December 2020 Bicycle Tour in Florida: Sarasota to Key West

In an effort to get out and have an adventure, I flew to Pat's house in Sarasota and we rode east to Ft Lauderdale and then headed south to Key West.  The red dots below show the basic route. 

The following pictures are in reverse order - that's how they imported into Blogger and I was too lazy to fix it. 

The "southernmost point in the USA" marker in Key West. The line to get a selfie was around the block, so we just rolled by and took a snapshot. 

We had all of our camping gear but never camped. The campsites were either full, closed, or just a bunch of concrete slabs like the one below. We stayed in cheap hotels instead. We had a great tailwind this day, as you can see from the trees. 

Seven mile bridge.  The shoulder of the road is nice and wide, so biking wasn't pleasant but it wasn't unsafe either. 

Scene from the Florida keys. This is the old abandoned bridge that parallels the newer 7-Mile bridge. Tomorrow, we get to Key West and rent a car to drive back to Sarasota.

Florida be all classy like this:

Conch Ceviche from the local gas station makes for a nice lunch. 

Castaway meets Waterworld. I especially like the camper top with the deck chair. Only in Florida.

A bunch of cruise ships lined up at the dock, mothballed due to Covid. 

Lunch in downtown Miami. 

Miles and miles and miles of this in Florida. Not the best state for bike touring. 

Two more riding days to Key West.

Bicycle touring with the rich and famous. Here is the view from our hotel last night. We were biking through "big sugar" territory and this is a hotel mostly used by migrant workers. The Jamaican shack up the street, however, made spectacular oxtail and goat.

The bus is here to pick up the migrant workers to take them to the sugar fields.

I hit a patch of dirt going around a corner. 

Breakfast beers in the orange groves.

Breakfast beers on Spanish moss and large rambling trees.

The bike, all loaded up and ready to head out. 

Pat's front yard in Sarasota.