First ride of our awesome bike vacation

So it's been a long time since I had a vacation, I believe I touched on that here.  But finally I am having one.   Kathleen and I packed the bikes into Trico Iron Cases and flew down to Miami.  Here's what Kathleen's bike looks like in kit form in the case, just before I closed it up.

At any rate, this morning we popped the cases open and rebuilt the bikes, Kathleen shot this pic of me while I was putting them together.

Then it was off into the 80 degree and sunny weather of Miami for a ride.   Here's Kathleen following me along through one of the neighborhoods.

And going down the road, apparently Florida doesn't have mandatory helmet laws for motorcycles.

We rode across town and over the JFK Causeway to Miami Beach, this is Ocean drive in South Beach.

Then it was back across Miami Beach, but on our way we passed this park with this killer climbing tree.  Made me wish I was 10 again.

Then it was back across the Venetian Causeway to the mainland.

I noticed this bit o' art on a piling while we were waiting at a light.

We headed south towards the Rickenbacker Causeway which leads over to Key Biscayne.   The climb on the causeway is a Strava segment, so Kathleen decided to go for it, she is the tiny blue dot up there.

Once we got over to the other side it was all beaches and palm trees.

We made it to the developed part of Key Biscayne and stopped for a snack.

Then it was time to head back.   I really can't say enough about how welcome this weather is, it's been a long crappy winter in Baltimore.   We actually got another 6" of snow last Monday.

Here's the view of downtown Miami from the causeway coming back.

Then it was back to our groovy little cabin in Miami that we got through Airbnb.   It's a tiny little private nature preserve in the middle of a neighborhood, we have a little cabin there.   If you look hard you can see the river that the property backs up to on the left side of the picture.

After 40 miles it was time to get cleaned up, then into Miami Beach for dinner at Sazon.   I have gone there a couple of times when down here working, so I wanted to share it with Kathleen.   So this is just our first day, barring weather we should get 3 more rides in, including the Delray Beach Twilight Gran Fondo on Sunday.