I woke up at 6 and stretched until sunrise. My tent opened to about a million “no-see-ums,” and I hopped on my bike and tried to outrun those little suckers while snapping a few shots of sunrise. Got a couple: Didn’t know I was sleeping next to a massive mirror:

I was about to lose whatever mind I had left slapping at those little bugs when I ran into the bathroom. I met a guy in there who laughed and said that the only real cure is the wind. They are so small that they just get blown away. As soon as the sun rises enough where the air gets moving, I’d be fine.

I wasn’t fine at the time. At this point, I was in all the cold gear I had left for protection from their bites–long sleeve shirt, sweatpants, winter hat. I already stunk, so I kept them on and sweated through breaking camp.

The wind finally did start blowing, and my bathroom acquaintance was right: fortunately, those little gnats loosened up a bit. Unfortunately, the wind was coming from the west: yet another headwind. But I didn’t care–at least it would get those little effers off of me. I finished up and hit the road west.

My good friend, Matt Reed, has a place in Isla Morada, and he gave me a solid itinerary on what to do in those parts. He was originally planning on joining me for this last leg and to show me first hand, but he couldn’t swing it with work. That was a bummer, but maybe that means I’ll just have to do this part again.

Matt and I swam together since we were five years old. We got pretty good for a while there, and one of our favorite racers to emulate was sprinter, Gary Hall, Jr. This is where he trained for Athens. Not a bad choice: I’ve found this part of the country to be a great place to go through some physical pain.

There’s about 47 bridges to cross before getting to Key West. I think this one was the Whale Harbor Bridge, with Isla Morada’s Tiki Bar in the background.

As soon as you get to other side of this bridge, there’s a road you can take that will parallel US 1. Well, as soon as I did that, I popped a tire. Was Route 1 a little jealous? Probably. But at the time, I felt like I needed to see other roads.

I had myself a Popped Tube Picnic and then kept rolling through town. Somehow, I not only missed the bar that was a landmark Matt described, but I also missed his entire neighborhood altogether. There’s about five roads on this island chain, but I never cease to amaze myself.

I crossed another bridge and I noticed a pretty cool-looking spot on the other side. Matt had mentioned a great place to have a beer, Robbie’s. I didn’t believe him, so I went in to see for myself.

He hit the nail on the head. The place was awesome, and it had great food. Some of the patrons were a little nosey, though.

Gets a little crowded inside, so these guys decided to enjoy lunch on some other guy’s boat:

Then I thought I was going to see my first shark attack:

Turns out those aren’t sharks, they’re tarpon, and the pelicans are nastier than they are. Here they are fighting over my attention (food):

After a nice relaxing lunch and a beer, I decided to keep trucking. It looked like there was a campground about 20 miles down the road. The wind was still in my face, but I had plenty of time before sundown.

I didn’t consider the second popped tube. I had gone about two weeks without popping a tube, and now I had two in the same day. Not the most efficient day of the trip.

I decided to call ahead to the campground to see what their hours were. The lady was very nice and then she went on to tell me that they had one site left for the night. It was first come, first serve. I had about 12 miles to go and still needed to change my tube. Stress level increased a bit.

At the last second, I mentioned I was on my bike. She then told me that because I was biking, they actually could hold a spot for me. Turned out luck was on my side after all. Their “high season” is this time of year, and I would soon learn how important it was for me to plan ahead. No more winging it everyday.

I pulled my bike into a little marina and blasted some tunes as I changed tubes. I went inside to buy some water from the nice lady because it looked like I had a pretty deserted stretch until Marathon. Half an hour later, we were still chatting about storms, tides, sailing, and bike shops. She was super nice and said if I popped another tube, she’d drive me to the campground. I was out of tubes, so I kept her number as a real possibility.

Fortunately, I made it to camp. Right at dusk. The site was made for an RV, so I would be sleeping on gravel for the second night in a row. I had to be extra gentle rolling around on my lung-blown air mattress.

There was a storm rolling through and the wind was still hummin, so the no-see-ums were being blown away from yours truly. That was nice. I pitched up and found a great little spot to enjoy dinner. While my Ramen was cooking, I ran back and put up the rain fly.