WAVELENGTHS A pandemic birthday means 'staycation' biking
Bill Longenecker, For Shorelines
The last time I spent my birthday in Neptune Beach was August 6, 1996. With the Atlanta Olympics filling the area's mountains with an "epidemic" of visitors, I opted to go up in June instead of August.
This year, an actual epidemic strongly suggested a staycation. My exposure to COVID-19 patients in the ER and my 81-year-old brother's asthma was cause for concern. Drive up, turn up sick, and give it to him! Not smart.
My five tests have been negative. The last on Aug. 8 was done by Telescope Health at their site next to the old KMart. Jax Beach's Matt Rill, an ER doctor, supervised the site on their first day. The testing is free, and it took about 20 minutes. The employees are very nice — quite upbeat and positive.
July 27 was the last day my car had to do any work, with a one-mile exception, until Aug. 16. The exception was to retrieve my birthday take-out pizza from Joseph's. A short drive meant a restaurant-quality dinner that in normal times would have been on the banks of the Nantahala River in North Carolina.
My actual birthday trip was a casual bike round trip of 56 miles to Fernandina Beach. Len Cawrse bought me breakfast. We caught the 7 a.m. ferry and enjoyed a mostly shady ride north on A1A and the bike paths that extend from the ferry almost to the city limits at Fernandina.
The beauty of the state parks was different from those in the Nantahala National Forest. Highlights include ocean and marsh views with stately oaks. The oceanfront stretch of A1A along South Fletcher Avenue featured new, very interesting architectural designs mixed with simple old beach cottages.
We were not in a hurry, because we had no other place we needed to be. That's a vacation highlight on its own. The very next day would be the icing on the nonexistent cake.
At 6:15 a.m. my "chauffeur" arrived. Mark McIntosh is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at UF Health. In late 2019, I helped him choose his Giant Sedona comfort bike and we have been trying for a wilderness ride ever since.
Finally, we both matched on a day off. He drove me to the sacred Florida mountain bike location of San Felasco State Park in Alachua, just about 95 miles from our homes — one mile apart — in Neptune Beach. Mark and his wife, Rosanna, bought the home of true Beaches' legend Leonard "Doc" Silver. Rosanna is an artist and they recently added a studio for her.
It would be Mark's initiation as a "mountain biker." So close, but so different from what is normally expected in Florida, the park sits on the limestone backbone of Central Florida. It boasts about 250-plus feet of true elevation. More than 50 miles of well-marked and groomed trails feature rocky hard-packed soil and wander through a former tung nut tree farm.
Our early start helped keep the heat a bit in check as did the shade of deep woods.
We warmed up on the Cellon Creek Trail as we gently began the climb to the summit of Mount San Felasco. (My name for it anyway!) From there, we roamed through the woods, climbing and dropping on loops that spin off the main trails.
Deer sightings are common. Mark's first-timer luck provided two nice bucks with impressive horned racks. I hustled to take pictures without scaring them, but when I looked at them on my computer, the deer were too deeply camouflaged.
Mark's natural athleticism served him well, as did his bike, despite its not being a true "mountain bike." San Felasco was standing in for the trails at Tsali in North Carolina.
Beach people live on an island. Thus, my staycation was on a tourist destination. I decided to complete an end-to-end bike trip on our "island with no name" by riding to Vilano Beach for breakfast. Along A1A, I paid a short "thank you'' visit to Roy Clarke, who with Iris, lives just south of Mickler's Landing.
I "blame" Roy for my obsession with good bikes. In the late '70s, he and I had ridden to the original Village Inn restaurant 11 miles west on Atlantic Boulevard for a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes. As we left, he insisted I ride his high-end Fuji road bike on the trip back. That ride spoiled me. I learned why riders spend money for high-end bikes.
Roy was not able to join me and recreate that ride which ended at St. Augustine's Village Inn. A St Johns County deputy told me that there were no breakfast places in Vilano! He told me a few places had tried, but all gave up on that morning meal.
It was an extra two miles into St. Augustine to the VilIage Inn. They no longer serve buckwheat pancakes. Instead, they offer multi-grain fruit nut pancakes that, if fully cooked, are quite good. That day, mine were a bit raw in the middle.
It seems that cooks often do not eat the "healthy" pancake choices and thus, do not understand how to cook them properly. That had killed sales of buckwheat pancakes because the batter must be fresh. Old batter becomes bitter if it sits too long. Multigrain batter is thick and must be fully cooked. The server was very nice and the cashier cut me a deal.
Clouded, overcast skies prevented heat stroke on my way home for the "Island's End Ride." The long slow ride on A1A featured more interesting new homes blended with beach cottages that appear to hover just atop of vanishing dunes. It would be 11:30 at Mickler's Landing before the sun broke through the clouds.
That 60-mile-plus trip was the last big birthday ride. The vacation aspects of my island travels made for a respite from 12-hour ER workdays. Three cycling magazines arrived on the same day to stoke my reading fires. Hot weather punctuated with violent house shaking thunderstorms served up some nice memories of much-needed rain.
The rains had produced hard-packed trails in Central Florida. At Hanna Park, the trails are made of hard-packed heavy mineral sands that were once mountain rocks that eroded and formed East Coast beaches. Len and I tasted the sweetness of the rain hardened trails on my last vacation day.
I estimate biking more than 250 miles during my vacation. My bike remains speedometer-free out of a desire to just ride, not race. A near-perfect way to staycate, one mile by car, 250 by leg power! Go truly forth and see our island by bike.
Bill Longenecker is a Neptune Beach resident and a regular contributor to Shorelines. Send feedback to shorelines@jacksonville.com.