We're Baaaaaack!

The gang is slowly returning to their Winter refuge. One by one they burned up the highways and byways to nest once again amongst the palm trees, fire ants, snakes, and tiny wind blown sticker buds that can blow out a bicycle tire! Ah, but its all worth it! We'll be free from the cold, snow and ice we spent much of our lives dealing with.

After a brief reunion eight members of the "Palm Tree Bikers" headed out for their first weekly bike ride. Our caravan of five headed for Fort Wilderness campground. The "loops" of this picturesque campground provides the opportunity to check out what can easily be called the most eclectic gathering of RVs anywhere. The shear variety of RVs is matched by the creativity of the people that own them.

As usual, we enter the campground via the rear entrance. This day however, proved to be somewhat different! A shiny new pair of entry/exit gates were in place. The sign politely states that parking has become a premium and only registered guests and guests with restaurant reservations are allowed. Our five vehicles dutifully turned around and headed into the main entrance. With that stumbling block out of our way, we unpacked our bikes, helmeted up and road off undaunted by the interruption.

This slight "speed-bump" managed to get us "buzzing" about things and we took a tad longer at the Ranger Office getting our selves together.

Our intrepid leader, Pete, headed out on his new bike. It was so quiet it took us several minutes to realize he left! Playing catch up is always fun. Dodging buses, horses and golf carts gets our blood  pumping!

Into the rental units we headed. We took in all the "left over" Halloween displays from the night before and our leader trudged on as he started to go around the same loop again. Our "Gadget Guru" Steve's GPS failed to pick up a satellite and for a minute we were "lost!" The trained eyes of Jim averted any redundancy in our ride and we quickly regained our heading and composure.

Thankfully, we were quickly distracted by the abundant Halloween artifacts that some sites were dotted with....

This site is familiar to any one who has headed to the beach in the 100 loop. There is so many things in this site you cannot notice the 53' trailer the the guy needs to haul it all.

Our rides always include a stop for lunch. The call was heralded for our usual when we bike Fort Wilderness Campground... Reuben, Reuben, Reuben! There was no discussion. We headed to the "Wave" at the Contemporary Resort, met up with "Betty" our gracious and fun loving Hostess and started off the '10-'11 bike season with some great conversation and food. For the record, there were six Reuben sandwiches, one chicken sandwich and one Bisson Burger ordered.

With hunger appeased a welcome boat ride back to our bikes gave us some much needed digesting time. Our ride back to our vehicles went without a hitch. We didn't get lost or loose anyone... and Steve still couldn't pick up a GPS satellite! (At least Steve's new bike didn't have any issues!)