Boating with Sunset Delight: 2020: Jax Rails-to-Trails Bike Ride

15 November 2020

Boat Maintenance Run: 2:15 to 4:00

Distance: 3.5 nm

Conditions: 80+ degrees, 100% humidity

Since we had a rental car and a desire for more bike exercise and sightseeing, we drove to the Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail about 15 minutes from the marina. As we started on our way, we found we had an unexpected and uninvited hitchhiker on the hood of the car.

He managed to hang on until we sped up to 60 mph on Route 295. Then he flew off over the roof of the car never to be seen again.

Part of the Rails-to-Trails program, the amazing trail we visited today is a converted portion of the CSX Railway.

Ready to start exploring the
Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail

After studying the map, we decided on exploring the first leg of the trail. Twelve miles round trip seemed like more than enough for one day.

Leg 1: Imeson Rd to Halsema Rd 5.7 m

Leg 2: Halsema Rd to Town of Baldwin 6.7 m

Leg 3: Town of Baldwin to Brandy Branch Rd. 2.1 m

The trail was busy with people. We saw other bicyclists, joggers, walkers, scooters, and skate boarders.

Nicely paved, mostly flat

Nicely shaded

I played follow the leader all day.

The trail took us under bridges, over bridges, and past farmland. As we passed behind homes, I thought how great it would be to have this trail in my backyard.

Clark sped right by this turtle. I called him back
to take a photo.

"Road" signs on the trail

"Bikeway Narrows" road sign

The trail had mile markers every mile. Knowing I had another 11 miles to go, I wondered how I would manage when my legs were already complaining at mile marker 1. I know from past experience that the first mile is usually the hardest as my body takes time to adjust to exercise. It did not help that the first two miles of the ride seemed to be a continuous, slight grade uphill. It still qualified as "mostly flat", but it was a tough start to the long-for-me, planned ride.

When we finally arrived at the Halsema trailhead, we found a nice picnic / service area. It had picnic benches, water fountains, and even an air compressor and tools for a bike repair station.

Water fountains for tall, short and dog.

Unfortunately, due to corrosion,
it was not too appetizing.

Air pump and bike tire tools

Having biked the 5.7 miles to this point, I told Clark I needed to stop at the rest area before heading back. Besides nice restrooms, we found ourselves a friendly rooster and a side trip to a Civil War Memorial. As we pulled into the area, I heard two women talking about "them" being as friendly as a pet. I wondered who or what they were referring to until a rooster came over to make friends with me.

One woman said, "He's looking for food. Got any treats?" At first I thought, no, and then I remembered that the snack I brought for myself was sunflower seeds, so I pulled out a handful and scattered them around. The rooster readily found each and every seed!

Ever observant, Clark noticed a pathway heading off at an angle from the rest area. He asked a man who had also stopped for a break what was up there, and we found out we could see a Civil War Memorial if we were willing to travel on potentially slippery wooden walkways to get there. He said it was about a mile down the path. Of course Clark wanted to take a look, so we diverted from the main trail to see what we would see.

Lucky for me, the memorial was more like 500 feet down the path instead of 5000! That guy sure had a warped sense of distance (thankfully)! This accidental find turned out to be the most interesting part of the bike ride.

Walkway to the Civil War Memorial

The path led us to a circular area with signs identifying the various flora in the area. Each had a unique,Civil War - related identifier with a blurb on the history of the flora. For example, we saw

Booker T Washington Sycamore
Harriet Beecher Stowe White Ash
Battery Park Live Oak
Andersonville Southern Magnolia
Stonewall Jackson Prayer Oak
Seminary Ridge White Oak
Robert E. Lee Tulip Poplar
Gettysburg Address Honeylocust

Stonewall Jackson Prayer Oak

Gettysburg Address Honeylocust

Camp Milton served as a Civil War fortification and encampment.

Description of Camp Milton

Captured during the war

A major military camp

Also, near this site, we saw The Harvey Farm. More details of this area can be seen at the referenced website.

The Harvey Farm

Twice today my bike tire made unusual noises. The first time the noise was generated by a leaf stuck between the fender and the tire - no biggy. I fixed that problem by rolling the bike backwards a rotation.

The next time I heard noises coming from my front tire, "Pop", followed by "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle", I knew exactly what had happened. A spoke had broken! I called Clark to come back to help as I figured he would know what to do. Surprisingly, he just twisted the broken spoke around a neighboring one, so it would not get jammed up somewhere. We then added the repair to our "to do" list and continued on our way.

Having reached the end of our planned trip (and them some), we started back to the car. Only 5.7 miles to go! Oh yay! Clark was perpetually way ahead of me and happily peddling away. At each of the crossroads we would come to a stop sign, and I would yell, "Clark! Clark! Stoppppp!" Occasionally I needed to stop, stretch my legs and neck, get a drink, and take a deep breath to keep going. My "Energizer Bunny" husband does not ever seem to have a need to take a break.

At one such stop sign, I could hear a plane overhead, and I thought that sounds like a bi-plane. It was not that, but it was a small plane with the pilot doing stunts. We saw the pilot do loops and rotations as the plane passed overhead. Clark got a show, and I got a bit of a rest.

When we got back to the parking lot, I climbed off my bike and dragged myself over to the car. We only had a small snack with us on the trail, so as soon as we got back to the boat, I made lunch. I wanted to take a nap, but part two of today was just starting. We needed to take the boat out for a maintenance run today and a pump out of the holding tank. Since we were already at the fuel dock for the pump out, we decided to fill up the boat with fuel. As I stood watching the dials indicating fuel levels and reports fill amounts to Clark, I felt like I could fall asleep on my feet.

It took an hour at the fuel dock because of all the things we did there. Afterwards, we went for our quick maintenance trip down the Ortega River to the fixed bridge and back. The sights were the same today as on our last jaunt downstream; however, today we had sun instead of cloudy, overcast skies.

For as much as I wanted to take a nap, I did not. After tying up in our slip, I immediately started working on preparing for our car trip home to New Jersey. All thoughts of sleep quickly disappeared as I threw myself into planning mode. After that, I worked on the Blog to be caught up on that before we head north.

I guess the predicted 100% humidity finally became too much and the skies finally opened up and let all that water fall. We had quite a deluge going on for a while. Later, the heavy cloud cover prevented our satellite TV from finding the satellite, so the Hallmark Channel was not an option tonight.