First trip of the year

Following inspiration from the likes of McCandles, Krakauer, Kerouak, and Thoreau I am chasing the dreams of adventure as well as teaching my son the nature of a free spirit and a free mind. Caleb and I are taking our longest adventure yet this coming weekend and will be visiting what Florida State Parks Services calls "the real Florida." We will be riding from our home to Little Manatee River State Park south of Sun City Center by route of Tampa and from there will be travelling south through Sarasota to Myakka River State Park. The trip will be 5 days and 4 nights including over 200 miles on the bike and about 40 miles hiking, if all goes according to plans. We have the new rig set up and pretty much ready to go.. this is a new trip and will include almost no bicycle specific trails as compared to previous trips which were mostly car free routes. We will be hiking through the flora of Florida's finest in search of the beauty that mother nature has to offer, and we will take some of that home with us, in the form pictures of course. The training has been coming along and the thoughts of longer future trips are in the back of our minds. We leave at the beggining of the new year and hopefully this will be a great and safe start to a great year full of adventure and learning.