First Day at Royal Coachman near Venice!

Well today was very interesting and abit frustrating! We began with a good breakfast and then took our truck to the Ford Dealership in Nokomis. While they checked out our truck, we rode our bikes to Nokomis Beach about a mile away. What a beautiful, quiet area. We walked along the Gulf looking for shells and enjoying the beach. Back on our bikes to ride on Casey Key Road.

 An unbelievable area.  Ken and I have never seen such large homes, some covering nearly a city block.  Gorgeous landscaping and views of the Gulf from the back of the houses and the Little Sarasota Bay on the other side of the road.  Many of the properties owned land on both sides of the road.  Later we found out that we passed the homes of Oprah, Tom Selleck, and Steven Spielberg.  They are probably there only a few weeks a year.   Connie Francis also has a house nearby.  We road about 4 miles on this road and ended at Casey Key Fish House which had 175 feet of docking space on the Little Sarasota Bay.  There was a thatched hut a hundred feet from the restaurant where they had a bar area and adirondack chairs for enjoying the view.  We sat there drinking diet coke for quite awhile. So relaxing and beautiful. 



Then back on our bikes to return to the car dealership. Well, at that point our day took a turn that was mentally exhausting. They informed us that our truck needed some major repairs. Since neither Ken nor I are truck smart, most of it was like "Greek". We left there and rode our bikes back to the CG - it was a quiet ride. We took time to eat lunch and then starting discussing our options. After about 6 phone calls, 2 of them to people in PA, the garage that had done some repairs on our truck before we left referred us to an uncle who owns a garage about 20 miles from here in Bradenton. They had him call us and although he is not a diesel mechanic, he gave us a name and number of someone who referred to someone else, who referred to another garage. So, tomorrow we have a 9 AM appointment with a diesel mechanic in Bradenton. Hopefully he will be able to help us at a more reasonable price! Time will tell! We went back to the Ford Dealership and picked up our truck. Told them we need more time to process this whole mess!!


On a positive note, this is a wonderful area with many exception bike trails and today was positively gorgeous. Near 75 and so sunny! We are looking forward to riding into Venice and then on to Caspersan Beach. That may have to wait until the beginning of next week. It will probably take a few days to repair the truck.