Road King Blog

Well, it’s been a long couple of weeks, and Lisa and I really needed to get out for a bit.  So we decided to go somewhere for a ride.

We have a local travel book called “Best Backroads of Florida”, and one of the chapters discusses some of the roads in Lake County near Lake Miniehaha.  One road is identified as “the most scenic in all of Florida”.  Well, that sounded too good to pass up, so we put on our gear, gassed up the Road King, and hit the road.

As it turns out, the author of the book clearly had not been to the road he lauded so heavily in quite some time.  It is, perhaps, home to the most scenic landfill in Florida, but that’s hardly the same thing.

Oh, well, live and learn.  We headed North out of there along Lakeshore drive, which was in fact quite lovely.  A dense canopy overhangs the road, with long tendrils of Spanish Moss hanging down like party decorations long forgotten.  The views of the lake are spectacular, and quickly redeemed the trip.  We rumbled along around Lake Minnehaha, and then north along Lake Minneola and Lake Palatakaha before joining Route 19 northward toward Howie-in-the-Hills.

At this juncture I’d like to note that I’ve no idea what or who Howie is, nor why he / it is in the hills.

Route 19 wanders along past farmland and dozens of smaller lakes and ponds before crossing Little Lake Harris via a long bridge 2 lane with low railings.  The views of the lake from the bridge are strikingly pretty, and well worth the trip.  In due course, we arrived in Tavares, where we turned East along the north shore of Lake Dora and began to head back home.  It was our longest outing to date, with a little over 4 hours on the bike, and a great way to get out of the house for a while.