biking around

today we biked downtown to the farmer’s market, about a 14 mile bike ride roundtrip. some of our veggie scores included an eggplant for 75 cents, jalapenos 10 cents each, and 8 organic zucchini for $4.

friday we biked from south sarasota to venice beach and back—overall, about 25 miles. mostly we traveled along the legacy trail, a wide paved bike path that follows the former CSX railroad corridor and dead ends in Nokomis. bike lanes, sidewalks, and a few bridges (one draw bridge!) covered the last few miles of our trip to venice. the ocean water was a just bearable 66 degrees at the beach; it felt good once we got used to it. super snark swam laps. i searched the incoming tide for shark’s teeth (with no luck). on that note, we have finally reached the point in our florida adventures when we are no longer leaving the beach with an overstuffed bag of shells. unbelievable but true! (however, we are both still in sea shell junkie mode and constantly scan the shore and incoming tide for one last fabulous shell.) we biked home with only three small beach finds between the two of us, definitely a record for us…

we had one other biking adventure for the week. wednesday, we biked 15 miles on the sandy, brush-strewn trails of myakka state park. it was physically challenging; our bikes (especially mine with more narrow tires) kept getting stuck in the sand. for a large portion of our time we rode on the narrow shoulder of the trails where the sand was more compacted and the weeds somewhat prevented our tires from rutting into the ground. it was a lot of fun (and miserable at the same time)! on the trails we saw a small armadillo, a baby rattle snake, and super snark saw a deer. on the car ride out of the park, we spotted two large alligators floating in the river—our first alligator sighting since being in florida. that evening we made it down to siesta beach to watch the sunset and we were greeted on the beach by a sandperson family that somebody had built earlier in the day.