Greg & Camille Go Bike

We woke up at 12:30 am last night for the launch. Our host Kelley had warned us that the area wasn't very safe, but we didn't run into any issues on our walk to Space View Park. The park was full of people along the shore and two docks. A few people had live streams playing on their phones so we could hear dialogue discussing what was going on. At key times leading up to the launch, someone in the crowd would shout out "XXX minutes" to let everyone know. We were glad to be part of the excitement for what seemed like a minor launch.

Leading up to the actual takeoff, we scanned the horizon, not completely certain where the right spot was and thinking maybe there was no way we'd actually be able to see anything. T-minus 10 seconds, the horizon quickly lit up. It was so phenomenally bright, the area around us transformed from a couple patches from street lamps to entirely lit up. Over the next minute, the rocket slowly climbed into the sky. We were so surprised by how long it stayed in sight. Soon, the rocket finally faded away to a tiny speck and vanished.

We'd agreed to a somewhat shorter day than usual, only targeting Melbourne (40-ish miles away). Compared to the schedule originally drafted a couple weeks earlier, we decided to trade a rest day to convert an 80 mile day into two 40 mile days. We chatted with Kelley for a good bit in the morning. Apparently, she was actually from Colorado, and they'd only lived in Alabama for 17 years before moving to Florida. We discussed a bit about politics, the state of the country, and ranked choice voting.

Eventually, we said our goodbyes and set off. Camille's laptop charger had mysteriously stopped working yesterday so we stopped at Target to pick up a replacement. We also got dry sacks to replace the ones lost to raccoons. Next, we stopped at Aldi's where Greg emerged arms completely full of food. Camille went in next for a few more things while Greg started reading an article on raccoons. They really are such fascinating animals.

Both the beginning and end of the ride today weren't particularly enjoyable. We rode largely along the side of highways. There were often dedicated bike lanes, but even when there weren't, we never felt particularly unsafe. That's pretty typical of how we've felt in Florida.

The middle of the day though was absolutely wonderful. We rode along sleepy residential streets right along the shore. Typical suburban neighborhoods lined the road to the west right but the east revealed views of the water water lined with private docks at about the same frequency as the houses. Most docks were empty or had a couple birds perched, but periodically we'd come across a dock completely covered in a mix of several types of birds of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. They were all chattering, sometimes bickering, with each other, and the overall atmosphere seemed so exciting. As we got back on our bikes after probably the fifth time stopping for pictures, we gushed about how wonderful Florida has been and how much it's exceeded our expectations.

Early afternoon, we lunched in Cocoa, Florida at the riverside park. A boat zigzagged over and over in the water nearby, the pilot back at the wheel and his dog at the front. We came up with hypotheses about what he was doing; our favorite was that he was just trying to give his dog a good time. Nearby, a group of children ran back and forth through some fountains blasting water jets up from the ground in a rhythmic dance. Every time they started up again there was a chorus of excitement and a shout of "Yes, Yes, Yes!" from a couple of the boys. It was adorable and Camille was absolutely farwning.

Just before continuing, we booked a place nearby whose reviews claimed they'd seen manatees and dolphins at the waterfront property. On the way, we passed by a fellow biker with a bright red shirt, big round belly, full white beard, and a santa hat over his helmet. We're pretty sure he had some boxes bungied to his back rack. He gave us a high pitched "hi".

En route to the AirBNB, we stopped off once more for groceries just as the sun was setting. We briefly sat outside once we arrived, but it was a bit buggy. We cooked some microwave pizza (woops there wasn't an oven like we thought) and watched the latest episode of Wheel of Time. Afterwards, we had some more computer time but turned in for the night at a pretty reasonable hour.