Biding Our Time

Jeff and I are in a funk! I think we are more than a little tired of running around and researching and deciding how to spend everyday. And we are anxious to get to St. Maarten and see our good buddies, Clayton and Bryna. CAN NOT WAIT!!! Kind of puts an unfair damper on the south central Florida area.
Saturday turned cool and gloomy so we headed toward Palm Beach to do a few errands. We really only made it as far as West Palm Beach but it was a very pretty area, typical in the upscale Florida way. A lot of high end cars, leopard prints and Cubans.
Sunday was extremely cold, windy and rainy so the entire day was devoted to napping! And it was lovely. I curled up on the couch and did my best Xena routine the entire day. Leftovers topped off the lazy day and the TV was on the entire evening. Yawn....
The weather improved today so although my body was telling me to have another nap day, we got out the bikes and hit the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail (LOST), which runs along the top of the Herbert Hoover Levee around the entire lake. Honestly, it doesn't look at all like a lake from where we started out. More like a basin or Bayou.

It was a nice paved trail for about the first 2 miles then turned to gravel. After a few more miles we got the pavement back but were "busted" buy a construction company security for riding in a construction zone. Presumably there was a sign down trail that pronounced it "closed". Well, there was no sign. But we were made to exit the trail and take the 12 inch shoulder on the nearby state highway. After a few miles of that scary business, Jeff and I sneaked back to the bike trail for the remainder of the trip home.

About the only crop in this area, and the only real interesting thing is sugar cane. In fact, this county grows about 70% of the countries sugar cane, due to the weather and the Everglades soil. All around us, during our ride, were burning fields of sugar cane. I later found out that before harvesting the cane, they burn the field to remove any leaves, blooms, weeds, etc. This makes cutting the cane possible. There are sugar mills in South Bay and Clewiston. The use almost every part of the plant...the liquid for sugar and the remains of the plant for fueling the processing. The fires are brief, lasting only 15 minutes and burning 40 acres but they were popping up all around us. And because there was some wind left, there was ash and smoke in abundance.

After we got home I confess...I took another nap! Then I made us a good chicken dinner. Tomorrow we will try the trail going the other way, if the whether cooperates! If not, it may be pedicure day. I have been jonesing for a pedi since Mesa....gotta get pretty toes for St. Maarten!

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