Greg & Camille Go Bike

We set out 9:30-ish by retracing our route back north and crossing onto South Hutchinson Island. Everything seemed really clean, well manicured and well planned and we enjoyed cycling through multiple rotaries. There wasn't too much interesting scenery along this stretch with woods on either side again blocking our view of the water, but we did get to share the bike lane with runners participating in some type of event.

We were fighting brutal headwinds at this point and made very slow progress, likely not passing 11 mph along this stretch. After only 20-ish miles, we stopped for snacks and to plan lodging. We foolishly booked a place in Lake Worth, committing us to another 60 miles on the day. It was just after noon at this point and the wind still had us crawling, what were we thinking?

We crossed over a pair of long bridges leaving Hutchinson Island, with the first bridge crossing the intracoastal waterway to a peninsula jutting out south from the mainland. The next bridge immediately followed crossing the St. Lucie River to the rest of the mainland. We followed a mix of sleepy residential and busier commercial roads here. Some of it was nice, like one residential section featuring a thick tunnel of trees. Some of the drivers were not friendly though, frequently ignoring us at crossings where we had the right of way or, in one case, actively shouting curses at us from the cab of a truck.

We felt pretty frustrated biking near the drivers in this area and were excited when we noticed an alternate route going through Seabranch Preserve State Park. The detour ended up being really nice. We were treated to more than a few turtles alongside the path and a nice break from the aggressive drivers.

Just after leaving the park, we had another cyclist pedal up beside us and start chatting. His name was John. We probably talked for at least 30 minutes, first pedaling beside each other as we approached the bridge to Jupiter Island and then stopping just before the bridge for a bit. We talked about our trip of course and he seemed very interested, but he also told us about his own adventures. He'd apparently biked from Florida (near Miami) to Massachusetts with a friend mostly following mountainous routes including the Blue Ridge Parkway! He said they'd averaged well over 100 miles per day the whole way. Wow!

Eventually we said our good byes and pedaled different directions on Jupiter Island. Jupiter Island definitely was picturesque, but the level of obvious wealth was also pretty absurd. There was one mansion with the title "guest house" that was probably as large as anything in the Wilmington area short of the historic Dupont mansions.

It was pretty late in the day by the time we left Jupiter Island and we had a fair amount of distance left to cover. We looked at our options for any kind of shortcut, but nothing appeared to shave more than a couple miles and likely at the expense of safety. We biked a long stretch beside Juno beach, block after block enjoying the excitement of beach goers coming and going at what seemed like a hundred entrances.

The rest of the day actually turned out much better than it could have. Biking through West Palm Beach ended up being a pretty magical experience. For long stretches, we were on multi-use path right along the water's edge. It was a bit dark by this point but we could still make out reflection from nearby lights on the choppy water. Further on, they'd closed off traffic for several blocks and seemed to have some Christmas festivities going on. After leaving West Palm Beach, the rest of our ride was through a heavily residential area organized into a very uniform grid.

We stopped off at Publix for groceries just a mile past the Airbnb then doubled back to arrive around 7 pm. We brought everything into the small but cozy guest suite and enjoyed a tasty dinner of fake chicken nuggets, two kinds of mochi (creme leche & matcha) and veggies/hummus. We watched 14 Peaks to relax. It was an inspiring story and also a great way to relax at the end of a long day.