37.5 mi / 12.8 mph / 269 ft. climbing
Home: Dickinson State Park

We had a choice this morning: ride 15 miles down US-1, with its shoulder and heavy traffic, or 17 miles down Indian River Drive, narrow but with hopefully little traffic (a 3rd option would be to do the same stretch out on the barrier island, but the cost of backtracking a couple miles from our motel to get to the bridge ruled that out). We decided to try the devil we didn’t know, and the 10 seconds we spent on the cacophony of US-1 before we could cut east already made it feel like the right decision.

I was surprised and glad to see 25mph speed limit signs on Indian River Drive, and even more surprised and glad to see that drivers were obeying that limit. And patiently waiting to pass, and giving us plenty of space when they did. One thing I didn’t expect was all the hills! Ok, nothing massive, but the road had more undulations that we’d seen anywhere in Florida, and on average sat 15-20 feet above the sea level just to our left. We’ve gotten used to seeing homeowner’s boat docks stretching 30-50 yards into the water around here, but this is the first place where we’d seen stairs (or ramps) descending to them.

Rett was looking at all the varied waterfront properties as we passed them, which told me she felt comfortable with the road and traffic, another confirmation of our choice. Today’s unexpected wildlife was sandhill cranes, standing like tall statues in peoples’ front yards, nearly as tall as the homeowners that were also observing (and maybe feeding?) them.

We’d been seeing the long wooden piers stretching into the water for days, some in better shape than others, but here it seemed like nearly half were unusable; this one with a section of fallen decking, that one with only rotted posts remaining visible above the waterline. Less than 20% had any sort of watercraft moored at the end. Rett was surprised that people with waterfront property were letting it go to waste, but I took it in as data, as solid evidence that peoples’ dreams and attractions to “waterfront property” mostly just turn out to be a wasteful crush, with little chance of a long-term enduring relationship. “We love boating!” says the couple who spent a day on rented jet-skis during a vacation, so they bought a house here, spent a lot of money to build a really long pier, and then life happened, costs added up, they realized they only got out on the water twice last year (and even that felt like a chore), so letting their investment fall into decay was the most sensible way to treat that sunk cost. (Or, they sold the house to someone immune to the siren song and wise enough to have no interest in boating from the beginning). I guess I’m trying to say that I’m glad that this bicycle-nomad thing has turned out to be more than a wasteful crush for us.

To get over a big river we had to turn back inland, and that move took us up (and back down) a steep 30-foot hill, by far the biggest non-bridge hill we’ve gone over in Florida (and possibly since New Jersey!) Thankfully my back pain had eased considerably, ahead of its normal schedule (riding with it is never a problem, but transitioning from riding to standing/sitting can take some time).

While we were sitting in our chairs next to a gas station building and eating our lunch, a former Brit/now Floridian sometime-bike-tourer stopped to chat, and he cautioned against my plan to ride south on A1A. I was pretty sure that he was just a wuss made soft by riding on too many wonderful car-free bike routes in Europe (we got some good info though!), because he thought Indian River Drive that we had just finished was terrifying too (he did say that they had just recently reduced the speed limit, which made the drivers patience even more impressive to me!) And it’s not like there is some other great route to go south on anyway! So yeah, A1A was nothing bad at all. A mix of shoulders, bike lanes, and a bit of off-road path left the only slight stress on a shoulderless mile or two before we turned off to US-1, and even there traffic was light and calm enough that we didn’t feel terrorized (though there was a woman who rolled down her window and slowed to our speed to say “you can’t be serious” at us, which was odd because the dozens of other drivers treated us as something totally normal, meaning she was the anomaly!) Anyway, if didn’t feel comfortable riding on routes like these, we would barely be able to get anywhere in this country. We look forward to riding in Europe someday, but I’m a bit scared too, because it might ruin us for riding anywhere else like it apparently had for this guy.

We’re staying at Jonathan Dickinson State Park because a I had been checking the Florida reservation system and three days ago noticed a single site had opened up (presumably from a cancellation), so I jumped on it. Florida State Parks, especially coastal ones this far south, seem to be booked pretty solid, so squeezing into one is a bit of a lucky gift. Especially because they’ve been some of the nicest and best-run state parks we’ve been in. In addition to the water and electric that nearly all sites seem to have, all three state parks we’ve been at have had laundry machines! This time we were prepared to take advantage and did a load when we arrived.

The knock-on effect from popular campgrounds, which we’ve also observed elsewhere, is that people book extremely far in advance, which increases the odds that something will prevent them from turning up, which then leads to unused sites. The site next to ours remained unoccupied all night, which sucks for someone else who had been hoping to camp here, but at least it allowed us a shorter route to the bathroom. This was the second park where I inquired about the Florida park system’s “no turn away” policy for touring cyclists, and for the second time I got an answer that yes, they would find a place to stick us if there were no other options. Excellent!