QUAINTNESS AND QUIRK IN NORTHERN FLORIDA

This is Florida, so at 6:30 a.m. on a September Monday, we took our bikes off the back of the truck to beat the oppressive heat. Despite the soupy humidity and the occasional mosquito, it was hard to believe that we were cycling in Florida.

The paved, multiuse, recreational Palatka–Lake Butler State Trail stayed quiet, with just a dash of birdsong, intermittent tapping from a pileated woodpecker, and the call of cicadas waking up in the looming oaks and sweeping Spanish moss. I was cycling with my husband and three children, ages 9, 12, and 14, and we were the loudest creatures in the forest. Our bikes buzzed down the flat trail under the cave of branches on this (thankfully) overcast day.

It was so quiet that you would think you were out in the middle of the woods, but we were