We left Bushnell. FL at 11:00 on Saturday Jan 28 with Acey’s mileage at 96,757.8 and Thor’s at 112,739. We stopped for a few minutes at the nearby truck stop and then headed to Wildwood, arriving at Thousand Trails Three Flags Resort at noon where we stayed for 2 weeks.

Behind the resort there was a farm with cows – a peaceful view from Acey!

On Sundays we worshipped with Stephens Valley Church by YouTube and then Zoomed with our Sunday School class; we are starting a study of Isaiah.

One afternoon we ran some errands and stopped by Great Chicago Fire Brewery and sampled some craft beer.

We rode on the Withlacoochee State Trail a few times – a really nice rail trail with some shade. We saw lots of others riding on the trail; and several folks rode these 3-wheel recumbent bikes – and we even saw 2-wheel recumbent bikes!

There are many mile posts left from the days the trains ran here, marking the miles to Richmond, VA.

Its impressive how much work went into developing the route as we rode along; you can see large drop-offs (about 15 feet here) on the side of the trail where the bed was built up for the train tracks.

We started at the Inverness Trail Head where there are a few parks. These turtles have been here a while greeting passersby. Last year they looked rather in need of attention.

And they had a facelift last fall! Chris found a video with the artist!

The turtle on the left used to have the name “Cooter” written on its hat. A nearby park is called Cooter Pond Park, named for the type of turtles that can be found there, along with alligators! Henderson Lake is across the road from the turtle bench with Spanish Moss dripping off the trees.

There was another turtle sculpture along the trail by the lake.

And a driftwood bicycle.

After one of our rides, we stopped by Cooter Pond Park; the bike trail does not pass by this park! Another boardwalk was there to view the pond.

Under the boardwalk, a cormorant was drying its wings.

We spotted several turtles swimming in the pond.

And a gator was lurking nearby!

A third turtle sculpture is located there.

“TJNEIL.COM” was inscribed on the shell and Linda found out that the sculptor passed away in January 2020 at age 45. He and his father designed and constructed these turtle sculptures, and many other sculptures that can be found all over the southern US –and even as far as Vermont!

As Jim was taking the bikes off the bike rack, a support arm fell down. On further investigation, he found a broken bolt on one arm and a bent one on the other! These bolts are metric, and we found a temporary replacement (a bit short) until we can get the proper bolts. Probably the rough roads on our Alaska adventure didn’t help!

We rode a total of 57 miles on the Withlacoochee State Trail!

We drove up to Gainesville to visit with our former neighbors; Johnny and Lynne used to live across the street from us in Nashville and recently moved south to be near their daughter.

We also spent time with Adele and Russ in The Villages. We had dinner at Miz Kathi’s Cotillion.

The food was delicious, and we took desserts to go.

We played Play Nine afterwards at their place.

We made a lot of phone calls and did research, working on planning our new house! Jim is acting as contractor which complicates some of the pieces we are working on. We have Builder’s Risk insurance set up and have lined up several subs. Its been hard to get folks to call us back, but things are starting to fall into place!

We moved on to Eustis on February 11.