St. Augustine to New Smyrna Beach 68 miles - Cum 1,934 miles

We rode 68 miles today and the first 50 miles or so was beside the beach. It was a great ride. The wind was coming from the east and we were going south. It felt like we had air conditioning on the bike. The air was cool coming off the ocean. Whenever we stopped, we would break out in a sweat because it was really hot but not while we were moving. We passed a few miles of millionaire row where the selfish millionaires block both the view and the access to the beach but after that, there was nothing between us and the ocean except a 20 or 30 yards of sand! Fantastic!!!!
We had stayed last at Bob's sister Helen's house. Helen prepared an excellent dinner last night and then her husband Dave made us breakfast which got us off to our great start. Thanks again Helen and Dave for letting us stay the night.
Bob actually pulled into the Matanzas state park to let me see the Matanzas fort. He is trying to overcome his reputation for not stopping to smell the roses. The fort was established in the 1500's It is amazing to think that this all happened 450 years ago. The story of the fort is pretty fascinating. The name Matanzas means slaughters in Spanish and it refers to the killing of the French by the Spanish in this area.
A biker on a Trek Madone 6.9 came up beside me and chatted for awhile. He was curious about what we were doing and why. I told him a lot of the reason we do it is because we can. We discussed how you need to stay active even as you age because because as soon as you stop, you stop!! As he was leaving, he mentioned that he was a minister and was hoping he could do what we were doing someday.
We passed an artist's gallery which had some sculptures in the front yard where were pretty interesting that had been made from trees trunks and branches.
We stopped for lunch at little restaurant that Bob remembered from a previous trip. We sat out side and had a frozen Mocha Espresso before we had our lunch. It was very pleasant with the cool ocean breeze and the brilliant sunshine. We started to get lazy and wanted to stay all afternoon. The waitress was encouraging us to stay but we were able to resist and get moving on down the road.
We started to see signs again welcoming bikers. We finally realized that it was not for us but for the motorcyclists which we were seeing going up and down the road. Someone told us that biker week starts on Thursday and the ones we were seeing were just coming in early to get started. We did notice one group of bikers that kept going up and down the road. We eventually saw them for the last time in New Smyrna Beach!
We reached Daytona Beach and rode down to the Daytona Pier and beach. I was a little disappointed because there were no cars going up and down the beach. Bob said they have been cutting back on allowing cars on the beach because people were getting run over.
We left Daytona Beach and Rte A1A and went over to Rte 1 and the ride into New Smyrna Beach. We rode through the down looking for a good motel but every place we saw looked pretty run down. We eventually wound up down on Rte 44 business and found the motel we were looking for but found out it was a Bed and Breakfast. It was the Night Swan Intercoastal B&B. We figured that it would be expensive so we were discussing what to do when a man came up and said why don't we go in and talk to the owner Martha about getting a room. He said she would work with us. It turns out it was Martha's husband and he called her as we walked up to the door to tell her we were coming. She gave us a two bedroom suite above the garage at a nice discount plus breakfast, so we took it. It is very nice and includes all the ice cream we want.
We walked up to the Dolphin View restaurant. It had outdoor tables overlooking the river. The food was excellent and we had fun looking at all of the birds fish and of course the dolphins out in the river. We walked back to the B&B for a big dish of ice cream and then to bed!!
Tomorrow we head for Melbourne Beach!!!