Sunday Ride

I had a great Sunday ride out here in Clermont. My Dad and our friend, Chad, drove over from DeLand and we were all off and riding by 8:10am. On the night before the ride, I spent some time looking over the local roads on Google Maps and combined with Koren's knowledge of the good roads, I came up with a fun and new loop. It started by taking us over to the Swiss Ski School to explore my home for the month of January. I wanted to see what the area was like and if the ski lakes were going to be swim-able.
The houses in the development were all beautiful (I have no idea which one I'm going to be staying in) and the lakes were awesome (hopefully we are not banned from practicing open water swimming). The only negative thing I could see was that it was REALLY far away from EVERYTHING! We are going to spend an entire month in the middle of the Florida countryside:). The drive to the NTC swimming pool is going to be about 15 minutes each way and there will be no opportunities to ride bikes to the grocery store or walk into town. Fortunately, I've got my car and there will be at least two OTC vans for us to use during our stay.
Anyways, the rest of our ride on Sunday was amazing...all the roads were quiet and the traffic was very polite. The roads were mostly flat in the direction we headed (south and west) so we finished the ride with a few climbs on Cherry Lake Road. In the end, my water bottles were completely dry, we'd been in the sun for over 2 1/2 hours, and we pedaled just under 50 miles in the cool (but humid) morning.
Dad and Chad had to get back over to DeLand so there was no time for a leisurely lunch break. I tossed them some fresh fruit for the drive home and then enjoyed a relaxing meal in front of the TV. After a long rest it was still barely afternoon and the sun was still shining. I grabbed my new two-piece Speedo suit and headed for the NTC pool. My goal was not to do some amazing swim practice...I just wanted to cruise back and forth for a few minutes in the sun before getting killed on Monday night with the Fast Lane swim team:)!