Vacation

I enjoyed my night in the office. I opted to sleep with my sleeping bag and air pad on the floor and I slept reasonably comfortably. I woke up around 6. But with only 30 miles to go to meet up with Rachael in St Augustine, and her not arriving until the early afternoon, I had no reason to get out early. So I hung out for awhile, relaxed, and finished binging Orange is the New Black. It was not until 9:30 that I left the little office, out of the AC, and back into the hot world outside.

I discovered right away that my computer wasn't reading anything from my sensor, the battery apparently needing replaced, which meant I sadly had no speed or distance data for the day. But what's more, I kept getting a ticking sound while pedaling, just as I had the last couple days, a sound I had fear was my bottom bracket. I resolved I would need to hit a bike shop.

It was a beautiful but largely uneventful ride. Cyclists passed me (going both ways) every minute on Ponte Vedra Boulevard, next to the coast, clearly a popular route, despite it lacking any kind of shoulder. I got many shouted questions about my tour, where I came from and where I was going. Then I came through a parking lot to a residential road (where I stopped to eat a bar and had another cyclist come up and ask about my tour), and from there was back on A1A, with a nice, wide bike lane. I was on a narrow strip of land then between river and ocean, which sounds exciting, but no coast was actually visible from the road. There was some interesting plant life though.

I biked over the beautiful bridge into Saint Augustine, the view on which was so gorgeous, I had to go back up on the pedestrian sidewalk to get more of a view and take pictures. After that, I biked straight past everything else to head to Sprockets bike shop. I got Bree in for service, both to find out the cause of the noise and to get the battery in the sensor replaced (because it's a little bit of a pain to get at), and also bought some Squirt chain lube, since I was about out. After I just hung out at the shop for about 40 minutes while waiting for Rachael to arrive and pick me and my bags up. I chatted with the one of two guys at the shop to pass the time, while he worked on building a wheel for an electric bike, sitting on a bench at the front of the shop so that he could still handle customers as they came in. We talked bikes, bike shop work, bike touring, all the good stuff, interrupted here and there by a guy coming in for parts, someone looking to upgrade to carbon wheels on the cheap, what have you.

Then Rachael arrived in her fancy rented car, and all of sudden we were reunited again after the last 7ish weeks apart. She drove us back to our Airbnb for the next three nights, which the guy runs basically like a hotel, dropped stuff off and then went in pursuit of lunch.

Sometime not so long after the meal is when I saw that I had a missed call from the bike shop. My sensor apparently did not just need a new battery, but was warranteed and replaced, no cost to me (wise of me to go to a Trek shop!). The bad news was that the noise was indeed coming from my bottom bracket. It had play in it, even after being tightened, and needed replaced. Luckily they had one in stock, and I agreed to have it replaced. Sometime during our wandering around the fortress today, we got the call she was done, the noise gone. Later in the afternoon, after the Castillo, lunch, and the Spanish Military Hospital Museum (since Rachael loves that kind of thing), I walked down to pick Bree up, while Rachael recovered from the heat back at the house in the AC. While it seems way too soon for the bottom bracket to have failed, and it was money I wasn't expecting to spend, I was just really happy to have her in proper order. The mechanic complimented me and Bree on how wonderful she rides, especially with the Almotion tires on there.

On our last day in town we spent the morning running some errands, including getting my balaclava mended at a stitching shop. In the afternoon we did some religious sightseeing, going to the Shrine of St  Photios and the Cathedral Basilica. I could go into detail on all the things Rachael and I have done here in town together the last few days...but I'm not going to. The pictures can tell the stories for me. After all, this has been a vacation from the usual touring routine, and that includes blogging everything I've done. ...Not to mention I don't think it would be appropriate to account how we spent ALL our time. I'll just say it's been a fun weekend, spending time with my lady and exploring this incredible, historic city together.

But now, the vacation is at an end. It's back to the real world of riding my bike all day in the blistering hot Florida sun.