Cedar Key - Day # 12 - Shell Mounds and Wickets

Tuesday had the promise of sun, temps in the mid to high 70's and a light breeze......it was a perfect day for a bike ride......even if it was a little humid.

I do not think we have ridden any of our bikes since early October when we rode the tandem out to Green River Lake when we were still working our 5 hour shifts, and since we have been in Cedar Key we have preferred to just walk wherever we need to go.....after all nothing is more than 1.5 miles away from where our coach sits.  Additionally, we do not want to lose our Amazon.com fitness.  We haven't walked every single day, but if you averaged out our mileage over the time we have been here I think it would be in the neighborhood of 2-3 miles  per day.

There are, however, a few local sites back towards Chiefland that are a little farther away than we would want to walk.  Specifically the Lower Suwannee Shell Mound site, which is about 8 miles away.  TLE usually chooses which of our bikes we will ride, and for the "Shell Mound" ride she chose the road bikes.  While she finished up some things inside I went over to the trailer to get the bikes ready for riding.....this mostly meant putting air in the tires.  No matter how good your tubes are, they will lose air over 3 months.  We were finally off riding north along State Road 24 where we found a nice riding shoulder for the first 2.5 miles, but after we turned off to head for the "Shell Mound" the shoulder disappeared.....this did not really make a difference for us as we only saw one car the next 2 miles.  We had to make one more left hand turn, and this was on to a paved road that probably had not seen a resurfacing in 20+ years.....it was a little rough riding those last 3 miles, but our bikes were up to the challenge with their front suspension dampening the roughness, and the suspension seatposts shielding our posteriors from the vibration of that road.

 Interesting

 View towards the ocean from the top of the "Shell Mound"

TLE atop the "Shell Mound"

One thing that comes from higher temperatures is bugs.....specifically mosquitoes, noseeums, etc., so we have to think about applying repelant more often.......I have a few bites to show for my neglect.   It was a great 16 mile ride, and our tailends were not too much the worse for wear.....need to get in more saddle time to toughen up those nether regions again....lol!

We arrived back "home" around Noon.  A couple of ladies who are part of our NuRVers group have a few developing issues with their 5th wheel, so Chris (Technomadia) and I offered to help them troubleshoot the problems....here you see both us looking for the source of a gray water tank leak.  We also tackled a leak under the kitchen sink, and a propane leak.....I think we have determined the source of the propane leak, and a new part has been ordered....in the mean time we modified their hookup to stop the leak.  The leak under the kitchen sink appears to have been a lose hot water supply connection, and we'll see Wednesday if that leak has stopped.....we are still working on the gray water leak....waiting for things to dry out.

Later around 5pm we met Bill and Debby (Bill and Debby's Wild Ride) out front and started our walk into town to have dinner at the Historic Island Hotel built in 1859!

 However, on our walk we passed Low Key Hideaway and found our friends Maria and Brian (Roaming Pint) getting ready to start a croquet match.......wow, I haven't played croquet for about 20 years.  Of course, we had to stop and join in....there were just enough mallets to go around.  We had a great time laughing and giggling......Bill ultimately prevailed just as the sun was dipping below the Cedar Key horizon.

In the background you will see (from left to right) Brian, Jay, me, Maria, and Debby

After a few celebratory high 5's we continued our walk into town arriving at the Island Hotel around 6:30 and were seated in the main dinning room.  

We enjoyed wonderful meal, and even better conversation with Bill and Debby.  We are all from California, and Bill and Debby lived at Lake Tahoe for a few years.....one of our favorite places on earth.  I had the Chicken Marsala with their French Onion soup, and we jointly purchased a great bottle of Kenwood Pinot Noir.  As we walked the 1.5 miles home in the dark we were struck by the beauty of the night sky just filled to overflowing with billions of starts.  This is a great place to see stars at night as their is a lot less light a night due to the rural nature of the community.

So what can I say, but here is the end of another magical Cedar Key day!

Thanks for stopping by!