The Florida IntraCoastal Waterway - And Points West

The idea was good, a swing down the fabled Intracoastal Waterway highway A1A, then a jog over to the West coast and a run up the highway through Sarasota, St. Petersburg and back to Lake Mary and Orlando.
Should be a great three or four day ride with lots of great places to see.
Started good too.
Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge.

 From Lake Mary, Highway 46 to Mims, Highway 1 to Titusville, Meritt Island and then south on a cut off to A1A.
Good ride, lots of sunshine and a bit of North wind on my back.
A1A is a good ride, despite there being a lot of traffic.
Miles and miles of Surf Shops and other tourist related places to visit.
Views of the ocean are few and far between because of the motels, condos and beach front town house construction.
Still a fun and interesting ride.
The KOA Camp at Fort Pierce was the first overnight stop.
Setting up the Mini Mate tent camper took only a few minutes.
This is a new KOA and showed construction still underway.
Didn't care much for the Uni-Sex rest rooms.
The occupied sign was up most of the time. Or so it seemed.
A very noisy highway made sleeping difficult and the many streets crossing the railroad running through Fort Pierce forced engineers to blast their air horns continuously.
That'll wake you up if you do get to sleep.
The beautiful ride the next day made the whole trip worthwhile.
From Fort Pierce, a high traffic tourist town into the real Florida.
I was now riding through miles of orchards, bright orange in color.
Now I was viewing millions of oranges ripening on the trees.
There were also tree farms advertising Palms, Oaks and other trees for sale and several Sod farms with different kinds of grass growing in huge fields.
The road was long and straight with only a few turns and a few small hills.
The scenery was great.
A real picture of rural Florida without the motels, hotels and tourist places that we see throughout the Florida we know best.
This was a great ride.
Sebring was the goal for this days ride and to reach the city where Grandson Pastor Brian Klebig had his first church, I had to head North on Highway 27.
This four laner was heavy with  commercial vehicles, trucks and RV's.
Although Brian and Dawn had moved on, I still wanted to see the church he had been Pastor at.

While shooting the picture the churches current Pastor Luke Willitz came out to see what the old guy on the motorcycle was up to. Nice young man. He had attended Bethany Lutheran college and Seminary in Mankato, Minnesota and knew several more of my Grand children.  Turns out New Life Lutheran Church had been founded many years earlier by his father, so he was back home and living in the same house he had lived in as a boy.

Highland Hammock State Park, just down the road from the church was my stop for the  night. 

I arrived at the park just as the Ranger was leaving with a Tram load of visitors.

They kindly held up the tour while I parked the bike and purchased the required $5.00 ticket..

Great tour through the back country of the park. 

Retired Ranger Bill talked about the history of the park and the people who dedicated time and money to preserve this part of Florida history.

Despite the warnings of Black bears in the area, the calm and quiet were a welcome relief from the previous nights city noises.
Camp set up time is getting shorter as I gain experience in this new life style.
Dinner was easy.
Bottle of Ensure, WASA crackers and cheese, and a protein bar all washed down with hot coffee. The new electric water heater made it easy for me to master the art of boiling water for coffee.
This was the coldest camping night yet.
Temps dropping in to the mid 40's and a north wind picking up during the night.
The 40 degree below zero sleeping bag held back the cold and the Mini Mate did the same for the wind.
Morning came quickly and my new water boiling talents produced a quick cup of coffee.
The best way to face a cool Florida morning.
That just doesn't sound right does it?
Cool Florida morning?
WiFi brought contact with the outside world and weather reports pointed to winds off the Gulf of Mexico becoming stronger.
The ride up the west coast, along the gulf didn't seem nearly as appealing as it did when I was laying out the ride.
A 200 mile ride up Highway 27 would put me back in Lake Mary by dark, thereby avoiding some of the winds.
Good choice!
I had only ridden a few miles when another biker pulled alongside at a stop sign and shouted, " I'm Iron Butt too! I did the Iron Butt thousand mile ride in New England."
He had seen the "80 year old Iron Butt Rider" sign on the back of my bike.
He turned at the next intersection and I was in the wrong lane to turn so I didn't get to talk to him.
Would have been a fun visit.
I don't meet too many who have earned the title:
Iron Butt Rider - The World's Toughest Motorcycle Riders

It was a smooth ride up 27 to Leesburg, over to Mt. Dora and on 46 back to Lake Mary.
All in all, a nearly 500 mile ride through parts of the state I had not previously visited.

Upon arrival at Diana and Ilidio's I heard the good news that Diana had received company tickets for a performance of the Trans Siberia Orchestra Christmas Program at the Amali Arena in Tampa.                              

  The company has a Suite at the arena which it makes available to employees.






The Suite comes complete with meals and lots of snacks. How cool is that?

 

The performance was fantastic and capped off a great week.

I'll plan that Florida west coast ride for later.
For now, it was enough to have a nearly 500 mile, 3 day adventure.

Watch for me.
I'll be in the Right Lane America.

Del "Lonnie" Lonnquist