St. Augustine

Phil just sent out a nice photo of the group dipping our bikes in the ocean from yesterday.

And one of Alisha and Mitch swimming.

My original plan was to have my bike box shipped to St. Augustine and then pack the bike on the day after the ride and take it back on the plane with me.

Packing the bike in the box is hard. It takes me about 3 hours to pack and about the same to unpack. The process is messy, and I ended up with a small amount of breakage, my tail light mount broke due to negligent packing. I also ended up with some other bits of damage including some bent cables which affected how the bike performed. Plus I still incurred the cost of shipping the box back home.

There would also have been the cost of shipping it to St. Augustine. About a week ago I decided that I would have a bike shop pack it up for me and have it shipped home. The cost of the bike shop packing is $50. Then there is the cost of shipping. I'm not sure of an exact price, but it will likely be between $150 and $200. I will know more in a day or so when the shipper contacts me.

So today consisted of dealing with the final logistical issues.

1) I need a ride to the airport. Alisha is on the same flight I am on and Jim is going to fly out tomorrow so a shuttle will pick us up at 6AM. Alisha made the arrangements and we will split the cost. Which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 total.

2) Check-in online for my flight. I got in the A group on Southwest so I'm happy.

3) Obtain a duffel bag so I can distill my stuff down to 2 carry ons and 2 checked bags. I rode down to Target where I bought a duffel bag that will do the job.

4) Drop my bike off at the shop. Since I rode past the bike shop on the way to getting my duffel bag I dropped my bike off on the way back. The bag has wheels so I stuck my helmet and other miscellaneous items that were attached to my bike in it and walked the mile and a half back pulling the bag.

5) Pack things up. When we got back to the Pirate Haus Mitch was in the middle of packing up the group gear and Jim and I were ready for lunch so I postponed packing.

We went to lunch at a pub that I had spotted earlier and had fish and chips. It was the biggest piece of cod I've ever seen taking up most of the plate. While I can't substantiate the claim that it is the best fish and chips in town with definitive sampling, it was definitely good. I'm not sure it was the best I've ever had, but it certainly was in the running. So while the claim remains unsubstantiated, the fish and chips at the The Prince of Wales in St. Augustine is very good.

After having a couple of brews and food we walked on over to the Castillio de San Marcos and looked at it.

We also spotted Max there with somebody he knows.

As we were leaving it started to rain. Shortly after we got back to the Pirate Haus it started coming down very hard.

When we got back the box with the Jerseys that we had ordered with left over group funds had finally arrived so I now have a southern tier jersey to wear.

I got my stuff packed into the required number of bags.

Max just got back from taking his bike to the shop. He got caught in the rain.

Hal was riding to Jacksonville to catch a train home. He was apparently waiting out the storm on the porch of a church from his last report.