Well, my first day of pedaling did not go quite as I had planned. Since I have never done this type of cycling before, I had set a really lofty goal of making it 107 miles to Key Largo where I had a contact to stay with. Starting out in Key West I quickly was hit with the "first day set backs".

I made it about four miles before I saw that I had lost a screw on my front fender and had to remove it. About two miles after that I broke the toe-clip on my right pedal and lost one of it's screws, now it keeps popping off from it's one and only screw holding it to my pedal, requiring me to stop and reattach it a few times each ride. Then somewhere around the 15-20 mile mark of my morning ride I looked behind me and noticed that only half of my trailer's flagpole was still attached. I never saw the pole or flag fly off, but I imagine it happened while crossing one of the Key's bridges where the wind was really powerful and in my face. After this I made it to Marathon Key about 48 miles into my first day. I stopped at a public library I passed to rest, rehydrate and each lunch. A couple hours later I remounted my steed and started toward what was my goal of Key Largo. About 15 miles into my afternoon ride, I was trying to cross the two lanes of the road from where the bike path ended on the left where I could ride the shoulder on the right. Well I apparently pushed too hard down on my pedal and my chain exploded, stopping me dead in my tracks. I got my bike off to the side of the road, inspected the chain, and took out the tool I bought which was supposed to help me fix the links. Well, this "well" made tool ended up breaking and leaving me with no options.

I walked through a gate to a trailer home that sat right in front of where I had broken down and I knocked on the door. A man opened up, who I learned was Mike Daugherty, a local painter/handyman who originally came from Maryland, but came down to the Keys for vacation one year and ended up staying. He was an exceedingly nice and helpful man. I first asked to use his phone book to find a bike store, then he offered to drive me over to the closest one, ten miles back in the direction I had come from. This bike shop didn't have  a 9-speed chain in stock and said it would take 2-3 days to order one. This was bad news. So Mike offered his spare room to me and I offered to buy us dinner. After a pizza and some friendly conversation, I feel into a DEEP sleep. I hadn't been this tired since high school sports. The next day, I woke to learn Mike had looked up some other bike shops and found that the only place to get a proper chain was actually up past the Keys into South Florida below Miami. I didn't want to "cheat" and take a car ahead of where I had biked, but there really wasn't any other option. It turned out to be the smart move, because above Key Largo for about twenty miles there was a stretch of construction which would have made travel on bike near suicide with the amount of traffic and lack of room. This also put me back on schedule to get where I needed to be.

So after getting my new chain, and loading up I made it up to my friend's parents house in Lighthouse Point above Pompano Beach, FL around 8 o'clock at night. It was soooo nice to stay in a big fluffy bed and eat a hearty home cooked meal.

Today, I make my way North to a state park about 60 miles away where I will try to camp. Saturday I will try to make it up to Melbourne, FL where I have a friend who served with me in Niger as a Peace Corps volunteer. Hopefully all of my bicycle-breaking woes are behind me. So, until my next update, wish me luck.