Diving from the Sky
Yo so I continued to A1A Beachfront Ave
Girls were hot wearing less than bikinis
Rock man lovers driving Lamborghini
Jealous ‘cause I’m out getting mine
We started our morning leaving Miami via the A1-A. We had heard that Beachfront Ave was a great ride for cyclists. In the heart of Miami it was a bit difficult, but once we got out of the big city, it was great. There was distant talk of a hurricane forming over the Gulf Coast. It was unclear which direction it would move once it got over the panhandle, so it wasn’t our worry… yet.
The A1-A runs quite closely to the Atlantic Coast. The stretch of highway all the way up to Jacksonville Beach, is filled with gorgeous communities and sights. The whole stretch of highway up the coast looked like top 1%’ers. If you went a bit inland, not so much. But the coast, gorgeous.
We stayed on the A1-A and we were excited to be on the way to Hotlanta!
We camped at Sebastian Inlet State Park on Melbourne Beach. As we were preparing our route for the next day over hot dogs and veggies, we found that we were going to end in Daytona Beach (exciting!) but start the morning off by riding into a bit of rain (less exciting!).
Starting off the next morning from our campsite, the sky above us was clear. But as the morning neared the afternoon, the rain started. Then it picked up until it reached a constant amount. When you think of the word “rain,” that’s what it did the entire day. It rained. But we made it to the “World’s Most Famous Beach” – Daytona Beach!
As we pulled into soaking wet Daytona Beach we couldn’t help but think of the families/tourists/partiers that came for a relaxing vacation.
OMG! I’m sooo excited to go to Daytona Beach!!!
(cue the rain)
Well this sucks. Let’s hang out at Starbucks and go see a movie.
That was pretty much our Daytona Beach experience. We hung out at Starbucks as soon as we finished our ride, delaying our campsite visit as we tried to wait out the rain. There was no waiting out this rain though. It was here to stay. And for the next two days.
We camped that night under another pavilion. We pulled up to the ranger’s desk and asked for the best covered area to cook our dinner. They recommended a great day-use area with picnic benches and a grill… and a covered pavilion. Well that was enough for us right there, we knew we would be sleeping there. So we did. Away from the rain, comfortably and with no need for our rain flies. Surprisingly lovely night of sleep listening to the rain crash on the roof of the pavilion all night.
Still on the A1-A and still pointed directly north, we had a wet ride the whole day. But luckily it led us through the cute little town of St. Augustine. The whole town has a European vibe to it and for good reason. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States. Would be a great little spot for a romantic weekend stay with your significant other.
Enough of this European stuff, we were heading towards Tebow Territory. You know the area that Tebow is from, right? Well it’s Jacksonville. Ponte Verda Beach to be specific. But do you know where he was born? People in Denver were pretty nuts for Tebow, but we were pretty sure it was even crazier in the place he grew up.
Well as soon as we pulled up to Jacksonville Beach, we had a man track us down and ask us about our trip. “Are we getting riders to join up with us next year?” “Where are we going?” “Who else is riding with us?” He already thought of it as an annual thing without us even saying a word, which was pretty cool. First time someone has assumed that this was an annual trip.
He then went on to describe to us about the celebrity culture that Jacksonville Beach was developing. The TPC at Sawgrass was right down the road on the A1-A, so it was a golfer’s haven. He mentioned Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk were both frequenters of the Starbucks right behind us. Love Furyk’s swing. Because of that funny swing, I think he’d be a funny guy. He mentioned a couple of other celebrities but the only one I can remember is this guy.
As we regrouped at the now famous Starbucks, we met an interesting character while we dried up for a wee bit.
Neal was a fragile old man that sat down next to us as we enjoyed a coffee. He waved for our attention and began to get into his loves right away. He LOVED Stargate and was apparently newly introduced to technology. Shazam, the app on your phone that tells you what song it is by putting it up next to the speaker, absolutely BLEW HIS MIND. He helped take our mind off the constant rain as we battled the rest of the way to the Florida border.
That night, as we met at a Subway in town and were packing up the bikes and gearing to head to the campsite; it started POURING. Really REALLY hard. Cats-and-dogs hard. Movie-scene hard. Buckets-of-rain-from-God hard. There was no way we were going to find a suitable campsite this late into the night and this much into the storm. We hadn’t even been able to see if the State Forest we were staying in would be able to have primitive camping (note: this is common for us. We usually don’t know the camping situation of our supposed destination until the afternoon at the earliest. We keep it pretty fluid on the road).
We drove into the forest with our eyes wandering, looking for some kind of cover for our bodies, tents and trailer. We drove to the end of an RV camp on the side of the road that had no cover and was already flooding. Not an option for us.
As we neared the end of the road and started to turn around, we saw a building with a light on through the torrential downpour. We parked in the middle of the road and tore across the parking lot, unable to avoid getting soaked, and jumped in the store.
A quiet and stern old man sat behind the counter. We figured, worth a shot. What the heck. Rex approached the dude behind the counter.
Any options for cover for a primitive campsite?
Well I’ve got a barn out there, my truck’s underneath it now. Guess I could move it out for you guys. Would be $12 for the night.
Well that sounds just about perfect.
No idea how he came up with the $12 night, but it didn’t matter. We had a covered roof to sleep as we listened to Tropical Storm Debby roar overhead.
We slept as comfortably as we could sleep. The rain never stopped the whole night. It was actually quite interesting. Never did it pick up nor did it soften in intensity. It stayed the same all night. That exact same was a very hard rain that was nearly impossible to carry on a conversation during. Due to the sheer volume of rain hitting the earth all around us with such thundering sound, we were forced to an early bedtime. We definitely didn’t mind. Riding through rain is exhausting on your body. Not only are you cycling many many miles, but your body is constantly trying to warm up and dry off, thereby “wasting” more energy.
The next morning we looked at the forecast for the day and we were in the area that the storm was “orange” on the radar of our Weather Channel app on our phones. The only thing we could do was wait it out. But this storm was moving soooo slow. It was taking its sweet time over Georgia and Florida, which did not bode well for us. We were on a pretty tight schedule to get to Atlanta.
We drove up to a Burger King and out of the forest we stayed in. We put in a wee bit of administration work as we watched the locals come in, soaked to the bone.
Any idea when this will stop?
What month is it? June? Should stop in August.
They laughed. Not so funny for us.
We had to get a move on, so we got back in the car, drove up to a secure spot to start biking again, and started biking again. Less miles would be key on a day like this. As long as we could camp in a dry spot, it’d all be worth it.
Well we made it out of the storm. We were sick of the rain. It was time for the sun. Florida had not been friendly to us. The “Sunshine State” had not been very sunny (we think Colorado should take the honors. Any chance Florida wants to trade for the “Centennial State?”)
Not only that, we started to have our first bout of hills as well! We hadn’t had hills since… Colorado? It took some pondering, but we had determined Colorado, of course, was our last hilly riding. We actually missed the hills. It felt good to charge up one side with our focus on a tight position and cruise down the other with our hands free from the handlebars. But the best thing about the ride was that we were in Georgia and there was no more rain.
As we pulled into McRae, GA, we found a cozy campsite on Little Ocmulgee Lake. What a beautiful lake! It reminded me of the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. There were many houses right on the edge of the lake, boats zooming around at all hours of the night, and parents slinging their kids on tubes behind them on jet-skis. Consistent with lake culture all over the middle of America, it started to feel like we were getting closer to home.
With our sights set on Macon, GA, we were getting excited to meet up with Kay. Kay had taught English with Steve in South Korea and was a good friend of his and an avid supporter of B4B. She had gone through several hoops to make sure she hooked up the B4B team during our stay in Atlanta. Once again, this Southern Hospitality is out of control!
She had provided us with free rooms at the Marriot Marquis in downtown Atlanta. She had bent over backwards to find us a connection with the local media. Those were both great, but our favorite part was the connection she had with the gents over at Skydive Atlanta. They usually weren’t open during the week, but not only were they going to open for us, they were going to give us all free jumps! We had NEVER been skydiving, so Atlanta was on our minds ever since we knew what our future in Atlanta would be.
Kay lives in Macon, so we were first going to ride to Macon, meet her there and see a bit of her hometown. As we rode into town, the history of Macon grabbed our attention. Riding down Cotton Ave. we met up with Kay at a local coffee shop before she gave us one of our favorite things: a tour of her city! We learned that both Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers were from Macon. Greg Allman, married to Cher, both owned houses in Macon. The 7th largest city in Atlanta looked like a great town to grow up in. Thanks Kay for the tour!
That night we grabbed dinner with Kay, shared stories of our travels and later caught our first movie of the trip, That’s My Boy. Wow is that movie vulgar!… and hilarious! It was nice to be able to relax for a couple hours and watch a film. We’ve already decided on our must-see movie of the summer.
The next morning we had a short ride to Forsyth, only 20 miles. We were meeting Kay there before we were to head out to Thomastown for our first adventure with skydiving!
We’ve always wanted the thrill of skydiving and this was the perfect time for it. A free session on our wonderful summer tour of the country and out over an area of the country we knew little about.
The group of guys at Skydive Atlanta were very friendly and great to spend a few hours with for our day of skydiving. We were lucky enough to take a little Cessna 192 up into the air for our jumps. If you are unfamiliar with planes, a Cessna isn’t necessarily meant for high altitudes. It doesn’t quite have the power to get up there. Instead of taking their usual skydiving plane, a King Air, which takes you to 14,000 feet in about 8 minutes; it took us 25 minutes to reach 11,000 feet in the Cessna. No matter for us, as we were just happy to be skydiving.
Steve went first and had a video shot of him for his jump. It was pretty rad to see the whole experience from the camera’s eye.
The rest of us went in groups of two: Chase and Adam, Rex and Kay. We each went tandem with one of the instructors. So that meant 5 of us in the mini-plane that had only one seat for the pilot, at a time. Hope you like each other!
It’s definitely thrilling to be able to jump out of a plane and fall barreling towards the Earth at 120 mph. The first feeling when you release from the plane and you’re falling from the sky, is quite intense. You’re trying to remember all the tips that the instructors told you while your goggles are about to be ripped off your face and you’re nerves are calming. The 40 seconds or so that you are free falling, goes by SOOOO fast. Too fast. But it’s a pretty sight, once you get your bearings, pull your head up and look out over the country for miles and miles. Thanks Kay and Skydive Atlanta for our first skydive! We’ll never forget it!
We finished our ride into Atlanta and posted up at our swanky hotel for a the weekend. Impressive to be staying here! Way too high class for us, especially on this trip, but wow did we enjoy it!
Our next couple of days were filled with seeing the sights, prepping for our youth baseball clinic and heading to a couple of Braves games at Turner Field. We made a stop at the world famous burger joint called, The Varsity (what’ll ya have!) for tasty burgers, chili dogs and peach pie. We filled up on Zaxby’s, as is tradition in Atlanta, tasted the local brew at Max-Lagers wood-fired grill and brewery, and drove down International Boulevard.
We were also very VERY lucky to be in town for the first Tour de Fat in Atlanta. Tour de Fat started in Fort Collins so we had been going to it for years. Steve, Rex and Adam went to school in Fort Collins so we had really seen how much it had grown over time. Now over 10,000 people go to the one in Fort Collins! The festival is centered around a bike and beer culture. Filled with music and fun activities, it’s a wicked good time. Even though it was 106 and their first year there, over 1,000 people were in attendance at the first one in Atlanta! Check to see if one is coming to your city and go.
We had also wanted to meet up with Adam and Christy Coppola at Tour de Fat, who are now working with PeopleforBikes.org and brought their event set up to Atlanta. Last year they took a trek to all 50 states! Check out their cause and route. What a team! Can’t wait to see more of you Adam and Christy.
Atlanta was jam-packed with fun for us and we can’t wait to come back.
“If it were 20 degrees cooler, we would just stay.”