I woke up nice and early again.

The other roommates: Pete stayed up til like 5 again. This was his “chill” night. Spent another evening charming women with his Kiwi accent. No chance was he going to be awake anytime soon.

Then there was the 55 year-old skinny/fat bald Indian man. When I retired for the night, way earlier than everyone else (at like 10:30),  I opened the door and turned on the lights. I jumped after I saw a guy sleeping mummy-style with his bald, fleshy head poking out of the sheets. After I realized it was a human, I turned the lights off and felt my way to bed. In the morning, I noticed that he was super skinny, but then he had his huge pot belly. Both that night and early the next morning, I barely kept it together just watching the guy. I don’t know why I thought he was so funny. He was up at like 6:30 and I never saw him again.

Then there was that one kid who was kinda weird. After I had haggled my dinner down to a $15 wrap (from the original $16), I was roaming South Beach and saw him roaming around, too. He definitely saw me wave but he ignored me. Then he came a’tumbling in at like 3:30 and flicked the lights on. He kept them on for like 15 minutes as he made his bed.

And finally, I still don’t know what happened to Benjamin. Maybe I do.

I quietly began my packing process until the free breakfast was served. I grabbed a bagel, a bunch of oranges and bananas and hit the beach. I did an abridged beach workout, then I jumped in the water and air dried. I headed back to the hostel to finish packing my gear. By now it was about 10, and everyone was gone except Pete who was still sleeping above my bed. I tried to wake him to say goodbye, but after two tries, I bailed.

I hit the road, headed for Key Largo, 65 miles away. Getting out of South Beach was a little tougher than expected. The first bridge to the mainland was a straight up highway. I was gonna try and charge through it, but it got hairy quick so I turned around. The next bridge inland was like 6 miles north. I got to it pretty quick–the wind was kickin’ at like 15 mph straight from the south. After my northerly leg to the bridge, I’d be riding into that all day. Great.

I finally made it into the city and went immediately into survival mode. The sidewalks were a mess so I’d try and stay in the streets, but there was no room for error. Did more kickin off the curb than pedaling. It was cool to see the huge skyscraper style buildings right on the water though. I had forgotten to charge the GoPro, so I blew it on pictures.

I made it out to the other side okay, and then I hopped on US 1 heading south. The rest of the day was spent on that road. The wind was brutal; I was barely holding 12 mph.

I met my first fellow Key West-bound biker, Lucius. He went a completely different route with his rig. The thing was a big, thick bike with the fattest wheels I’d ever seen. He weighed it down with what he said was about 100 pounds of gear, all in saddle bags. He refused to clip in and he didn’t wear gloves. He was coming from Northwest Florida and was thinking about doing the perimeter of the state. He was down to 200 bucks though. Nice guy, and I rode with him for a while. Old Lucius, mid-story:

Then I realized I needed to really pick it up if I wanted to make Key Largo by sundown. Because of my a late start, slow going out of the city, and serious headwind to battle, hanging with Lucius was not helping me to gain any ground.

So I split from him and kept on truckin. At 4 o’clock, I made the slight bend on US 1 from heading southwest to directly south. As soon as I made the turn, I knew it was bad. The wind was really driving from the south at this point (typical for this time of day). I was going nowhere and I was getting more and more tired.

I knew my last stretch was going to be on a tight bridge to Key Largo, and I had heard that there was no where to rehydrate, refuel, or pull off to get sleep. I also had no desire to do it in the dark. So I made the last minute decision to call that hostel in Florida City that the park ranger had told me about way back in Sebastian Inlet.

The place is awesome. Talk about “granola.” Hippie heaven with a really cool feel. It was an eclectic group this night, and I enjoyed dinner with a squad from all over the world.

Then I met up with a few Aussies who are touring the US. We chatted about surfing, their time here, my time over there, and they were super cool. I found out they’d be in DC right as I was returning home. Looking forward to playing tour guide in a little bit.

Then I hopped in last minute on a tour of the Everglades. I went with an Italian girl named Claudia and a guy from Hong Kong. Also joining us was Lee, from China, and she was on her vacation from a semester at Duke’s medical school. She said it was pretty easy.

The tour guide was wild. Literally. You could tell he was in his element, and he handed out four flashlights and we hit the trail. We were literally getting eaten alive by mosquitos for the first ten minutes, so we went back to the van to grab the bug spray.

We saw a few snakes, none were the poisonous snakes in the area: water moccasins, coral snakes, or diamondbacks.

Then we saw this 10 ft long Burmese python. That was a little unnerving, especially since I had debated sleeping on the side of the road that night. We also saw a bunch of gators. He taught us how to hold the flashlight up by your eye so when it bounces off their orange/red reflectors in their eye, you’ll see them.

On the way home, I almost fell asleep on Lee’s shoulder, fortunately I kept it together until I got to my room. But I think I was out before my head even hit the pillow.