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| From left, Willem, Rusty & Brian Tarpon Springs, Oct. 4, 2014 |
Capping off a great weekend of cycling on the Pinellas Trail, six couples jumped on a variety of bicycles from single-speed city bikes with baskets to a Specialized S-Works Roubaix to go have breakfast before we cleaned up, checked out and headed home to pick up the kids and get ready for the coming week.
Our original plan, before we even left Home Sweet Sebring, was to break our fast Sunday morning at Toula's Trailside Cafe in Tarpon Springs, an 11-mile ride north from our Dunedin hotel. But, during our riding Saturday, we discovered that Toula's was closed for vacay through Sunday.
We rode our bikes down to the Sponge Docks being the tourists we were and we sought in vain a comparable breakfast spot. We returned to Dunedin with no clear plan for tomorrow's morning meal but that didn't matter, we had this day's lunch, dinner, dessert and brewery to look forward to before Saturday even came to a close.
+Legacy Bicycles organized what I hope will be the first of many annual "Oktoberfest on Pinellas Trail" couples-only rides, where we combine (somewhat) aggressive road riding with a few casual, points-of-interest rides, where mileage, moving average and PRs (personal record) aren't the focus and kid-free camaraderie with like-minded adults is.
That said, my Plus 1 (+Katara Simmons) wan't able to come over to Dunedin until Saturday afternoon, after work. Being the only guy there among five couples, the last thing I wanted to do was sit down for lunch with all these love birds after a measly 37.8 miles (links to Strava) on what was turning out to be a beautiful Saturday morning. I decided to ride the trail to the south as we had just ridden north.
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My Tarmac SL4 on a section of the
Pinellas Trail, where a pedestrian
bridge crosses over Tyrone Blvd.
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The ride north brought a stiff headwind and at times a gloomy sky that threatened rain and storms that never materialized. The wind did deliver an expected and welcome cold front that allowed me to wake up Sunday morning to about a 55-degree morning run for about 2.5 miles (links to Strava).
My goals accomplished, I returned to the Comfort Suites with about an hour to spare before Katara got in. I hung out with my group of friends, who were just returning from lunch and drinks. We sat on the patio at the hotel, getting colder as the cold front got colder. We retired to our respective rooms, I cleaned up, Katara arrived and we all went to dinner at Johnny's Fish House and Iguana Bar. Live music and decent food. It was a good time with great friends. The brewery was nixed after dessert at another location on account of too much ice cream on giant chocolate chip cookies. And,because we're old. I was dragged to a Target for late-night shopping but was able to be in bed and sleeping by midnight.
I woke up at 6 a.m. and ran at 7 a.m. north along the harbor before turning inland and returning to the hotel via Pinellas Trail, which was already bustling with activity.
Katara & I met the four other couples downstairs at 8 a.m. and after the requisite group photo we headed south on the trail in search of a suitable breakfast place. Not expecting to find a restaurant on this section of the trail, I recommended we ride across the causeway to Clearwater Beach to find breakfast. Worst case scenario, I explained, is that we could eat the breakfast buffet at the same restaurant as the previous night's dinner.
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Going down the spiral bike path was easier than going up.
Clearwater Beach Causeway.
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I was torn between an 8-oz NY Strip Steak &
Eggs or corned beef hash, which I only wanted if the corned beef was made in-house. I asked our waitress and she said "yes." A buddy asked, "How's the corned beef hash?" And she said, "Good." Based on this conversation, three corned beef hashes were ordered among everything else
The food was fine. Nothing to get excited about but nothing disgusting either.
There was one glaring inconsistency though because the corned beef hash put before myself, +Daniel Andrews and +Jeff Carlson was straight from a can. It was well-cooked, mind you. Nice and crisp as I like it but the corned beef has wasn't homemade. It wasn't worth mentioning to the waitress or complaining about.
As we were standing up to leave somebody totally unexpected came outside to talk to me.
As it turned out, Marcus McNac from high school was staying at the hotel across from The Shanty, for a wedding he and his wife attended. We grew up in Lawton, Oklahoma, and he now lives in Austin and I live two hours away in the middle of Florida. My group wasn't even supposed to be eating in Clearwater Beach on this morning. And, sad to say, I wasn't even on Facebook enough to know that Marcus and Jamie would be in town.
Marcus told Jaimie, upon spotting me from their spot inside, that he that that bearded dude was me.
Like a good wife, she thought he was crazy and dismissed his assertion to the contrary. Marcus, like a good husband proving his wife wrong, pulled up Facebook on his phone and saw that I had just posted a picture of our group at the restaurant. Of course, he came out to talk and we took the requisite pictures for Facebook proof.
After this unexpected encounter blew my mind, I didn't really care that the corned beef hash wasn't scratch made.
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| Marcus, left and me. |
