Day 3: Glorious tailwinds help us fly, Homestead to Boca Raton

Maybe we’ve sounded a bit cranky our first few days? All I know is last night I collapsed on the carpet when we finally got to our AirBnb room and moaned for a while as Dee took a shower. Pathetic.

But today was a whole new day. We enjoyed the 13-mile Old Cutler Trail from Homestead to south of Miami, then the M path greenway (top photo) into the city. It is very cool: you ride under the elevated train in the middle of the road. The train tracks above gave us perfect shade from the morning sun, which was already hot.

The rest of our 72 miles today were a mix of Route 1 and A1A. We had hot sun, rain showers that we waited out under an awning, and much-needed cloud cover for the last few hours. We passed the bouncing beach scene in Fort Lauderdale and gawked at seaside and waterway mansions in Hillsboro before rolling into Boca Raton.

And here we are, at the beautiful home of a running friend from Greensboro. She’s gone on a work trip to Canada but left us a key, treats in the refrigerator and towels for her pool. The bar has now been set quite high for all hosts still to come!

Before I doze off, some of the things I’m grateful for:

• ​tailwinds (duh)
  
• my wider touring bike tires that let me ride over pretty much anything
  
• carrying all my stuff, so that when, say, it rains and my sandal straps are bugging me, I can switch to sneakers because they’re right in my panniers
  
• greenways! When we have them, cycling feels like being a kid
  
• Dee. Her navigation skills kicked in twice today when I would have sent us south instead of north, etc. We keep laughing, and we keep pedaling.
  

​Cheers, Lisa