4/30/26
A fond farewell to Florida
My time in Florida finally came to an end, after four months of a wide variety of experiences, places, and people. I’m so glad I spent this winter there. I may do it again sometime.
After about a week and a half with my furry friends Mr. T and Missy B in St. Petersburg, I began a convoluted trek to Orlando for my last few days in Florida.
Ordinarily, I would have taken the Amtrak connector bus from St. Pete to Tampa, then transferred to the train to Orlando.
But no. Because…
On my way from Orlando to St. Pete just prior, I had noticed that the Tampa train station was undergoing renovations, and was therefore temporarily not offering baggage service.
Oof.
What this meant was that instead, I had to take a city bus from St. Petersburg’s South Straub Park to downtown Tampa, then transfer to a Greyhound bus to Lakeland, then take the Amtrak from Lakeland to Orlando.
In Tampa, I enjoyed the beautiful bike ride along the bay, lined with mansions from the early 20th century.
I found a Cinnaholic, and enjoyed a delicious vegan cinnamon roll, then made my way over to the Greyhound stop.
Unfortunately, a now-predictable kerfuffle unfolded at that stop, where the driver sharply denied me boarding because of my bike. But this time there was an added twist: while I was arguing with him about it, a fellow passenger, for some disgusting and inscrutable reason, spat some dark liquid directly onto the folded bike (blessedly at least hitting the mud guard rather than the handlebars or chain). Incredulous, I paused my dispute with the driver to rinse it off with my hydration pack, while asking the passenger, “Did you just spit on my bike??” She gave me a mildly sheepish look and said, “Yeah… sorry.”
What??
After phone calls by both the driver and me to Greyhound, he finally let me on the bus, confiding that “this company has gone to shit since Flix took over. They always want to throw drivers under the bus now.” I empathized, disappointed but unsurprised to hear about the changes since the Flixbus acquisition of Greyhound a few years ago; I had heard, and personally experienced, similar stories already.
At Lakeland, I disembarked at the stop a few miles north of downtown, at a city bus stop on the edge of a desolate strip mall. The sky threatened rain, and I had a long wait before my train, so I decided to wait at the sheltered stop until the skies cleared. My two compatriots there were a young woman who wondered aloud why anyone would want to come to Lakeland, and an elderly homeless man spitting chaw juice into a bottle and asking me if I could help him buy a ticket for the next Greyhound. (“I have the cash, I can give it to you… I just don’t have a smartphone.”) I felt bad for him—having overheard him trying to buy a ticket from the driver who had dropped me off, who told him the only way to buy a ticket was online—but explained that if I were to buy the ticket, it would reside on my phone and not be usable by him.
The young woman struck up a conversation with him, and offered to watch his things while he went to a nearby store to buy some small item. (“Don’t let anyone touch it,” he implored her. “This is everything I have.”) She assured him she would watch over the bags.
I chatted with her a bit while waiting for the dark skies to clear, but when it became apparent that this might take another hour or two, I decided to take my chances and bike to the train station.
Fortunately I only caught a few sprinkles, and before long I had left the soulless outskirts and found myself in the cute downtown of Lakeland, the college town where I had recently learned that my uncle had attended school, back in the 1960s.
I sat on a bench next to what I presumed to be the central lake of Lakeland, just decompressing for a bit, then made my way to the other side of the lake where the picturesque Amtrak station sat. Despite several “no bikes” signs outside the station that made my stomach clench, the two staffers inside were smiling and gracious as I took apart my rig and handed it over as checked baggage.
I made it safely to Orlando, and biked back to Faith and Scott’s house, a few pleasant miles away from the station.
In the evening light, I experienced the beautiful nearby Lake Como Park. I have always enjoyed circular lakes and parks, which seem to be more common in Florida than elsewhere. There is a geometric magic to them, strengthened in this case by the nearly full moon above.
The following day, Faith took me along with her on her drive to a meeting in Winter Garden, west of Orlando, which you may recall from my first bike tour back in January. I enjoyed that cute area again, then met up with Faith after her meeting for a coffee-and-beer break at a nearby food court.
Then the next day, I met up with a fellow nomad, Carolyn, whom I had recently met in a Facebook group. She was also in Orlando just for a few days—headed to Colorado next—and we both had been wanting to visit the Harry P Leu Gardens.
We had a great chat in a beautiful setting, and wished each other well on our continued travels.
Then the best magic happened the next day, just a few hours before my afternoon boarding of my northbound train.
I went back to Lake Como Park, wanting to soak in that special place. The sun was now shining, and I even found a Little Free Library.
This reminded me of meeting the inimitable Rick Brooks, co-founder of the Little Free Libraries, four years ago in Illinois on my first year of travels. I texted Rick to check in, and we had a cool little exchange. This sparked me to reflect on all the amazing people I have met, and places I have seen, on this journey that waxes and wanes, but that I have now been on in one form or another for the past four and a half years. I started brainstorming all kinds of things about where I can go from here, how I can integrate and/or share some of the magic I have encountered with others…
I took copious notes in my phone’s Notes app.
While I was sitting there marinating in all this and buzzing with energy and ideas, I saw a woman walk by with two dogs. I smiled involuntarily at all of them, and we said a quick hello.
And then!
A few minutes later, I checked my phone and saw this message:
It was from Debbie, a Host a Sister woman I had met up with in Orlando—in a totally different neighborhood—back in January! I hadn’t recognized her in this different context.
What were the odds??
Feeling the “Florida magic” thus complete (further enhanced by browsing the books in the Little Free Library and finding a “vintage” one, from around 1980, called “The Florida Bicycle Book”) I made my way back to Faith and Scott’s house.
One last task before departing for the station: I finally replaced my hideously roadworn trailer rain cover/visibility cloak with the new one I had been toting around since I began this year’s journey last fall. I had been scared that I would somehow mess up the lettering and “ruin” this expensive and difficult-to-ship product, but all turned out well.
Then I went and boarded that train. We pulled out as the golden-hour light shone on my last views of Florida.
Up next: trolls in North Carolina!
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