2060318 - Spring Hill to Jupiter to Alligator Alley to Spring Hill

Yes, another trip to Jupiter.  Why bother writing about them?  I go there to see my dad and step mom, who snowbird there from January through the end of March.  The answer is that I try to not take the same route twice; although, that's gotten pretty hard at this point.  There are a couple more routes that I want to go on; but, I need more time.  Each will take 10+ hours.  Obviously, I'm touring, not destination riding at this point.

So, this trip was planned to take county and state highways; but, once I loaded the route into the GPS, it calculated the trip time at 10+ hours and I didn't have that much time.  There were plans to go out to dinner and everyone that was going likes to go early.  So, I started out riding the plan; but, once I got down to Lakeland, I grabbed 60 to 95, a route that would definitely get me there on time.

The first part of the route from Rt 41 out to Rt 98 is a bunch of fun - some twisties and some good scenery.  On this route, I ended up on hard pack with loose gravel for a mile - just the last little section before rt. 98.

Other than this, the ride there was uneventful.

Coming back, I decided I wanted to ride through the Everglades.  The whole reason was that there are two 'loops' through the Everglades - roads that are off the main road - the road less traveled.  It's a long way down to Rt 41 from Jupiter, so I just grabbed I-95 down there.  It would prove to be a long day and probably would have resulted in an overnight stop if I didn't do that.  I also had 2 phone calls I needed to take and fortunately,  I was in Miami when I needed to do that, so I took my phone calls and grabbed some lunch before starting out on Rt 41.  The first loop is in a park.  The gate is guarded by a park ranger.  There are tours and such.  The 'loop' is not accessible by anyone other than rangers, a fact that was pointed out to me at the gate.  Since all tours were already booked, I turned around and went to the second loop.  The second loop, called 'loop' starts on Rt 41 and comes back to it.  It is a little more than 25 miles long and 25 miles of it is all hard pack with loose gravel.  It is well maintained and there are no imperfections on it from heavy trucks.  I was very comfortable riding along at 22 mph.  I wasn't too comfortable getting any faster than that.  Maybe that will change after I do some dual sport.  This looks strangely much like the first video...

My plan to video this was to run my GoPro the whole length of the road.  At one point, I get off the bike to check out an alligator sunning himself of the side of the road.  I didn't get any of that footage because my GoPro was overwriting content every 5 minutes.  I've since changed that setting and it appears that my GoPro footage is limited by the battery.  I'm getting an hour of footage per battery.  I have 2 right now.  I will pick up more.  It would be very nice if they would last 2 hours.  At least that's a reasonable amount of time between stops to load a new battery.  Maybe I'll find a better battery.

Here are the maps: