Clermont

Woohoo! Vacation. We're in Florida for Isabel's gymnastics nationals. The drive in yesterday was long, but uneventful. This morning I jumped out on the road for a few hours to try to burn off a little of last night's stuffed-crust pizza.

I was just about the only idiot up at 7:30 on a Sunday.



I expected dead flat terrain, but it turned out to be pretty hilly. Long, shallow hills. No big efforts, but no awesome downhills either.



I headed north on Hwy 27 toward Clermont. It's orange groves forever out there. And where there aren't orange groves now, there were once orange groves.

In Clermont, I saw the Citrus Tower.



I have no idea what it is, but it's famous. It has a bunch of microwave antennas on it now, and at the base there's a church.

There's also this weird museum next door.



The pure water in my bottles wasn't cutting it, so I stopped at an AM/PM for some gatorade and headed north to Mineola and hung a left along the lake.



Apparently there's a popular route up there because I passed like 20 other riders coming the other way.

There's also a paved trail through town. I'll have to take the kids up there later this week.

South of the lake I rode back through Clermont and took a quick spin through the historic downtown area.



They had markets set up, selling produce and other odd stuff, like donuts, of all things.



No time for dounts though, it was pushing 9:20 and I wanted to get home by 10.

South of Clermont was Lake Minehaha.



With lavish homes and awesome Spanish Moss-covered Cypress trees along it's banks.

South of that was Lake Louisa.



Everything was emerald green and deep, deep blue, but later I realized that my glasses were enhancing the colors a bit. Still, at the time, it was gorgeous.

I heard my phone making noise and my father-in-law had left me a voicemail. Church was at 10:45, not 11, and I was already behind schedule. I was already pushing hard, but I really killed it for the last 8 or 9 miles. My legs hurt until after lunch.

I was funny though, I got home, showered, changed and we all got in the car and went directly back the way I'd ridden, all the way up to Mineola. If they'd brought me clothes, it would have been faster to just meet them there.

Apparently Lake Louisa has several fishing piers and miles of trails, some open to bikes. I'll have to check that out later this week.