Monday- This was a busy day. We got up early and headed to the only IMBA Epic Trail in Florida, Alafia State Park. This trail blew Carter away. OK, the swamp wasn’t as impressive (there was still some good swamp) but the trail itself was downright insanity. Tight turns, awesome drops, very technical. Super fast ups and downs where you get huge air. Went down twice, one on an insane downhill (rated a double black diamond) where I decided it would be better to shoulder a tree than slide down rocks into a pond. The second was on the easiest trail where I unsuccessfully tried to wheelie a log crossing. Jess went down hard as well and has two skinned knees to prove it. But, I did do one of the sketchiest drops I’ve seen. I sat at the top for about 2 minutes, finally Jess said don’t do it…so I did it! The photo doesn’t do it justice, it was steep and loose but had a good run out at the bottom. Also we say two of the biggest birds I’ve ever seen eating an armadillo in the trail, when we approached them, they flew away and it sounded like a helicopter. Also saw a big black snake. No gators though. It you are ever thinking about going to Florida, ride this trail!

We returned the bikes after that and headed across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to St. Pete. We hit the beach, it was calm and dead. The water was nice but the waves were weak. We swam and built drip castles. After that we were starving but we quickly found a Waffle House and all was well! Good eats. We then headed to Tropicana Field for the Devil Rays/Orioles game. No complaints there. We scored free parking a block away and then when I was buying tickets some lady gave Jess free tickets. Oh yeah, 20th row lower deck, 3rd base side. Sweet! Dollar dogs and Pepsis. $7.75 for 2 dogs, 2 Pepsis and a pretzel, and parking and two lower deck tickets. The game was boring with maybe 5000 fans and two bad teams. We left early but it was really a cool place! I even got to pet some sting rays in the outfield…random…