FL Day 7

Today we decided to put in a longer day- so we could get to Jupiter where we had a real place to stay!! warmshowers.com is a great site- its meant only for touring cyclists to offer/ask for a place to stay while traveling by bike. Lynne- who lives less than 2 miles off route (and from the beach!) had replied to my email that we could stay. Woohoo!!

We ended up doing about 56 miles, just under 5 hours. It was a semi windy day (and with my sail on the back of the bike...) so not the fastest averages.

Funny thing though... we were just a few miles away and Cook yelled at me to stop now and pull over! Which was hard- as we were right on the beach and it was pretty crowded. Turns out one of the wheels on the trailer was starting to fall off! Crap! We thought that it was one of the bolts that tightens the wedge on the wheel... (its a weird design, I won't try to really explain it here!) Turns out that nope- not that at all. It was one of the bearings. It just failed-one of the race prongs that holds the balls in failed- the whole thing started rocking around, and now we needed a new bearing, and eventually a new wheel as the hub had been damaged.

So- why this really sucks- 1. its and odd shape bearing, and the next day when we were looking for the bearings, only 1 bike shop was open in town.
2. The big one! - because the bearing wasn't spinning- it means I was dragging the wheel part of the time. Instead of it spinning freely- somethings it would skid on the tire. Meaning we needed a new tire- and that I had been working MUCH harder than I needed to just to keep rolling. URGH. after a full day of riding, thats the last thing you want to find out- that your effort could have been that much less.....

But the good is that Lynne is a great host! We can't thank her enough for letting us stay with her!! And letting Surly in the house too-even though she couldn't help begging for (what she though was) her share of Lynne's pork.

We ended up staying for 2 nights. The next day, Sunday, was when I spent running around to all sorts of hardwear stores looking for the right bearing. In the end, the one shop that was open actually took the bearings out of another trailer wheel they had on display and installed it for me! Awesome folks, hands down, for getting us back on the road!

This did give us some extra beach time- and since we are officialy at the gulf stream, the water is WARM, BLUE, and CLEAR. Another reason Jupiter is good- the beach closest is the Dog Beach! So no worries about sneaking Surly in anywhere. Dogs everywhere :) (and if youve read/seen Marly and Me, this is the same beach where Marley drank too much salt water and had an accident in the surf....)









Jupiter Island Banyon Trees- yay for shade!