Down Here vs. Up There
We stopped for breakfast in Cocoa and soon came to realize that once again our world had dramatically changed. This was the Florida of the chamber of commerce brochures...streets lined with palms, ritzy shopping, a plethora of restaurants, waterfront condos and tanned, smiling inhabitants living the good life. It appeared that many (although not all) were of retirement age. While we were still around t 200 miles north of Boca Raton, it was looking more like the south Florida that we had grown accustomed to when visiting Matt’s Mom.
The route took us through the outskirts of Melbourne and then crossed the intracostal where we would ride A1A for the next 50 miles to Fort Pierce. We spent the better part of two days cycling between one resort/retirement community to the next. Obviously everyone in Florida is not retired, but it did seem like the folks we met were from somewhere else. In the grocery store, in restaurants, hotels, campgrounds, beaches...take you pick...we found it difficult to meet a Florida “native”. Peoples accents, which had become progressively more difficult for us to understand as we moved southward now had that distinctive New Yorkish twang. The southern drawl and “How y’all doin?” was being usurped by the staccato bark of “How ya doin, How ya doin” that we last heard some 1500 miles ago. We found this to be fascinating and started to ask the individuals we met where they had come from before arriving in Florida. While this may be a gross generalization, we observed that many of the folks on the east coast of Florida have migrated down from the New York metropolitan area. And, we were told that those who choose to settle on the west coast of the state seem to hail from the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, etc.). This massive in migration of people has had a profound impact on all of the coastal communities, and has changed this part of Florida forever. Nearly all the newcomers speak in glowing terms of their new home. Hurricanes aside, they talk as if they have found their nirvana. One 30 something man who had recently moved to Florida from New Jersey put it this way...”I like it Down here because the people are mostly from Up there, but the pace of life and weather is so much better”.
Down here, Up there. Hmmm. We don’t know what the natives from Down here think, but our guess is that they feel like they’ve been invaded and conquered by the aliens from Up there. It probably started slowly at first before picking up momentum, but now the demographic shift is pronounced and quite apparent. Florida has becoming a melting pot of people from other states and countries. There's no going back.
Other than the occasional state park or nature preserve, the coastline consists of one town after another. Those patches of private land that have yet to be built on are either for sale or in the process of being cleared. It was an eye opener for us. We’d venture to say that if you looked at a satellite picture of the eastern seaboard, it would consist of a nearly unbroken string of human habitation, generally of the well to do. The ocean has a strong pull on people.
Sebastian Inlet State Recreation area was to be our last night of camping on the trip. Further south, campgrounds either were problematic to get to (far off route) or simply didn’t exist. Camping had been one of the highlight for us. After a full day of riding it was nice to wind down, eat a snack, drink a beer, set up camp and ease into the evening. Our equipment had performed admirably, and cooking dinner was one of the best parts of our day. We’ve both had experiences camping, but never as prolonged as this, and it was something that we were going to miss.
We spent our last evening taking a stroll along the inlet, seeing the tide go out and studying the contrasting styles of the seabirds as they swooped down for the sky to nab their evenings meal. We also watched numerous fishermen going through their machinations in their never ending quest to snare “the big one“. Fishing seems to grab hold of people. Age, nationality, socio economic status doesn’t seem to matter. The fish don’t seem to know or care if the person on the other end of the line is rich or poor. Everybody is equal with their rods in their hands casting one more time into the dimming twilight.
With just a few days left we found ourselves slowing the pace down, trying to wring every moment we could out of the experience. We dawdled before packing up at 9:30 or so, figuring we would stop for a hardy breakfast in Vero Beach. In this stretch , A1A has a good bike lane, and we were starting to see other cyclists on a regular basis. Most give you a nod or a wave as they pedal by. We’ve found this to be the case throughout the trip with one notable exception. It seems that bicyclists who are dressed in matching lycra outfits, pedaling racing machines, and riding in groups of 3 or more do not acknowledge the existence of other cyclists. This was true in New Hampshire (where we first encountered it) and it held form here. It was our custom to either wave, nod, smile, ring our bell or call out "Howdy" when encountering others on the road. Most everyone replies accordingly, but from these folks there was no response, no eye contact, nada. We really don’t have an answer as to why this was so, but our gut feeling is that these folks are so self absorbed in what they are doing, they don’t even see anyone else. Hey, everybody rides for different reasons, but one of the nicest aspects of bicycling for us is that it is so “human”. You get to see, feel, observe so many different things, it is difficult to understand how someone can choose to tune that out.
But who are we to judge? We were having the time of our lives and with only 100 miles to go, nothing was going to take the air out of our tires. Then again, we didn’t count on that railroad crossing in Fort Pierce...
The route took us through the outskirts of Melbourne and then crossed the intracostal where we would ride A1A for the next 50 miles to Fort Pierce. We spent the better part of two days cycling between one resort/retirement community to the next. Obviously everyone in Florida is not retired, but it did seem like the folks we met were from somewhere else. In the grocery store, in restaurants, hotels, campgrounds, beaches...take you pick...we found it difficult to meet a Florida “native”. Peoples accents, which had become progressively more difficult for us to understand as we moved southward now had that distinctive New Yorkish twang. The southern drawl and “How y’all doin?” was being usurped by the staccato bark of “How ya doin, How ya doin” that we last heard some 1500 miles ago. We found this to be fascinating and started to ask the individuals we met where they had come from before arriving in Florida. While this may be a gross generalization, we observed that many of the folks on the east coast of Florida have migrated down from the New York metropolitan area. And, we were told that those who choose to settle on the west coast of the state seem to hail from the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, etc.). This massive in migration of people has had a profound impact on all of the coastal communities, and has changed this part of Florida forever. Nearly all the newcomers speak in glowing terms of their new home. Hurricanes aside, they talk as if they have found their nirvana. One 30 something man who had recently moved to Florida from New Jersey put it this way...”I like it Down here because the people are mostly from Up there, but the pace of life and weather is so much better”.
Down here, Up there. Hmmm. We don’t know what the natives from Down here think, but our guess is that they feel like they’ve been invaded and conquered by the aliens from Up there. It probably started slowly at first before picking up momentum, but now the demographic shift is pronounced and quite apparent. Florida has becoming a melting pot of people from other states and countries. There's no going back.
Other than the occasional state park or nature preserve, the coastline consists of one town after another. Those patches of private land that have yet to be built on are either for sale or in the process of being cleared. It was an eye opener for us. We’d venture to say that if you looked at a satellite picture of the eastern seaboard, it would consist of a nearly unbroken string of human habitation, generally of the well to do. The ocean has a strong pull on people.
Sebastian Inlet State Recreation area was to be our last night of camping on the trip. Further south, campgrounds either were problematic to get to (far off route) or simply didn’t exist. Camping had been one of the highlight for us. After a full day of riding it was nice to wind down, eat a snack, drink a beer, set up camp and ease into the evening. Our equipment had performed admirably, and cooking dinner was one of the best parts of our day. We’ve both had experiences camping, but never as prolonged as this, and it was something that we were going to miss.
We spent our last evening taking a stroll along the inlet, seeing the tide go out and studying the contrasting styles of the seabirds as they swooped down for the sky to nab their evenings meal. We also watched numerous fishermen going through their machinations in their never ending quest to snare “the big one“. Fishing seems to grab hold of people. Age, nationality, socio economic status doesn’t seem to matter. The fish don’t seem to know or care if the person on the other end of the line is rich or poor. Everybody is equal with their rods in their hands casting one more time into the dimming twilight.
With just a few days left we found ourselves slowing the pace down, trying to wring every moment we could out of the experience. We dawdled before packing up at 9:30 or so, figuring we would stop for a hardy breakfast in Vero Beach. In this stretch , A1A has a good bike lane, and we were starting to see other cyclists on a regular basis. Most give you a nod or a wave as they pedal by. We’ve found this to be the case throughout the trip with one notable exception. It seems that bicyclists who are dressed in matching lycra outfits, pedaling racing machines, and riding in groups of 3 or more do not acknowledge the existence of other cyclists. This was true in New Hampshire (where we first encountered it) and it held form here. It was our custom to either wave, nod, smile, ring our bell or call out "Howdy" when encountering others on the road. Most everyone replies accordingly, but from these folks there was no response, no eye contact, nada. We really don’t have an answer as to why this was so, but our gut feeling is that these folks are so self absorbed in what they are doing, they don’t even see anyone else. Hey, everybody rides for different reasons, but one of the nicest aspects of bicycling for us is that it is so “human”. You get to see, feel, observe so many different things, it is difficult to understand how someone can choose to tune that out.
But who are we to judge? We were having the time of our lives and with only 100 miles to go, nothing was going to take the air out of our tires. Then again, we didn’t count on that railroad crossing in Fort Pierce...
posted by Matt and Mary Ellen | 10:42 AM
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