"Way down upon the Swannee River"

Hi Everybody,

We are in High Springs tonight at one of the nicest places yet.  Lots of shade, great bathrooms/showers, efficient laundry, and friendly people.  One drawback, there is a dirt road along the front of the campground and the dust is tremendous.  We are in the front row so we get the brunt of it.  At least it is not a much traveled road.

Best part of the day:  we crossed the Suwannee River, made famous by Stephen Foster.  You may  have noticed the spelling is different than in the song.  Well, seems Mr. Foster needed a two syllable name of a river for his song and was afraid people would mispronounce this spelling so changed it.  By the way, he never ever saw the river.  Worst part of the day:  my camera batteries were both dead when I got out to take pictures of the river.  I took quite a lot of video and hope to get a still picture from that.  I guess you can guess that I am quite a fan of Foster's music and have always loved singing his songs.

Best part of the day:  we followed the bike route today and so got off the beaten track and into the rural areas of Florida.  Worst part of the day:  we got lost.  After we met up for lunch we started out for the next stop and went about 10 miles before we realized that we were in a town not on the route.  About that time Dave and Mike called to say that they were on the same route we were on but realized it was not the right one earlier.  They ended up riding about 15 miles farther than they had planned today.  We finally discovered that the mistake had been made right before we pulled off for lunch.

Only a couple of days left.  We will be in St. Augustine on Friday but won't go all the way to the ocean until Saturday.  Tomorrow is a relatively long day but there are so few places for us to stay overnight that we will have to ride further to find a campground.  Friday will be a really light day, we think.  We have thought that before and been mistaken in the end.

Hopefully we did our last large grocery shopping today.  We will be eating breakfast bars and drinking Gatorade on the trip home!!  We have eaten well all the time.  Paula has done most of the cooking and there has been a nice variety of meals.  You haven't lived until you have had a tortilla heated right on the gas burner by Mike Terrones.  "Torts" have been a staple this trip.  We are continuing to use Katy's smoothie maker but have not bought any more spinach.  We are using her flax seed, though.

Love and blessings,

Lana