Ft Lauderdale to Key West - Florida: Day 2 Ft Lauderdale to Coral Gables 42 miles

My LHT and B.O.B. trailer

Breakfast at Grampa's

We woke up to a brilliant sunshiny day. 72 degrees and no rain in the forecast. We loaded up and got on the road before 9:00 AM. We rode up to Grandpa's for breakfast. As we were parking the bikes a guy came up and as always wanted to know where we were going. We told him Key West and he said were we going down Highway one or Card Sound road. I said Card Sound road and he said good. He said don't pass up Alabama Jack's as it has the best food around. We told him it was on our agenda.
We finished breakfast and headed east to the coast and Highway A1A. The ride started out with minimal traffic that steadily increased as we headed south towards South Beach. We made it to South Beach started looking for a Cuban Restaurant on Ocean Blvd. We found on right away and went in and had a pretty good lunch including a giant Mohito for me.

My huge Mohito

Dave and Katherine

After lunch we started out heading back north to find the causeway over to Miami. We saw a couple comng out of a hotel on bikes and asked them if they knew where the Venetian causeway was. They said that they were tourists and were looking for it as well. We joined up and found it. Dave and Katherine were tourists from Ireland and were in Miami for 4 days. We had a pleasant ride with them across the causeway into Miami. They went looking for a place to have lunch and we headed south for Coral Gables. The traffic on HIghway one was very heavy and when we merged with the traffic that was coming off the I-95 termination it became brutal. We notice that there was a bike trail under the elevated train tracks and immediately headed fot it. Now the ride became a breeze.
We made it to the Holiday Inn about 4:30 and checked in. The young girl who checked us in was very impressed with our riding.
We put on our swim suits and headed to the pool to relax with a couple of margaritas. Now it is off to bed for out ride tomorrow.
I have to compliment Keith on how well he did in the traffic today. This was the heaviest that he has been in and he did great. It can be nerve racking and very stressful to be in that kind of traffic but he did fantastic. The rest of the ride will be much easier. This was the worst today.