The nicest bike trail I've ever been on... Jan 24

Jan 24... St Petersburg to Spring Hill Fla. So you say you never heard of Spring Hill? That's because we have begun a long journey up the west side of Florida, and we are now north of the majority of the fun and sun capital of the world. The trip was 50 miles and it took about 4 hours.
The trail that comes out of the front gate of the St Petersburg KOA is the Pinellas Trail. This trail runs north/south for 48 miles through a lot of traffic filled, urban areas. I rode on it for about 25 miles, and it is absolutely the best multi use trail I have ever seen. Each major road was crossed over by newly built, beautiful bridges, about five in all on the section I rode. There were very few places where secondary roads crossed that we had to stop, but there were a few. Unbelievably, a great majority of the roads that we crossed, the vehicle traffic had stop signs, but the bikers did not! I rode through the towns of Seminole, Largo, Clearwater, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, to Tarpon Springs. The scenery was quite nice, mostly residential, and I made a few side trips, especially in Clearwater, to see the Gulf of Mexico. I also saw softball fields with mens league games(probably seniors) going on before noon! I passed a lot of parks with public restroom facilities , and most amazingly, walkers and bikers had separate asphalt pathways, separated by a grass medium strip! This was not always true, but it was in every place they could do,it. The asphalt was always smooth, not buckled by tree roots, as I had complained about in the Keys. There was one rough place, on the older northern end, but they were actually replacing it as I rode by.

Pinellas Trail

Once the trail ended, I popped out on route 19. Yeah, the very same US19 that runs through Washington, PA!  Towns of Port Ritchie, and Hudson ran together with a steady flow of road construction on the bike lane that I was supposed to be riding on! Rt 19 was a steady diet of pawn shops, Chinese restaurants, tattoo shops, mom and pop bars, strip joints, strip malls, consignment shops ( even for your car or Rv). In the places that had no bike lane, I gave up and rode the sidewalks and parking lots, which really slowed me down. After yesterday's dance with the traffic devil, I just wanted to get away from it. I'm ready for some more desolate,roads for a while, and I hope they calm down as we go north.