Friday, March 13: Hmmm. Just typing the date in I noticed that it is Friday the 13th. There is usually some spot on the local news about how people are dealing with the “unlucky” date. However the local news was busy covering how people are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Short answer, not well.
We had about a 250-mile (415 Km) drive from Wakulla Springs to our AirBnB in Tampa. The first half of the drive was on a relatively quiet 2-lane road with a 65mph (100Kph) speed limit which occasionally went through some relatively small towns. Very peaceful and an enjoyable ride. Then we connected to I-75 heading south to Tampa. This was a 6 to 8 lane divided highway with 70mph (115Kph) speed limit that everyone (including the very many 18-wheel trucks) was exceeding. Lots of out-of-state plates and a lot of crazy lane-changing drivers. The only thing that quieted it down was an accident that caused about an 8-mile backup. I would describe it as driving on the MassPike during rush hour if the average speed was close to 80 (not a lot of fun).
Since we have changed our plans to only be staying in AirBnB’s (with one exception) for the rest of the trip – so that we are best able to keep our social distance, we needed to stock up on food supplies. There is a Publix supermarket a few blocks from where we are staying, so we stopped there on the way. The parking lot was almost full and the store was packed, and the people pushed their carts the way that they were driving on I-75. They have also cleaned out the hand sanitizer, toilet paper and disinfectant cleanser sections. If they actually use the hand sanitizer and disinfectant cleansers we should be on our way to getting the spread of the virus under control. I’m still not clear on why people are stocking up on toilet paper for a respiratory disease.
The AirBnB is cozy, and the owner had emailed saying that they had disinfected the place prior to our arrival. I think that most lab environments don’t have as strong a disinfectant smell as this cottage did when we entered.
Saturday we had a really nice bike ride on the Upper Tampa Bay trail. Great scenery and really nice to have a trail that was not totally flat and even had some nice curves! Did 15-20 miles on our singles; ride with gps seems to have shut off at some point.
Sunday we rode the Legacy Trail from a trailhead near Sarasota, about an hours drive from our Airbnb. Same aggressive nasty drivers on I-75. I say a prayer of thanks every time we arrive somewhere safely.
Legacy is a beautiful trail and well set up with access to small parks that have restrooms and a also a few repair stations and little shaded kiosks to stop and rest. We took Pearl out for a second ride on this trip. The tweaks from the first ride definitely helped, but we were wishing for the finish during the last few miles of the almost 20-mile ride.
We have decided to head for home on Tuesday. While we both believe that we can stay safe on rail trails and staying at Airbnbs, we finally had to admit that there is just no good plan if one of us gets sick that would keep us safe and avoid contaminating others if we then tried to get home.
Needed to get in one last ride on Monday, so we headed to the Starkey Wilderness Park Trail about 45 minutes north of where we’re staying. The trail meanders through Starkey Park and then connects to the Suncoast Trail – a 40-mile trail built next to the Suncoast Highway. Lots of scrub pines and grasses along the trail, but not a lot of shade. We rode a little more than 5 miles to the Suncoast Trail connector. Jeannie headed back and Tom rode several miles down the Suncoast Trail, which was much like the Starkey Trail except pretty close to a 6-lane divide highway. Not a great choice for our last warm-weather bike ride for a while, but still good to get outdoors.
One interesting thing on the Starkey Wilderness Trail is that they have a solar system model with the orbit of the planets roughly to scale, similar to the one on the Otago Central Rail Trail in New Zealand, except the radius of Neptune’s orbit was about 1 mile instead of 50 miles, and they apparently haven’t received the message from Neal deGrasse Tyson:
We’re feeling great. Car is packed with ready to eat meals and we’re hoping to just have one night in a hotel. Sad to cut this trip short but it would just plain stupid not to at this point.