The plan was to ride to the Ft. McCoy/Oklawaha KOA to spend the night then ride home the next day.
After leaving Gainesville City Limit I rode the GNV Hawthorne Trail to Hawthorne, nice scenery and no cars. After a slight detour in Hawthorne due to work on the railroad tracks I set out on a country road that my brother David raced on during the Florida Xtreme Tri. It led me to 20 East which has a bit more traffic.
I was only on 20 East for a short while before turning south on a country road. At this point my legs were aching, not sure why since I was only 20+ miles into the ride. The rest of the ride was in the countryside with the main traffic being trucks with trailers hauling ATVs to the Mud Bog. I was so glad to pass the Mud Bog and eliminate that traffic on my side of the road.
All this time I had been riding on the west side of the Cross Florida Barge Canal. I had to get on 19 in order to cross over the Canal and turn on Rodman Dam Rd. Soon my plan to stay at the KOA would change. Google Maps Bike Route took me past the Dam to a sugar sand dirt road that took me to the Florida Trail which was pretty much non existent. Fortunately I had passed the Rodman Dam Campground so I called to see if they had a spot. I caught Cathy just as she was about to close down. She said she had a spot and to come on. As I was riding toward Cathy I called KOA to cancel, they were very understanding re: my GPS failure.
I turned into the Campground and met Cathy. She said Spot 30 would be good and quiet and close to the Bath House. She was right! I set up camp before checking out the Bath House. As it got dark the mosquitos got bad. I hurried to heat up some soup for dinner so I could get into my tent away from the mosquitos. The soup was awesome as was the large bottle of Tang I mixed up.
After cleaning my soup bowl and hanging my trash bag high up on the trash pole I climbed into my tent into my sleeping bag. It took about an hour for me to fall off to sleep. Thanks to Celeste I had a solar radio that allowed me to listen to the Christian radio station. No sooner did I turn it off and I was out like a light.
