Trippin' with Susan Straley

Greetings from the shade of my kitchen in Inverness, Florida, In two weeks Steve and I are flying to NY to watch the solar eclipse and visit his family.  This weekend they got seven inches of snow!   I can't remember if I purged my winter boots when I was cleaning out my storage or if they are stored up in Steve's attic.  I guess I will have to do some searching before I buy a pair.  We might even do some skiing or snow showing in the Adirondacs while we are there! As you can tell from the title of this post, we made it home from our bicycle ride.  I apologize to Steve, as I did not spend a lot of time planning this trip, I guess. And our motels turned out to be a lot further apart than I had expected.  We didn't always follow the Google path.  So we had three days in a row of higher than planned days.  50-ish.  And me on a new-to-me bike seat.  Let's just say, the pain made me wonder at times why I ever thought this would be fun. Steve was a great sport, though.  A rea

 Greeting from Lake Mary, Florida, Last night after I wrote to you, Steve and I walked the side walk and trail to the Honeysuckle.  There we ate dinner.  Bruce will be glad to know we broke our streak of bad luck picking places to dine.  This was yummy.  With spicey green beans, cornbread, black-eyed peas, steamed cabbage, and sweet potato tots for me and catfish and cheezy grits for Steve,   home style southern cooking. When we arrived back at the B&B it was all lit up.  Nice! I use Google maps with the bicycle level turned on to map our rides.  Most the time the routing is spot on.  But I had a hunch when we got to the end of the Spring To Spring Trail, that it was putting us on the road when it didn't need to.  But that was later in the day, let me start from the beginning.  We departed shortly after sunrise. It was a cold morning but by 9 am we were starting to peel off a layer. We encountered a group of cyclists doing another ride we want to do, the River to Sea Loop.  The

 Greetings from Mims, Florida. We got a late start on the drive over to Titusville.   I had Physical Therapy This morning ending after 10.  Then I had to go home, pack the last minute stuff and empty the trash and change clothes.  Then I drove through Inverness to go pick up Steve and his bike. Bruce was already at my place by the time we got back.  I had moved our meeting time to 12:30 and still it was tight.  But no matter, Bruce was relaxed and going with the flow. I had picked out a restaurant along the way to get lunch in Orlando.  It had outdoor seating and served breakfast all day.  But at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday they were packed.  We waited but didn't get waited on so we drove down the road a piece to Wendy's.  I ordered an apple pecan salad.  When it arrived it had chicken on it.  Lol.  They fixed it and told me they always put chicken on that salad.   We arrived in Titusville around 4:00.  Loaded up our bikes and went to the water front before heading to M

This was written several days ago, but I just discovered on 3/23/24 that my email program wasnt notifying my friends and family and fans!  What a bummer!   If you rely on the emails, and you want to know what has been going on since December, go to the archives at www.susanstraley.com and look up January and February posts.  I have been having some good times! But this is about a few days ago when we were about to depart on a bicycle tour... *** 3/20/2024 Greetings from Inverness, Florida I am up early.  I can't sleep.  I wanted to write a short note to you and some other important stuff. We will see if I can keep it short, LOL. Today, a friend is driving my truck and Steve and I and our bicycles to Titusville, Florida over on the East Coast (east of Orlando). Bruce (our triking friend) will drop us off and Steve and I will start riding back toward my Weeroll in Inverness via (mostly) the Coast to Coast Trail.  The Coast to Coast Trail isn't completed yet, so we will be riding

Greetings from Inverness, Florida. For those of you reading this in the future, in this week in time, the Republican primary elections are underway.  Donald Trump vs Nikki Haley are in a race to be the nominee for the Republican candidate for President in 2024.   Birders are talking about an absense of the normal amount of birds at their feeders.  Someone said an unusual circling of red-headed ducks was observed over the Mackinaw Bridge in Michigan. The period of inflation following COVID has slowed way down to almost normal levels, unemployment is down to about 4%, and the murder rate is down.  That is all good news. In Florida we have had a long stretch of colder weather and cloudy skys.   When the sun came out today with temps in the 50's 60's and 70's, we were very happy. The picture below was taken on a ride on a day when the temps were between 45 and 55 during our ride. We were pretty bundled up with long underwear and layers.  We joked that folks up north, experienci

 Happy Thanksgiving!  I am grateful for you, friends and fans and fun folks.  Life is much much easier when surrounded by support, love and laughter.   I have been telling myself to write to you, I knew it had been awhile.  I just looked at my last blog, it was short and was dated September 23, 2023!    I said I was going to write you again in November, and it is the day before Thanksgiving.  Yay, I made it! My excuse for the long delay is traveling south and then reconnecting and having fun in Inverness, FL.  I also have been using writing time to dabble at writing book three.  Don't hold your breath, it appears that doing fun things with friends has a higher priority. You'd want to shoot me if I tried to tell you all that happened between then and now. Last I wrote I was still at Steve's New York home.  Remember, we had decided not to do the GAP and C&O Trail ride because it just seemed to be too much for the time we had available.  His mom was in rehab after having a