24.2 mi / 12.2 mph / 291 ft. climbing
Home: Maria’s AirBNB

The sun began hitting the tent with full strength before we got out, but rather than it being a “good, let it warm things up a bit” moment like it would have been a few days ago, it was “we gotta get out, it’s going to start getting really hot in here soon!” Outside, it was a comfortable 58 degrees, there were no bugs to fight, and we hadn’t seen a hint of a raccoon. Dickinson State Park was a winner. As an extra parting gift, we filled our bottles with water chilled by the refrigerated drinking fountains located at every bathhouse, something I don’t think I’ve ever seen at a campground.

Then, as we were mounting our bikes to leave, my sunglasses weren’t sitting inside my helmet where they normally stay along with my bike gloves and headband. Crap. I immediately recalled doing something unusual with them yesterday in camp, but it took a few minutes for my brain to recall exactly what. The shower! When we used the laundry machines yesterday (for the first time at a US state park), I was one quarter short for the dryer. So I walked back to our site, got on my bike, rode back out to the entrance station to get more change, and then just returned directly back to the bath/laundry house, where I switched clothes to the dryer and then got in the shower. I almost always leave my bike at the campsite and walk over to take a shower, so my helmet/sunglasses never make it near the shower building. But this time I already had my shorts off before I realized that my sunglasses were hanging from the collar of the shirt, so I just hung them on a hook in the shower room. And since they aren’t on my mental list of “things to make sure you take from the shower with you”, they hung from that hook all night and all morning until I came back and collected them! The lesson of the story is how important routines are in keeping all of our possessions in our possession, and deviating from those routines should trigger warnings to take extra care.

Our first miles south continued through the arid duneland along US-1, where were quickly decided on the sidewalk again, not because the small shoulder on US-1 was that terrible, but because the sidewalk was there and easy and completely unused. They’re building a new bridge to cross the Loxahatchee River, so all the US-1 traffic was forced to detour and join us on the “quiet” bridge, but the bike lane meant it remained mostly ok.

We then cut back over to oceanfront A1A, where the cars dwindled and were replaced by runners, other cyclists, and general beach visitors. It’s a relatively-rare-for Florida miles-long section where the road fronts directly on the beach (separated only by a barrier of seagrapes), so it was good to see all the Jupiter locals taking advantage of their opportunity. And the water we could glimpse through the web of seagrape braches was the most-saturated and intense turquoise we have seen so far.

We didn’t stop, because we were trying to catch a train! Yesterday I had proposed a 50-mile ride to a Boca Raton motel, followed by another 30-some to a Miami Beach motel. Rett’s reaction told me that her body was in need of a break much sooner than that. We initially looked at nearer motels for tonight, but finding good-value places was a challenge as we enter the metropolis, and that’s when I remembered one of the helpful pieces of advice we got from the local cyclist a lunch a couple days ago: the commuter rail network could possibly be an easier way for us to traverse the Miami metro than riding through all the traffic and stoplights. I looked it up and the northern terminus of bike-friendly Tri-Rail’s line into Miami was just 23 miles away, so we realized that we could ride there directly and end up in Miami today!

We didn’t really plan a schedule, since the train runs once an hour on Sundays. But by chance we had rolled out of camp at 10:18am, and there was a train at 12:20pm, and if we can average 12mph over 23 miles, that’s about two hours… That math meant that while we weren’t doing an extreme push, we also didn’t stop for any breaks.

With 10 miles to go, I offered the chance to shorten our route a mile or two by doing a stretch down busy US-1 rather than turning out to and back in from a barrier island, and Rett wisely made the call to just stick with the quieter route, giving us plenty of time to get lunch before the 1:20pm train. Still, she didn’t really stop for any breaks, and even with a stop to pick up sandwiches at 7-Eleven, we arrived to the station just a minute or two after the 12:20pm train’s scheduled departure. Only to find half a dozen people still waiting on the platform, and the app giving inconsistent reports that the 12:20pm train was set to depart in 44 minutes…?

So our timing goals and decisions had all been pointless, as we sat on the platform for nearly hour, with multiple false-starts, until a train actually opened its doors to let us board close to the 1:20pm train’s time. At least it was just as bike-friendly as promised (“Bicycle Information” is the first item on the drop-down menu on their website), and we hauled the bikes up the one-and-a-half stairs into a dedicated bike car with angled racks and space for at least a dozen. I’d been slightly nervous since an early-morning alert (shown only on their app) listed ten train numbers today that would not have bicycle cars. An alert a few minutes later stated that all trains would have bicycle cars, and the first alert didn’t include any of our targeted trains anyway, but the confused messaging (and now late/missing trains) didn’t do a lot for my confidence. I needn’t have worried though because several (all?) of the “normal” train cars had bike symbols on their doors, so even without a dedicated bike car we likely would have been ok.

The weekend pass is a flat $5, so for a mere $10 us and our bikes are getting zipped across a heavily urbanized Palm Beach-Fort Lauderdale-Miami that no bike tour journals have reported to be a particularly awesome ride anyway. The only thing I’m slightly-sad about is missing yet another coincidental pass-by of a presidential residence; after the Clintons in Chappaqua, Trump Tower in NYC, and Biden in Rehoboth, it’s almost unbelievable that the standard bike-touring route passes directly alongside Mar-a-Lago. Or, maybe I’m not sad at all to miss getting in line behind all the obsequious billionaires and CEOs making that submissive pilgrimage.

After about 90 minutes covering the 70 miles that would have taken us two days of bike riding, we got off in Opa-Locka, mostly because that’s where we found a cheap AirBNB for 3 nights (the listing even included a photo of the Tri-Rail station map!) It’s an interesting Miami suburb that no one would ever have any reason to visit beyond the randomness that brought us. Designed by bicyclist-turned-aviation-pioneer Glenn Curtiss (the Wright Brothers weren’t the only ones to follow that path apparently), it was built in the style of a low-budget Middle Eastern theme park, and now has a white population of less than 2%.

As usual, we barely left our unit (a thought to ride to a Miami brewery one day was foiled by its random weeklong closure), and since it was more comfortable than riding out into headwinds we added a fourth day. The space was quite small, but it had a great fully-fenced, astroturfed outdoor area that effectively doubled the area, and that’s where I spent most of my time. Of course that’s only possible in December because South Florida is crazy. I was frequently out there eating breakfast and dinner, well into the dark, never wearing more than shorts and a t-shirt. By our last day it we even a bit too hot, with Miami hitting (admittedly a record) high of 86F, with plenty of humidity alongside, while places we grew up were well below freezing (and even places in north Florida 20 or more degrees cooler).