Day 3-7 – Stuart, FL – Jacksonville, FL:
Day 3-7 – Stuart, FL – Jacksonville, FL:
On the third day of our tour, our route north was supposed to lead relatively close to the sea – unfortunately there was still a small strip of land with corresponding buildings between us and the sea, so that almost nothing of the sea could be seen. The wind was a little stronger than yesterday and the temperature was 36 degrees, a high for this time of year. But that didn’t matter to us, we love temperatures like that. Quite the opposite, of course, there are breakdowns and as soon as I thought of something like that, my mistress rang the bell wildly. Flat foot. How she managed to get a 6cm long rusty nail into her tire will always remain a mystery to me. But something like that is part of it and was quickly remedied. After 3.5 hours we arrived at our destination for the day, a Best Western Hotel in Sebastian. After a great and extensive breakfast, we ventured out into the fresh air again, although it was rather warm around our noses. Today there were almost 80km on the agenda again and I didn’t think anything bad when I heard the bell again. My wife said she had lost something. I drove back and lo and behold: in the middle of the shoulder next to the highway was her shoulder bag with money, credit cards and keys for the bikes in it. Phew…lucky. The rest of the route took us through Melbourne and many small towns worth seeing to our destination in Cocoa, FL. Our hotel, the Ramada Inn, was newly renovated and sparkled as far as the eye could see. However, you weren’t allowed to take a closer look because the quality standard in the USA is completely different than here at home. No offense. The breakfast buffet was fine and with our bellies full we soon hopped on our bikes to tackle the longest stage so far. It was originally supposed to take us to Daytona Beach, but there was a festival and no motel was under $250 – crazy. So we booked one about 30km further north behind Ormond Beach, which also cost a hefty $164. But it was a Days Inn and we actually had a pretty good experience there, as long as it wasn’t run by an Indian. The route up to then just flew by thanks to a good tailwind and unfortunately we didn’t get to see too much of the actually beautiful Daytona Beach, because the interesting places are more towards the beach and not on the US1. After almost 130km and pretty exhausted we arrived at the Days Inn and the blow hit us from afar. The outside of the building is unkempt, there are dilapidated areas and peeling paint everywhere. The lady at check-in was quick but listless and asked for another $100 deposit in case we broke something. The next shock came in the room itself: almost everything was defective or dirty in some way. Some things, like broken tiles in the bathroom or cables torn out of the walls, were a danger to life and limb, other things like the completely dirty microwave and the dirty fan were an imposition. The wooden floor in the room itself gave way and was completely hollow underneath. My owner twisted her foot and has had pain and swelling ever since. The attempt to complain ended miserably as the lobby was unoccupied between 8pm and 6am. We are currently working on a solution. We prefer not to talk about breakfast the next morning and so we were on the bike quicker than expected. The routes of the next two stages were again somewhat unspectacular, apart from the impressive skyline of Jacksonville. Dear reader, I don’t want to write a novel here, I just want to highlight the most important details. If you want to know more: our book about this trip will be published in autumn.
