Day 56 - Gainesville to Palatka

I heard on the news last night that there was a tornado in Pensacola yesterday. Glad we're not there anymore.

Its been very buggy lately. Love bugs are out in Florida, landing on anything that doesn't move and smashing in to those of us that do, Ugh.

Here in Palatka the midges are swarming. They look like mosquitoes, but apparently they don't bite. They are annoying tho. Nothing like walking out of your hotel room in to a swarm of mosquito like bugs. they get in your hair, land one your arms and legs, and get in your eyes (and teeth). Yuck!

I'm not a real bug fan of bugs. They creep me out.

We took a quick ride down to the University of Florida on our way out of Gainesville and ended up at the Plaza of the Americas. Florida had the first Latin-American Studies Department in the U.S. and the Plaza was dedicated shortly thereafter, with an oak tree planted for each country in the America's at the time. One of them must be for Brazil, but they weren't labeled, not that I could see anyway.

There was also a giant sculpture of a couple dancing. The 20-foot sculpture by Artist J. Seward Johnson Jr., called "Whispering Close," is inspired by the painting "Dance in the City" by French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

That campus seemed very nice, but we didn't see much.

The Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail took us the first 14 miles out of town. That's a very nice way to travel by bike, we got another couple of miles on a bike trail later in the day, parallel to Route 100.

On the G-H Trail we ran into some students out for a ride. They knew, Rutger, one of the east to west riders we ran into earlier on our trip. Small world.

We made quick work of the remainder of the day and will spend our last night on the road in Palatka. Our hotel is right on St. James River and we'll start tomorrow by climbing up and over the river on Memorial Bridge.

Palatka is famous for the murals painted around town, over 30 of them. Jerry and Michele went out mural hunting, but I stayed in my room re-packing my stuff so I can ship must of it home tomorrow. I'll go mural exploring tomorrow before we leave town.

While they were out, Jerry and Michele tracked down Angel's Diner (oldest in Florida, they say) so we finished off the day with shakes, cherry for me.