North Marion and Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail Bike Rides, March, 2010

Paynes Prairie State Park has become quite a jewel among the many great parks in Florida’s treasury. All evidence of the 2004 hurricanes has disappeared and the mature forest creates an atmosphere of being at higher latitudes than the familiar Central Florida environs. Many of us ended up in the “walk-in” wooded sites since the popularity of this campground makes it difficult to capture a vacancy unless one is planning 10 weeks in advance. But these walk-in tent pads have their advantage of nearly being away from normal car camping. Whether cycling on-road or off-road or hiking, Paynes Prairie has it all.

Friday night, Carol, Laurel, Sandy, Dennis and myself made our way to Cross Creek, about 9 miles away to have dinner at the famous Yearling Restaurant. “Can’t judge a book by its cover” is definitely the theme of this roadside hodgepodge of an eating establishment. Never the less, the food was great all around. Good “suther-en” stuff like collard greens, field peas, fried catfish, frog legs, and fried green tomatoes (which by the way, taste like tomatoes with fried batter). We honor Dennis in his special find of a blonde hair in the fried mushrooms. The waiter was all over that with free appetizers and free

beverages including some serious beverages if you know what I mean. The place is well known for its weekend entertainment of various sorts. But in a 16 by 24 foot side room with only 3 table settings, 300 watts of amplified acoustical playing and wailing was too much to talk over. Back at the park, the evening was topped off with some of us gathering at Sonia and Mabel’s campfire and the chitchat that ensued.

The morning was a present to be opened as the clear skies and very cool air would define a perfect cycling day. This year, the route had been moved further south of McIntosh, so we drove our bikes to the McIntosh community center parking lot from which we will disembark. Sandy, Sonia and Mabel hung back at the park to do some hiking and off-road cycling; while Dennis, Laurel, Carol and myself were the road riders for the day.

The start of the trip took us up a long grade on U.S. 441 until we could overlook Orange Lake. It was an “introductory” hill, one of many for the day. Funny, it did not seem that steep when I drove it in the car. Once

off the not too busy highway, we were back in the farmland and wooded acres that is distinctly north Marion County. But it was more than just the horse farms, one right after another, but the exotics too. The emu, the mules and donkeys, the llamas and alpacas. Then the really weird, the zebras, the onyx, the gazelles and the most bizarre of all, three Chihuahuas chasing after us like a pack of ferocious Dobermans. It would have been a sad affair if we accidently ran over one and killed it.

Although there were little complaints, I did feel obligated to remind everyone after the repetition of the grueling push up another hill – that “it was the last one on the route”. This particular route chosen did turn out to have numerous hills, a lot more than the last 2 years. However, I am particularly fond of hills and overall, everyone seemed up to the challenge. Funny, it did not seem that hilly when I drove the route in the car last December. The “brainy” remark of the trip was when we were paused at an intersection and about 80 feet away was a farmhand mowing the entranceway to a huge horse farm using a weed whacker of sorts. We ended up just hanging around, I think talking about the Chihuahuas when after about a couple of minutes of hearing this pulsating grind of the weed whacker going back and forth along the roadway, it was then that Dennis said, “You think a place of that

size could afford a lawnmower”. You had to be there to see it all in perspective, but just one of life’s funny observations.

The day remained beautiful and the temperatures were very comfortable. The fresh sprigs of growth on the trees had heightened the color. I think the route was better on a bike than in a car. There was barely any traffic to contend with and the scenery special. There was one place I did my best to convince the group that there was a mountain ridge on the other side of that valley before us, but they were not buying it. The pitfall of such back road finds; where no cars are to be contended with, is the fact that the road surface is often poor. This year it was especially poor – lots of road patches and holes not patched. It might be an indication of the economics too. Governments stretched thin on dollars; so road-resurfacing jobs are stretched out into the future. But we all survived and in general, it was a good challenge, especially all those darn hills.

In our typically casual fashion we came dragging back to camp sometime around 3:00 or 3:30. That’s 35 miles at 5 hours, that tells you something about the kind of riding we do. We are out there to enjoy it. The cycling part was the excuse to be out in the middle of nowhere on a gorgeous day, all day. And to top it all off, we had a

community dining fest, like last night wasn’t enough, where Laurel works herself up into a frenzy of gourmet style dishes. Overall, there was net weight gain for the day. The evening campfire burned bright until most of us turned in shortly after 10 with the expectation of another day of riding.

That subsequent day of riding did not materialize, as I was awakened right at 6:10 with the ever so slow tap of light raindrops on my tent fly. Within the hour, I had it all packed in the car and by 9:00, the 4 of us were huddled under Dennis’ canopy that covered his picnic bench as the rain pour forth. Meandering conversation ended about 10 when we all hopped in our cars and drove home; except for Dennis who really wanted to stay an extra day.

Thanks for the memories guys!

Host: Clark Getz

North Marion and Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail Bike Rides, March, 2009

Good weather, good routes, good scenes, and best of all, good friends to make for a great weekend. For four of us, we camped both Friday and Saturday nights at Paynes Prairie State Park. This park has recovered wonderfully since the 2004 hurricanes and makes for one of the best parks in the state system in terms of woodland environs.

Sandy, Dennis and Becky joined Laurel, Carol, Sonia and Clark on Saturday morning at the campground parking. It was a long sleeve, crystal clear, down right cool morning with an expected steady northeast breeze. This setting couldn’t get much better as we made our way out of the park, a short jaunt down 441 and on into Micanopy.

The back roads were expectedly empty of traffic offering constant opportunity to have conversation. We stopped at the Evinston General Store where Laurel bought a T-shirt and Sandy some honey. Though there were no takers on the 11-pound cabbage. We were all intrigued by the square cut nails in the true shutters out on the sittin’ porch. The building dates back to 1880’s

This year’s route excluded the limestone back road into MacIntosh. We found ourselves back out on 441 for a short distance with generous bike lanes. We jig sawed our way through the streets of MacIntosh directly to the clean and attractive restrooms down by the fish camp of Orange Lake. Dennis was so impressed with the public restrooms that he invited all the gals into the spacious male-only sanctum to check out the décor. We had lunch at the McKoone-Hopwood “mini park” right next to the post office.

We headed west into the horse farm country and the hills of the very northern stretches of Marion County. There was so much country, that it conjured up thoughts of “why do I live in the city?” I like to think that this is some of Florida’s most scenic bike riding. When you can be transformed to the point that you believe you have left the state and have left all modern time behind, it creates a desirable illusion, but in fact, it is actually vividly real.

We had plenty of stopping time and talking time. Everyone was enjoying the experience and the fact that we were not breaking time records was all the more proof we were deeply engaged in conversation and taking in of the present.

We stopped at the historic and tourist mobbed hamlet of Micanopy for ice-cream and even shopped a bit. We got back to camp before 3 PM. Somewhere along the way, the wind was at our face, but we can’t recall it being the menace forecasted during departure. The extra riding jackets eventually came off, but the weather held in the low 70’s. Aren’t you envious of this ideal bike trek?

After we all washed and took a little rest, we reconvened for our group dinner. Sandy, Dennis and Becky heading out to get home before dark, the four of us stood before this spread of food that would feed twice as many. But that did not stop me from eating like I had to leave no leftovers. Such a great combination of foods and once that green wood caught ablaze, we settled into a long evening of conversation.

Sunday morning the four of us were on time and ready to pull out as we drove about 25 minutes to Hawthorne, a small town east of Gainesville on U.S. 301. This year we would start at the Hawthorne trail head and work our way west to Gainesville. The flat rails-to-trails ride was a welcome after yesterday’s long ride.

The trail was entirely canopied with fresh spring green. Oak leaves dotted the trail in places. The sweetgum, oaks, willows and the occasional pine covered the scenery. The trail did not afford the openness of the prior day’s ride, but the smooth and consistent roadbed free of traffic made for a speedier pedal.

At about mile 5 (starting somewhere are mile 16), the trail breaks from the old railroad bed and winds its way through the northern-forested hills prior to rising up to some open grassy spaces. When we got to the Alachua overlook spur, we took it down to the wooden overlook that peers out upon the Alachua plain. We snacked and decided that the trip at this point was satisfying. We took off and headed back to complete about a 26-mile ride.

The excitement for the trip was watching a young speeding cyclist blow through a country road crossing at better than 20 miles an hour while watching an SUV traveling a least 55 mile per hour have to swerve to miss the rider by a few feet. Whoa, that was close and crazy.

Epilogue: This year’s trip was just as enjoyable and relaxing as last year’s. It’s probably going to be an annual event. There is no better way to escape the daily grid and a place that finds you transformed into a world of beauty and awe. Thank you friends for so much relaxation and great conversation.

Host: Clark Getz

North Marion and Gainesville-Hawthorne Trial 2-Day Cycling Event

This 2-day cycling event was based out of Panyes Prairie State Park near Micanopy Florida. The participants were Dennis (DeLand), Carol (Ocala), Laurel (Orlando) and Regina (Clearwater) and was hosted by Clark (Orlando). Everyone arrived by Friday evening. We had an after dark campfire until fairly late.

Saturday morning we gathered at the Park's campground overflow parking lot as our point for departure. Dennis was a "pro" at tuning and fixing bikes for which a couple needed repairs before our road adventure. We started out of the park with temperatures in the low 70s' under clear blue skies. In general, the travel was very casual, and often times we had full command of the car-less roads and were able to ride two abreast making conversation easy. Outside of Micanopy we saw llama. We stopped at the old post office / general store in Evinston. We chose a "road less seen" on our back-route into McIntosh. We rode down to the fish camp that over looked Orange Lake, a large lake that is slowly drying up. We found a shaded picnic table in the town center at McIntosh and had and shared our lunch among the stately homes of the quiet small town.

From McIntosh we headed west into the horse farm country traveling hilly roads that rarely had a car go by. A good section of the farm-land route was on rough Macadam paving which caused a bit of grumblings

from the riders, but the scenery was beautifully unique, all the trees bright green and in fresh spring foliage. At mile 20 we headed further west into even more remote roads with comments - "Are we going to the Gulf". But at mile 25 we started heading back east directly into Micanopy. The three-quarters of a mile section starting at the I-75 interchange and east until the Micanopy cut-off became quite congested and full of impatient drivers, that was the worst of the whole trip. Most of us stopped at the Micanopy Café and got ice cream or a sandwich, but most importantly, a 30-minute rest. The 2-mile ride on back to camp was a cinch after our fine break; but the temperatures were possibly in the mid 80's. We arrived back at about 3:30 with a little more than 32 miles behind us; we all headed for the showers to get the grit off and rested for a couple of hours before our group dinner.

We had planned a community dinner, gathering at the lake pavilion rather than at the noisy campground. Because of significant rains and probably "that time of year", the mosquitoes were ferocious; however, Dennis had every sort of bug-away device known to mankind that allowed us to eat in peace. Each person supplying a different dish of their own: there were flaming chicken tacos, fresh cut fruit, an

antipasto that was a feast in itself, chili on chips and Dennis had picked up the best home-made pecan pie from the country store just up the road. We had such a good time together and pigged-out for so long it was nearly 8:30 when we got cleared out and back to camp where an exhausted team hit the sack immediately.

On Sunday we met at the Park's overflow parking again, except for Carol as she had such a bad sunburn on her legs she did not sleep well and did not feel comfortable enough to ride. The four of us caravanned our cars about 20 minutes into the southern fringes of Gainesville and to the trail head for the Gainesville-Hawthorne trail ride. The sky had a low cloud overcast, the temperature slightly less than 70 and a mild eastward breeze. The Hawthorne trail was also a very beautiful ride. It was a bit hilly at the very beginning, but we kept a modest pace for all that had some aches from yesterday's ride. We rode a couple of the spurs that overlooked the Alachua Sink (the near dry lake that makes up Panyes Prairie). We saw no wild horses, nor buffalo that roam freely in the state sanctuary.

I would give the Hawthorne trail high grades for its scenery and bike-riding pavement; except for the mosquitoes that would begin their attack the second you stopped. . As each of us had enough of riding, we individually "peeled" off and headed back on our own. It was a case that as each felt comfortable with the distance traveled, we made the trip back solo; which ranged from 11 miles to the entire length at about 36 miles total.

Epilogue:

I personally think that both rides had exceptional scenery not typically found south of Ocala and the scenery was important to me in putting this ride together. The Saturday ride especially had variety and challenges. Even though there was considerable descriptive detail regarding the ride on the explorecp website, my initial and advertised rating of "Moderate" was not on the mark, as I think the majority of the folks would have definitely rated it as "Strenuous" and I would agree. Under such a rating, it would be possible that I would have ended up with a different set of participants or none-at all. But even with the extra aches and pains of the Saturday ride, the 2 trips created good memories, a peek at some untouched Florida beauty and some new friendships.

On March 1, a group of Wilderness Trekkers joined a group of Florida Trail Association members for a ranger led backpacking trip in Paynes Prairie. We had made reservations earlier because there is a limited number of ranger guided trips each year. This is mentioned because of the restricted number of ranger led hiking/ camping excursions permitted each year. Each hiker/camper must provide their own provisions. We met Ranger Nathan on Saturday morning; he guided us and gave background of the prairie. Paynes Prairie is a 21000 acre state preserve, its tall coarse grasses and few trees provided a lovely spring time excursion. This was the site of the earliest “Floridians” settlement as 10,000 years ago Alachuan forebears settled here. Currently there are bison (not observed), wild horses (reintroduced in the 70s) and 200 species of birds. We camped on a horse travel lane and in the evening at the campfire one of the FL Trail Assoc. people communicated with the owls which prompted the wolves to commence their evening howl. The short Sunday morning trek culminated in visiting historic buildings on site. Highly recommended hike, make contact in advance.