Palatka to Astor

January 27, 2016

Rain! Lots of it. And coming down heavy. And predicted to last most of the morning but dropping off in the afternoon.

We woke relatively early but only made our way to breakfast around 8:00 o'clock. We lingered there till 9:00, filling ourselves at the open buffet. We were only doing 46 miles today and didn't have to push off early after all!

Heavy rain in the parking lot of our hotel shortly after 8:00 AM. We were on our way to breakfast and in no rush to ride in this!

From the restaurant window, we had a good view of the river and watched as the fog rolled in!

The fog was not encouraging. I had made sure my light system was fully charged and dressed with a long-sleeve jersey and my yellow rain jacket. And then, miraculously, it stopped. We pushed off in damp weather and wet pavement, but no rain! So we looped around the block so we would have a signal to make our left turn onto US 17 and cross the St Johns River.

Up and over the St Johns River for the fifth and last time! And the rain had stopped!

I love to get other cyclists in my pictures, but you need to be quick! Even with the hill, Happy made some distance from me by the time I snapped that picture. Of course, I had it wrapped tightly in anticipation of the rain, which might still return . . . but actually never did.

Once over the bridge, you actually enter East Palatka. We were headed south for Astor but needed to head east first to get the best route. That meant retracing about 1-1/2 miles of yesterday's ride. Not a big deal, and all went well until our first turn south onto a very muddy, wet road! I had scoped out the route in advance and knew we had some challenging roads but missed this one. No big deal here, we just diverted to FL 207, only one block away, and followed it to our ultimate goal, Old San Mateo Road.

And the road taken . . . this bridge even had brick pavers with what appeared to be engraved names of the donors.

Old San Mateo Road was a nice ride. It clearly (by name at least) was the "old" way to get to Palatka before US 17 was built, and of course, the preferred route for us on bikes! Once in San Mateo, however, we found a second muddy dirt road that we also easily re-routed around. It's unfortunate that Google does not have a feature that identifies all-weather versus unimproved roads so that when routing for different modes of travel!

Another untaken road. You have to watch that Google routing!

All it meant really was us entering the US 17 corridor about a half mile sooner than we planned. But I already knew we would be spending more time on US 17 than our planned route showed, as I knew about other unimproved roads we would need to bypass, and they were not far away.

So we were on US 17, which both of us had ridden in Georgia when we did the East Coast together. But this section was better, as Florida believes in shoulders and bike lanes, so while I knew the road would be busy, I also knew we would have a dedicated place to ride. The only hiccup occurred when we hit a section under construction to be widened to four lanes. The contractor had placed barrels on the shoulder of the southbound lane, which encroached a bit on our available pavement. But amazingly, no horn blowing, and traffic gave us substantial room when passing.

And it wasn't all heavy traffic and suburbia. There were nice views as well, and they got better the further south we went.

US 17 . . . not the best but not the worst. It will get you there, particularly with nice shoulders.

And we were now getting into parts of Florida that do not look like the Florida we know!

The original planned route had us far off to the east using local residential roads to get us south, but my research showed about 10 miles of it were unimproved, so we stuck to US 17. The further south we rode, the more rural it became, and traffic dissipated as well. And then there were the odd finds like this:

We even found a short section of (rough) trail to ride.

That did not last as long as I would have liked, but it did lead us into Pomona Park. From there, we pushed on to Crescent City, hoping to find lunch, but to no avail. However, as we headed out of town and stopped at a convenience store where we got some good advice on a barbeque place just across the Volusia County line . . . and there it was:

Unfortunately, no ribs today. Tomorrow! We got fried fish and chicken wings instead. Good food!

After getting our fill, we had only six more miles on US 17 before our turn-off onto the "back way" into Astor and our last ten miles for the day.

Finally off US 17. It has done its job, and it's time to move on!

The railroad crossing was easily traversed (we had been following it the length of US 17). The roads behind it were much nicer:

The only remaining challenge was the last stretch of unimproved road, about four miles through a state forest. But my "research" on Google Maps gave me the impression these were well-maintained roads and would be bikeable . . . in good weather. As it were, we hadn't had rain since we left Palatka . . . and after taking an hour for lunch, it was already 2:30 or so, and any rain that had fallen that morning had likely drained off. We didn't have a choice anyway, as it was the only way through unless we backtracked to US 17 . . . and that is not my style if I can avoid it!

Our introduction to the Lake George State Forest.

On the road, mostly hard-packed sand that drained well. There were areas of some loose sand, but it was easy to find a solid track. And there was no rutting or ponding water!

Once on US 40, I was only 1/2 mile from the motel and near the, yes, St Johns River. I guess I was wrong. We will cross it again, just on a different road!

Arrival at our motel . . . at the foot of this bridge over the St Johns River . . . and our route out of town tomorrow.

Today's ride

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Today's ride: 47 miles (76 km)
Total: 1,019 miles (1,640 km)

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