Dunedin Bike Trip

Hi Blog!  Today is Sunday.  Our company has all gone.  It has been a great two weeks visiting with family and friends.  The fifth-wheel feels a little empty right now.  We slept in (thanks to Day Light Savings Time) and took a coffee walk this morning across the street into historic Bayview, home of Bayview Park.  This neighborhood is filled with old homes and 100+ year old live oaks covered in Spanish Moss.  Dave decided this is the house he wants.

I preferred the one at the end of the block with the great views of Old Tampa Bay.

Mr. Egret thinks this is a pretty cool bay, too.

When we ride our bikes, we like to have destinations in mind.  Usually a tourist attraction or a brew pub or sometimes both!  Today was the Dunedin Brewery and the town of Dunedin (summer home of the Toronto Blue Jays).  Google maps put the brewery at about 8 miles from home.  Since Florida is fairly flat, we were there in a flash.  The bike trail went right by the baseball stadium.  We thought about hanging out to catch foul balls, but the competition already scoped out the best spots.  Besides, the beer was calling.  After sampling a few brews and sharing some lunch, we decided to tack on a few miles to the Dunedin Causeway which leads to Honeymoon Island where Madeleine took us birding.  We decided not to re-visit the island just to make sure we had enough "gas" to make it back to the rig.  (After the beers we had, we needn't have worried.)

We took a slightly different route back along the Pinellas Trail from Dunedin all the way into downtown Clearwater.  Once we left Dunedin, the trail was hardly used.  It goes through fairly industrial and depressed part of Clearwater. All together, we logged 23.4 miles with lots of stops along the way.  Here is the Google maps with our route.

We stopped at the "frolf" course and chatted with the local frisbee golf players. They were very disappointed when we told them that we used to play, but gave away our discs when we cleaned out the house. Who knows, maybe we'll take it up again when we have more free time.

We took a little side trip out to the fishing pier.  Who can resist a dad and daughter bonding over bait.

We stopped along the trail to see if we could spot manatees.  No luck.

There are no more pictures since the last part of the ride was straight out Drew Street - a commercial shopping street lined with strip malls.  We just want you to think that this retirement stuff is filled with sunsets, beaches and parks.  There is a darker side to RVing, but that's for another blog.