day before in the camping store on how to setup our tent, we assembled our first campsite as the last bit of daylight faded.  

Our return trip was picture perfect touring.  With the wind at our back and what we noticed to be a slight downward slope in the road, we sped through the tunnel of pine trees, and proceeded through rolling hills.  Retracing and revisiting the trip of the previous day, we looked upon the landscape with a renewed perspective.  The weather could not have been nicer, and we welcomed the quiet of the Sunday morning roads.  The transition back into the busy roads of Gainesville came all too quickly, and before we new it we were both back to the realities that we had left behind us such a short while before.  Our trip was exciting, not only for being able to see new places, but because we were able to see them in a different way, and that we were able to confirm that this type of traveling is actually possible, and enjoyable for us.