Cool pictures Gavush ..... I need to take more pictures.....

Got a ride in Sat. Friend and I decided to go check out the progress being made on the Palatka Lake Butler trail. They started the process of paving a 4 mile section from Grandin (SR315 & SR100) north towards Keystone Heights. I know we weren't supposed to be riding that section.... but it was a sat and no work going on. The first couple of miles going north all they had done was the black barrier stuff up. The last couple of miles they had it graded and even had the limestone base down for a bit (the last stage before paving I think). What I didn't know was that this 4 mile section is going to connect to the the already paved section coming out of Keystone Heights. It will be close to 10 miles of paved trail in about 4 months. Not only that but when you get to Keystone you can take another 6mile long paved trail up to Golds Head State Park. It will be a nice ride when I get in shape enough to do the whole thing (working on that now LOL). The trail head south of Keystone has bathrooms, drinking fountain, playground, tennis court & places to sit and take a load off for a bit... Can you tell I'm excited?? lol

Anyway... We got to the trail at about 6pm .... Still really hot out but the clouds were moving in. The first couple of miles on the non paved part were really good riding with the rocky railroad base. But then we hit the section that they had started working on.... Packed or semi-packed sand, got my heart pumping lol. By the time we hit the paved Keystone section the temps must have dropped 15deg .... We rode to the north end of the trail to where the pavement stopped and turned back. We thought about cheating and riding SR100 back where the trail was all sandy.... but we didn't.. It started raining about 5 minutes from the end of the ride. Great ride.... 19.99 miles all together but it felt longer with the sand and trail riding. Took us almost exactly 2hrs.... (yep 10mph all together)..