Thursday, February 25, 2016

Lori & Jim's Great Florida Adventure - Day 1

At the end of February and the beginning of March 2016, my husband, Jim, and I took off on a great new adventure!  I plan to use my blog to chronicle our adventure!

DAY 1

We are on our way to Miami, Florida. We will be participating in Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's Florida Sojourn Miami-to-Everglades Bicycle Tour on February 29th - March 3rd.  After the tour ends, we are staying another week to explore the Florida Keys on our own. So we packed the bikes onto the car and hit the road a few days early.

In the spirit of real adventure, we haven't made hotel reservations ahead of time for the journey down.  We are driving each day until we feel ready to stop and then finding a place to stay the night. Today we stopped in Pittsburgh, PA for a short visit with our son, Colin, and then continued on.  We went to the Ohio River around Wheeling, WV, then crossed the river to the Ohio side and traveled along the Ohio River Scenic Byway for quite a distance.  Although it wasn't a sunny beautiful day, it was still nice to leave the Interstate for a while and see a countryside we've never seen before.  Around St. Marys we crossed the river back into West Virgina and after a while were back on the Interstate, through the capital, Charleston, and on to Beckley, where we stopped for the night.  A little shopping through Orbitz.com on my phone while driving and we found a hotel and nearby restaurants.  I love traveling technology!

This is definitely going to be an adventure of "firsts!"

  • First time we have taken a vacation this long (15 days)
  • First time we will have gone to Florida without attending a tech conference or a Disney property
  • First bike tour we've gone on in Florida, first one together, and Jim's very first one ever
  • First time we've driven to Florida instead of flying
  • First time we haven't made reservations ahead of time for all the places we'll be
  • First time I've shopped for hotels based on how easy it will be to get our bikes in and out
  • First time we've shared hotel rooms with our bikes
  • First trip to southern Florida and to the Keys
I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about all these firsts and this great new adventure we are on!

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