Dunnellon, FL <—> Manatee Springs State Park, FL

Bob and I took off from Dunnellon yesterday for an overnight tent camping at Manatee Springs Park. It was a 50+ miles ride each way and pretty flat, no hills.

Everything went well until about 1.5 miles from our camp site after we already entered the park when I got a flat tire, my first flat so far in our training.

The woman staffer at the Park entrance said to watch for the fireflies at night. Manatee Springs is a very nice park and I plan on taking Cheryl and Shadow there sometime. The weather looked dark, there was a forecast for thunder storms, so first we set up our tents.

Campsite, Bike, Tents

It did sprinkle a little but no storm. The park had a clean restroom and hot showers which we enjoyed. After cooking some food we walked around the park and enjoyed the scenery, crystal clear water in the river and watching the wildlife.

Manatee Springs State Park

There is no phone signal there or WiFi. I had used my Spot GPS, set on tracking, so Cheryl could see our progress on her computer. She was able to see that we had reached the park ok. I like using the Spot GPS just for that reason. When you can’t call on the phone to let  someone know that you reached your destination, the GPS does it for you. I wrote Cheryl an email on my iTouch, even though I knew I couldn’t send it.

It was getting dark so I went to my tent to settle in for the night. Bob called me and said that the fireflies were out; something so small was a treat for us. The fireflies looked so bright, like little strobe lights. Really neat, I think.

This morning when we got up there were deer walking around, about 50 or 75 feet from our tents. I just love to watch wildlife up close. I grabbed my camera and took some video of the deer as a little boy from another camp site tried to walk up to the deer. Awesome.

After we packed up our gear we headed for Chiefland to get some breakfast. About 25 miles from Dunnellon, halfway there, we stopped for a break and as I was stopping, I couldn’t unclip my foot from the pedal and down I went. I hadn’t done that in awhile, ouch. Good lesson to make me aware to unclip before I stop.

All and all it was a good trip. Great to see my Beautiful Bride and Shadow again.

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Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, “WOW!! WHAT A RIDE TO GLORY!!”