Sunday, March 8, 2009

Getting High On Sugarloaf Mountain


Today I renewed one of the great Florida bicycle rites -- cycling the hills in the Clermont area 30 miles northwest of Orlando.

It was a 40-mile route that included Sugarloaf Mountain and five-hill Buckhill Roads with my bicycling pal Ellen -- local Tampa ringleader of the Police Unity Tour bike ride. I don't anyone more committed to a cause like Ellen is with the Unity Tour, which raises money for a police memorial in Washington, DC.

Here's Ellen taking on Sugarloaf Mountain. I wrote about the "Florida Alps" when I worked at the Tampa Tribune and it was fun to see the familiar sights -- the two water coolers at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain Road end of a driveway; the Lake County visitors center on US 27 a mile north of the Turnpike and the history marker in the old Villa City area that mentioned the Big Freeze of 1894-95 that caused orange trees to "explode."



No comments: