Say Good-Bye To California

During the winter of 2015, we decided it was time to leave California.  There were lots of reasons, but principally we both thought that it was time to retire, and to spend some more time riding our bikes and enjoying our lives.  Southern California is a wonderful place, but it’s not a great place to retire unless you happen to have a great deal of money.  We don’t, so we agreed it was time to go someplace else!

Florida Here We Come!

When we looked at places we might end up, there were a few potential choices.  We knew we wanted someplace warm – we are definitely done with cold winters.  We knew we wanted great cycling.

Nancy has family in Florida.  Mike went to school in Sarasota many years ago.   We also have a some really good friends that live in the Sarasota area.  We debated it for a while, but he choice was pretty clear.  We made up our minds to head to Sarasota!

Ready, Set, Go!

Once we made up our minds, things happened pretty quickly.  We put the house up for sale, and got a buyer almost over night.  We packed up our stuff, we shipped Nancy’s car and had our wine transported to a friend’s house.

We put Mac, Mac’s trailer, our bikes, our luggage and ourselves into the SUV, and took off for a long, slow trip across the US.  We decided to make it into a Recumbent Gourmet adventure, stopping to ride our bikes in interesting places, eat at great restaurants, and visit friends and family along the way.

It’s the Relocation Tour (Spring 2015)

Moving to Sarasota, Irvine to Solvang, California 175 Miles

When we decided to sell our beautiful home in Irvine, California, everything happened fast. The house sold in two days and we had just 10 days to finalize our plans. Our first thought was to take the time to enjoy ...

Second Stop: Solvang, California to Scottsdale, Arizona 687 miles

As we continued our journey across the US, we decided to go to Scottsdale, Arizona.  First of all we have been to Scottsdale before and loved staying there. There were a couple of compelling reasons for us to go back: ...

Stop three on our trip across the US, Tucson, Arizona (807 miles)

The good thing about this part of our trip was that it was only two hours away from Scottsdale, the not so good thing was we were on our way to Tucson. We weren't in California anymore ...

Stop number four: Fort Stockton, Texas or we aren’t in California any more 1683 miles

In our original plan, we were going to visit some close friends in Taos, New Mexico, but winter reared its ugly head and it was snowing. We really weren’t prepared for snow so we decided to skip Taos and drive ...

Stop number 5: The Woodlands, Texas (1886 miles)

Initial plan was to ride the bike trails in Austin and San Antonio. Unfortunately,  we finally ran into rain.  We haven't seen rain in 14 years so it was a bit of a shock to our systems.  We decided to ...

Stop number 6: The Woodlands, Texas to New Orleans, La. 2261 miles

Somewhere along the way, we decided to have an extended stay in New Orleans and ride some of the trails around the city. We were so excited to really spend time in that city. I have been there many times ...

Stop number 7: New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana 2302 Miles

We are finally getting to one of the famous rail to trail biking destinations: The Tammany Trace! We were so excited and hopeful it wouldn’t rain. It was cloudy but beautiful . The Tammany Trace is located on the north ...

Stop number 8: Covington, Louisiana to Hattiesburg, Mississippi 2639 miles

Why on earth would we drive to Mississippi? We planned to ride another famous bike trail: the Longleaf Trace. It was an exciting to have the time to just go there. As we found out, Sunday is definitely not the ...

Stop Number 9: Hattiesburg, Mississippi to Oxford Mississippi 2639 miles

We had a great time riding the Longleaf Trace. We decided we would ride the Tanglefoot trail in Northern Mississippi. Needless to say, it was in the middle of nowhere so we planned various places to stay (and there weren’t ...

Stop Number 10: Oxford, Mississippi to Destin, Florida 3081 miles

Ok, how do we get to Destin, either back through Mississippi or through Alabama? We decided to go through Alabama and stop for breakfast in downtown Birmingham ...

Stop number 11: Destin, Florida to Tallahassee, Florida: 3247 Miles

Fortunately for me, it was a relatively short trip to Tallahassee.  Our plan was to ride the Tallahassee-St. Marks trail ...

Stop number 12 Tallahassee, Florida to Crystal River, Florida: 3421 Miles

We took backroads to Crystal River, Florida. It is the last place we would stay until we arrived in Sarasota.  Crystal River became a destination when we planned our next rails-to-trails ride in Florida: the Withlacoochee Trail ...