Friday February 12th 2016

It was a bright sunshiny day in central Florida with high temperatures in the upper 70s. Today’s objective was bike riding on the General James A. Van Fleet Rail Trail.
About 10AM I loaded the bike on to the car and drove over to the bike trail. This is the same trail I hiked last week. There were more people riding on the trail today, but not so many that you needed to pass anyone going in the same direction. You had to watch for on coming traffic, but since the trail is flat and straight you could see them a mile ahead.
The warmer weather also brought out more wildlife. I hadn’t ridden more than few hundred yards when I had to dodge a gopher tortoise making its way across the trail. In a short span of trail I saw four tortoises on the side of the trail.

Alligator

The trail runs through swampland that is well flooded this rainy winter. One of the easily spotted animals are the alligators. Not only are they big enough to see, but they are catching the rays of the bright sun. I saw at least 5 alligators. A couple of them were pretty big and could get onto the trail if they wanted. I didn’t really have and concern other than general awareness of the possibility.
A couple of Florida’s larger bird species were also present on the trail. I saw a Blue Heron and a Great Egret. I was well buy the Blue Heron before I though about taking a picture and it was gone when I came back on the return trip.

Overall I traveled about 12 miles round trip. Considering I hadn’t done any riding since last October on the Cape Cod Canal, this was enough. Coming back to the car, into the wind, I was not making any where near the speed of the outbound trip. Next time I’ll ride a different section of trail.