Day 28

I started off the day by putting my bike on Gene's car. The bridge that was supposed to carry me over US 17 was out. I would have had to go 40 miles out of my way to get back on track. Gene dropped me off in Yulee, FL - right over the border. A1A East had a nice bicycle lane that carried me all the way to Amelia Island.

I found myself on the coast of Florida in no time.

And soon I found myself on A1A South, the road that extends down the entire eastern coast. This would be the highway that carried me to my final eastern destination.



There were many bridges.



And even some state parks!



But I was searching for the ocean. I finally found it outside of Atlantic Beach.




A1A S. skips over an inlet, so you have to take a ferry across. For some reason, the state decided not to fund this ferry anymore. How can they not fund the only thing that takes you from one part of A1A to the other. Without this ferry, I would have had an additional 40 miles of traveling for the day.





The beached here were beautiful!




And the beach towns were pretty nice too! They all had bike lanes, which I really appreciated.



I believe it was Atlantic Beach when I first came across the cool designs in the road. Every common town area had these. Some were simple, some were very intricate. I wasn't able to get too many pictures because of all the traffic around me.





I took a detour from A1A on Ponte Vedra Blvd. I have never seen so much material wealth in one day. Everything was so beautiful. I got a lot of pictures of houses - I love architecture. Also, I'm sure my mom would like to see these houses and dream about living here.





There were a lot of golf courses.












This house wasn't anything special compared to the others, but I absolutely loved the spiral staircase up to the roof.




Check out that iron work!



After leaving Ponte Vedra and getting closer to my destination, I found this castle that was built recently as a homage to Jesus. Why a castle, I have no idea!



I've found many things along my journey so far - the greatest probably being the Fountain of Youth. I'm not sure why everyone else has such a hard time finding it, it's sop well marked!



I MADE IT! I completed the last leg of my eastern excursion. ~1,800 miles.



Check out this old castle! I can't remember the name, but it;'s pretty darn old. They were charging $6 to go inside. I figured a glimpse of the outside was good enough.



St. Augustine!




After making my way to the hostel, I took a shower, locked up my bike and went exploring. Here are a few things that I saw.











I made a journey to the local Legion to get a burger and a coupple cheap beers. When I walked in, everybody stared art me. They could defineitly tell I was not from around the area. I was very uncomfortable. Having older, drunk ladies falling around all over the place in the middle of the day didn't help either.

When I got back to the hostel, I met Mike and Roger. The three of us (and Dennis for a short while) went out on the town. I had a blast! I may have spent too much money, but you only live once, right?

Total mileage: 68