After Speed And Flight: A Free Lunch (Or Dinner)?

I don't remember the last time I've had such luck with weather!

Once again, the day began sunny, with a temperature of 60F (15C) on my parents' porch, and quickly climbed over 70F (21C).  By late afternoon, after thick cumulus clouds passed over, it was 77F (25C).  Although the clouds muted the sun and had dark undersides, there was never any real threat of rain.  Such clouds are not unusual on warm days in coastal areas.

Yes, I rode along the ocean again--along Route A1A, to be exact.  Today I would follow it from the Flagler Beach Pier, along dunes and beaches of hard-packed sand to the beach that bills itself as the World's Most Famous.

Although I have been there a number of times before, I am always a little surprised at what I find in Daytona Beach.  It's not like any other beach town or resort--at least, not like any other I've ever seen.  Driving is actually permitted on some parts of the beach, as it is in other nearby beach communities like Ormond Beach.  But that beach--which is often called "the birthplace of speed", where several land speed records were set--today has a speed limit of 10MPH.

  And, it also has an important place in early aviation history, where several speed and altitude records were set.  Not surprisingly, the nation's premiere aviation college, Embry-Riddle, is located nearby.

It has its share of beach-town cliches, including the taffy stands and tacky souvenir shops.  But it also manages to combine, in a few blocks near Main Street, everyone's idea of Haight-Ashbury in 1967, Woodstock in 1969, the East Village of those years and a current NASCAR rally all in one.  Oh, and there are religious folks and some genderqueers that would make most drag queens seem like suburban housewives.

And there are residents who are, or seem, completely oblivious to--or just don't care--about it all:  

They probably follow this bit of advice:

and don't even pay for it!  Of course, they might not get the best seats in the house.  But, hey, if you were eating stuff that people pay real money for, and it didn't cost you anything, you wouldn't complain, right?

Then again, there are some folks who, one hopes, won't follow that advice:

Actually, I'd worry about them eating Joe himself--except, of course, that alligators don't go into the ocean.  (Then again, there is the occasional shark!)  But I love the warning, "When fed, the alligator loses its fear of humans and becomes accustomed to handouts."  Hmm...Is there a political philosophy expressed in that?

Interesting that it should be posted at the entrance to the Lehigh Greenway Rail Trail,near the end of my ride.  Is there some kind of cosmology here:  Humans spend their Hamiltons and Jacksons (soon to be Tubmans) on stuff sea birds eat, and said humans can become an alligator's free meal by feeding them what those birds eat?

How does it all end?

I tried to find out whether that was Flagler Beach's version of Stonehenge.  But nobody seemed to know what it was.  I did see a sign nearby that exclaimed "No seawall!"  

For me, it's hard not to agree.  Then again, I just visit once or twice a year.  I don't know how I'd feel if I lived there and my house was inundated by a storm.

Thankfully, I don't have to answer that question.  I didn't have to do anything; I just rode.  

And what a lovely ride I had.  At the end of it, I didn't eat at Joe's:  I ate at Mom's.  And I didn't have to pay for it.

Out Of Season, Again

Earlier today, I wrote about a "winter" ride in a place that doesn't have winter--at least, not in any way people in my part of the world--let alone places like Minnesota and Canada and Scotland and Finland--experience it.  In other words, I was writing about a warm-weather ride in January.

Well, I had the opportunity to experience such a thing.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have guessed where I am.  

Yes, that is the ocean on the horizon.  Of course, there are places not far from my apartment where I can ride up the slope of a bridge and, at its apex, gaze out into an expanse of sea and sky:  the Veterans' Memorial Bridge from Broad Channel to Rockaway Beach, for example.  But yesterday I rode in a place where I could do it in shorts, sans jacket.

Here is another clue to where I am:

They don't sell fishing equipment in the Key Food or Stop & Shop supermarkets in Rockaway Beach--or, to my knowledge,anyplace else in New York.  For that matter, you can't buy a hunting rifle--or any other kind of firearm--from the Walmart in the Green Acres Shopping Mall, just over the city line in Nassau County. But you can get them in the "Wally World" about two kilometers from where I am now.

Yes, I am in Florida, for my more-or-less annual visit with my parents.  I got here this morning.  After the snow that turned to wind and rain during the past week, it is almost surreal to ride in bright sunlight and into a warm breeze that would later blow at my back as I spun and glided up Route A1A, beside dunes covered with sea oats and cacti that rippled and echoed the rustling hiss of the roiling tides.

Then again, it might be just as strange, or even stranger, to encounter unseasonably warm weather when I return to New York!

Riding To Lunch With Rockefeller

I'm really living it up here in Florida.  Today's ride took me to lunch at one of the Rockefeller mansions.

Now, you might be wondering whether the fame and celebrity that's come to me from this blog is the thing that led to an invitation into such exclusive circles.  Well, perhaps such a thing may happen one day (!) even if it wasn't my goal in starting this blog.  You never know where wit, erudition and a unique prose style may lead you.  If you find out, let me know.

Seriously, I took a ride to Ormond Beach, about ten kilometers north of Daytona on the same strip of land that's squeezed between the Halifax River and the Atlantic Ocean.  After making a left from  Route A1A onto East Granada Boulevard, the street with cutesy boutiques and overpriced ice cream shoppes tucked into Victorian buildings, I coasted toward the bridge that spans the river.  Just before the bridge, I hopped off the bike and parked in front of The Casements.

As the name indicates, the house is named for the large hand-cut windows that adorn it and keep its interior cool, even during Florida's notoriously hot and humid summers.  Contrary to popular belief, Rockefeller did not build it.  Rather, he purchased it in 1918, eight years after it was built for Rev. Harwood Huntington as his retirement home.

Rockefeller made The Casements his winter residence.  While there, he hosted such famous guests as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, the Prince of Wales and Will Rogers.  The latter once quipped, "I'm glad you won (at golf) today, Mr. Rockefeller. The last time you lost, the price of gasoline went up!"

Rockefeller hoped that spending his winters in the house would help him achieve one of the few dreams he didn't realize:  living to be 100.  In this home, he died in his sleep on 23 May 1937, just days short of turning 98 years old.

The Rockefellers sold the house two years later.  It became a girls' boarding school and a residence for the elderly before it was abandoned and fell into such a derelict state that it was nearly demolished.  Only its inclusion, in 1972, on the National Register of Historic Places spared The Casements from such an ignominious fate. The following year, the City of Ormond Beach purchased it and renovated it for use as a cultural center.

Fun fact:  J.D. Rockefeller suffered from alopecia, which caused him to lose all of the hair from his head, face, moustache and body when he was in his early 40s.  The hair never grew back, so the tycoon began to wear rotating wigs of varying lengths to give the impression of his mane growing and being shorn.

Another fun fact:  For all of his ruthlessness as a businessman, Rockefeller was an ardent abolitionist.  So was his wife, Laura.  So were her parents, Harvey Buel Spelman and Lucy Henry Spelman.  In 1882, Rockefeller began to donate money to the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary.  Two years later, the school changed its name to Spelman Seminary, in honor of his wife.  In 1924, it became Spelman College, one of the first black women's liberal arts colleges in the United States.

One more fun fact: I rode 85 kilometers today and got a good bit of sunburn.  OK, this wasn't as important as the others.  But it's fun.  The ride, even more so!

Make Sure You Get Back In Time For Dinner!

Ever since I arrived in Palm Coast, we've had weather that is more akin to what one might experience in April or October on Long Island or New Jersey:  cloudy and cool, with no real threat of rain. However, torrential rain is forecast for early tomorrow morning, courtesy of a storm system that's moving across the Gulf of Mexico.  Areas to our south and west might have "severe" weather, which could include a tornado.  The weather forecasters say there's a smaller chance that weather could reach this part of Florida.

In addition, my mother planned to make a particularly rich dinner for tonight:  home-made cream of broccoli soup, roast beef au jus; baked potatoes; mushroom gravy made with some of the juice; and broccoli cooked in the oven with olive oil, garlic and Parmesan cheese and baked potatoes. I would need to burn a few calories, to say the least, in advance!

I woke up about an hour later than I'd planned. (OK, when I'm at my parents' house, I don't plan much of anything!) Although days here are about an hour longer than those in New York, there's still a fairly limited amount of time to ride. (The bike I'm riding doesn't have good lights.)  "Are you going to ride to St. Augustine today?", my father asked.  

It was already nearly 10:30.  In one way, my parents have "gone native":  they, like most people of a certain age in Florida, eat dinner at 5pm or thereabouts.  And you simply do not arrive late for dinner with an Italian (or Italian-American) family!

I would certainly have ample time to ride there and back, even on the rusting beach cruiser I ride whenever I'm here.  But I wouldn't have very much time to spend in the city, let alone to shop or stop for anything that looked interesting.

  

Still, I said, "Yes!"  My mother smiled.  The ride there and back is a "metric century".  She knows that if I'm going to do such a ride, all is normal--or, at least, I'm OK.

 

The ride was pleasant, if uneventful.  From the Hammock Dunes Bridge, I rode along the stretch of Route A1A north of the segment I rode yesterday.  Both parts skirt the Atlantic Ocean.  Yesterday's ride--which took me through Painters Hill, Flagler Beach and Ormond Beach to Daytona--rolled alongside sea oats and other flora and fauna that flickered atop sand dunes; today's trek zigged and zagged along inlets and bays.

On the way to St. Augustine, I pedaled into a steady brisk wind.  That meant, of course, the ride back took about half an hour less than the ride up.  Great, both ways.

Dinner was great!

Another Day: Complaining About The Weather

I heard everyone complaining--again--about the cold.  

Today, though, it was in a different place.  No, I wasn't in Montreal.  Les Quebecois would probably laugh at anyone who complained about the weather I experienced today.  So, for that matter, would any French person who doesn't live in the Alps, Pyrenees or Vosges.  For that matter, anyone who would think of today's weather was "cold" lives well south of here.

So where am I?  Here's one clue:

Water covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface. (It's one of the few things I still remember from my eighth-grade Earth Science class.)  So we've eliminated 30 percent of all possible sites.  It's a start, I guess.

OK, here's another clue:

Pink chairs, eh?  I'm not sure of how much they narrow down the possible choices. There are, however, some places where one simply never would find them.

Colors are often useful clues:

 

This looks like the Southwestern US--or, at least, someone's imaginings of it.  Whether or not it's sagebrush verite, it's incongruent with most seaside locales in the United States or Canada.

Just down the road, we can see similar colors in this building:

 
Believe it or not, public toilets are inside that building.  It's in a state park.

Now, if you need more clues, take a look at these, just a couple of miles apart on a road I cycled today:

The road is Route A1A, specifically the segment that connects Painter's Hill, Beverly Beach and Flagler Beach before continuing to Daytona Beach.

I am indeed in Florida.

A rather brisk wind blew in from the north, which held the temperature to around 15C (60F) and made it seem even cooler.  Still, it's nearly tropical in comparison with today's conditions in New York, where it was -13C (8F) early this morning.  That may not seem very cold to some of you, but last week the Big Apple recorded its first subfreezing temperature since late last March.

Even though the weather is milder than it is in New York, it's not the reason I'm here.  I am visiting my parents--and, of course, I plan to ride some more!


 
 

This Journey (With Apologies to James Wright)

Whenever I ride a long road or path along an ocean--or just about any other body of water, for that matter--I can't help but to think about some of the earliest long rides I took, as a teenager in New Jersey.

Some said I was a lonely kid. Truth was, I simply wasn't thinking about the things most other kids my age were.  Truth was, I couldn't.  Oh, I worried about which college, if any, would accept me and ran different career paths through my mind.  Truth was, I was doing those things because other people said I should.

Truth is, I was on a journey on which no one could accompany, let alone guide, me.  I wanted to ride my bike across counties and countries when my peers wanted to get their licenses and pick up dates who would be impressed by such things--or being picked up by one of those new drivers.

And that was just one way in which I wasn't on the same road or path as my peers.  If you've been reading my other blog--or even some posts on this one--you know another one of the ways in which my life--or, more precisely, the way in which I saw my identity, my self--differed from almost anybody else I knew.  And I would not learn a language to express it for a long time.

But cycling was, and remains, a means of communication between my body, my spirit and all that is essential to them.  That is the reason why, even when I have ridden by myself, I have never felt lonely while on two wheels.  Some might have said I rode because of alienation.  When I didn't know any better--in other words, when I didn't know how to express otherwise--I believed something like that in the same way people believe the most plausible-sounding explanation for just about anything because they don't know anything else.

Perhaps that is the reason why I am drawn to the ocean, or to any other large body of water, when I'm on my bike.  It was while pedaling along the Atlantic Ocean between Sandy Hook and Island Beach--and along the bodies of water that led to the ocean--that I first realized that I would often ride alone, but I would not lack for companionship.  I had my self, I had my bike and at times I would have a riding partners who understood, or who at least simply wanted to ride with me. Or, perhaps, I would simply want to ride with them. 

P.S.  On a somewhat related topic, please check out my latest on Huffington Post!

Portrait Of A Chance Encounter On My Way To Painters Hill

Yesterday I did a shorter ride (about 50 km) than I did the other day (Daytona Beach) or Saturday (St. Augustine).  But I planned it that way so I could linger along one of my favorite stretches of Route A1A, in the very aptly named Painters Hill:

Well, all right, the Painters part is apt.  The hill, not so much.  But it's a feast for the senses.  And, oh yeah, I went swimming.  You could tell I--and the other swimmers--aren't from around here.  Natives wondered how we could "stand" water that's "so cold".  I'd guess that the temperature was somewhere around 13 to 15 C (55 to 60F).  At Rockaway Beach or Coney Island, it's probably not much higher than 5C (40F) right now.

Perhaps the best part of the ride is that I might have made a new friend and riding partner for future trips down here (or perhaps even for later this week!)  I met her at a convenience store-gas station just west of the bridge from Palm Coast Parkway to Route A-1A.  The bichon frise in the front basket of her Diamond Back cruiser gave that ever-so-friendly look bichon frises give and, of course, I stroked his head.  If dogs are a reflection of their owners, that bichon frise perfectly mirrored her personality.  

Before I crossed the bridge into A1A, we rode trails that crossed ponds, cut through swamps and rimmed the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.  She apologized--though she had no reason to--for her riding:  It was her first time out this year, she said.  I didn't feel that she was slowing me down, as she feared.  I must say, though, that I astounded her when I said that I rode the borrowed clunker to and from St. Augustine and Daytona Beach.  "Just thinking about it gets me tired," she exclaimed.

After about two hours, she had to go back to her house to meet a client.  I thanked her:  Even if I hadn't continued down to Painters Hill and Flagler Beach, I would have felt I'd had a good ride.  After all, encounters like that remind me of some of the reasons I ride.

Another Day At The Races--Sort Of

Yesterday I was off to the races.

No, I wasn't in the peloton or even at the starting line.  But I was in the vicinity of a track.

All right, it wasn't a velodrome.  But it's probably the one truly important racing venue outside the world of cycling.  I'm talking, of course about the Daytona Speedway.

To be more precise, I pedaled to Daytona Beach, which meant that I did two 100k rides in three days, which is two more than I'd done in the three previous months.  

I rode up and down the streets, along the boardwalk and, yes, on the beach itself.  I was going to do the latter because, I reasoned, if it was OK for cars and jeeps to drive there, why not bikes?  Plus, I was riding a beach cruiser, and I thought perhaps it should actually be ridden on a beach at least once!

Believe it or not, the car lane on the beach is actually designated as the Daytona Beach Highway, subject to all of the same rules and regulations as other automobile routes.  The difference is, of course, that it's sand instead of asphalt or concrete, and the speed limit is ten miles per hour (16KPH). Hey, you can go faster than that on your bike!

But the best part of going to and from Daytona by bike is the beautiful road--Route A1A--that skirts the coast line.  When you're riding north from Daytona, all you have to do is look--real hard--to your right and, on a clear day, you can see Casablanca.  After all, it's only 6866.9 kilometers (4246 miles) away.

Back In The Sunshine--And Heat

Like everyone else in northeastern US, I've been complaining about The Winter That Won't Go Away.  It hasn't been the snowiest or coldest season, but it's been so gray and dreary, and the snow and ice cover were all but constant from the beginning of the new year until a couple of weeks ago.

Mind you, I don't mind cold or snow.  I like changing seasons.  I don't want endless winter more than I want any other endless season.

So guess where I am now?  You guessed it:  in a place that has a couple fewer seasons than New York.

  

Yes, I'm in Florida again, having come just as the weather was starting to warm up (or, at least,turn more springlike) at home.  

Bicycle tubes at the Trailhead Beach 'n' Bike Gallery, Palm Coast, FL

I'm glad to see Mom and Dad again.  And today I got on the old beach cruiser they keep here for me and kept on pedaling, into the wind, up Route A1A.   I could feel some of the dust flying off and the cobwebs breaking away from my muscles.  And the sun grew warmer--and, I would discover, more intense on my skin.

The result?  I pedaled 51 km (31.5 miles), encountering almost no traffic and, before my destination for the day, my only obstacle--lions .

I had to get past them to enter the historic downtown area of St. Augustine.  Surprisingly, those lions don't chase cyclists.  At least, they didn't chase me.  Maybe they know I love cats.

And they stood aside as I crossed their bridge to leave the city and pedal another 51 km back to Mom and Dad's house.  The 102 km I covered today made it my longest ride of the year, so far.

After fighting the wind on the way up, my feet were practically pedaling automatically on the way back.  That, in spite of tiring about halfway back. 

In June 1964, Andrew Young, then one of Martin Luther King Jr's senior field organizers, led a march through the old part of St. Augustine. He and the other marchers were beaten as they tried to cross to Plaza de la Constitution. One month later, the Civil Rights Act was passed.

I realized why:  I felt that glow I feel on my skin whenever I've just gotten more sun than I've had in weeks and months.  Not only did I spend a few hours in uninterrupted sunlight (except for a couple of brief incursions into St. Augustine landmarks and shops), I was wearing far less--shorts and a tank top--than I've worn in months.  And, as this ride reminded me, the sun is a good deal more intense here than it is in New York.

But I feel my body, my spirit opened again.  That, and something I wrote on the plane on the way down, help me to feel as if I am returning to normal in the good ways.  I'm ready to say "I'm back", though perhaps without the Austrian accent. 

By The Dunes

Took another early morning ride today.  This time, I pedaled up to Marineland.  It sits just south of the St. John's County line.  When you cross into the county from Marineland, Old Route A1A branches off, to the right, from the current A1A.

I suspect that Old A1A was an unpaved road.  It becomes one within a kilometer or so of the county line.  For once, I was actually glad to be riding a beach cruiser made from gaspipe tubing (on which I've replaced the original rotted-out tires with some decent mountain bike rubber) instead of one of my lightweights.

This was my reward for all of my skidding and sliding:

Call me selfish or greedy, but I was happy to have it all to myself!

The Florida Tourism Board Won't Use This

Yesterday I got back from a few days in Florida.  I spent some time with Mom and Dad.  As usual, I ate too much:  How could I do otherwise when I'm surrounded by Mom's cooking.  (At least, it seems like there's food everywhere I turn when I'm there!) How does the saying go?  Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we can diet.  Or something like that.

Of course, we all know that, at this time of year, you go to Florida for the weather.  And indeed it was warmer there than it was in New York:  30F (-1C) when my flight landed in the Sunshine State.  It was 3F (-16C) that morning in New York.

As for the State's motto:  We did get sunshine, yesterday and the day before.  The two days before that looked more like this:

Hmm...The Atlantic Ocean at Painter's Hill might actually be even prettier under an overcast sky.

In such conditions, I am not the only one in Flagler Beach contemplating her existence:

We all know that the ocean is really an infinite road, perhaps the one not taken (Sorry, Robert!):

I'll blame the fact that I didn't ride further along this road than I did on the bike:  The rear wheel was literally falling apart.  I rode back to Mom's house as darkness was approaching.  I figured that the next day I could get the bike to the shop.  But Dad took me there the following morning.  By the time I changed the wheel, the sun was playing tag with the clouds and I followed more of that road--and A1A, along the ocean. 

I confess:  I was following this procession: