Cycling Coupon Bight

This morning dawned very chilly - a low of 52F.  We had the electric blanket and space heater on!  Not quite as cold as the Northeast, we know, but still a bit out of the ordinary.  So we had long pants and warm fleeces on for our morning walk.  However, as the sun rose, it warmed us, and got up to 70F, but with winds gusting up to 30 mph.

We did some cleaning inside this morning, and, after a scrumptious lunch of crab cakes, we took off on a bicycle to Coupon Bight, and portions of the Deer Key Wildlife Refuge on the south side of Big Pine Key.

This was the first time we actually biked across the long causeways, because there is very little shoulder and the cars come whizzing by at 55 mph.  With that danger on the left, and the deep blue sea on the right, one doesn't exactly have a sense of security.  Nevertheless, the causeway to Big Pine Key from where we are on Ohio Key is broken up into manageable sections, we were careful, and our ride was uneventful in terms of mishaps.

The landscape today was similar to what we found on No Name Key:  lots of scrub trees, open plains, marshes swamps, some waterholes, and gravels roads and paths made of limestone.  Here is a photo of Kathy leading the way out into the scrub bush:

We were amply rewarded - twice - today.  Our first ride was to the end of Long Beach Drive, which took us out to the end of the land in Coupon Bight Aquatic Preserve.  We saw the following wild scene:

As we pedaled back, we found another back trail that took us out to the beach on the Atlantic Ocean, more on the Southeast than the Southwest side of the spit of land, and it was similar.  However, large stretches were under a dense canopy of overhanging trees, so we had to bend low over our handlebars to cycle along that trail.

After poking around down at Coupon Bight, we stopped at Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge, a small RV park with a store, marina, dock and other attractions.  We bought beers and walked around.  A fisherman was cleaning his catch and, nearby, two pelicans were waiting patiently for the scraps.  Here's one of them:

After our brief rest stop, we biked back up to the Overseas Highway and along the causeways back to our campground.  Kathy saw that the sun was following us and we decided to make a shadow photo of our trip along Route 1:

Happy Trails!