Pedal and Play in Paradise's Mystery Ride!

Richard, the Mystery Ride Creator!

Richard volunteered to create the Mystery Ride for this year's Pedal & Play in Paradise Bike Event in Punta Gorda.   This event is very popular - most years more than 500 people ride the routes as follows:

Joanne gets ready to check out the Mystery Ride



• Casual Ride around town with the City Manager
• 10 mile Mystery Ride
• 15 mile Ride
• 30 mile Ride
• and 60 mile Ride!

For an entire year Richard developed the premise and videos were developed to entice people to participate in the exciting Mystery Ride.  Richard even collected prizes from local merchants.

See Event Video by Bruce Tompkins

See Mystery Ride - The Final Explantion

See Mystery Ride - Source of the Coded Message


So the Mystery Riders sought answers to questions provided by signs, murals and other objects as the peddled Punta Gorda's pathways. The answers created a cipher to decode the mysterious M's message,  The Fountain of Youth lies in the hearts of the people with the spirit to build a community of love and beauty.

Mystery Riders also received a free bottle of Fountain of Youth Spring Water!

On Saturday, March 25th, Richard rose at 5:30 am to put out the directional signs and supervise the fun.  He was not disappointed.  Over 100 riders enjoyed the adventure and he received lots of compliments about the event. 

Proceeds were donated to the Leukemia Foundation and to TEAM Punta Gorda, a wonderful grassroots organization that makes our town a better place to live!

Hiroshima Japanese Friendship Force Club Visit

It's been a busy couple of months here in beautiful Punta Gorgeous!

We belong to a great Travel Exchange club called Friendship Force of Southwest Florida.  Every year we welcome visitors from one of 360 world-wide clubs to our part of the world.  We show them the sights and get to know them over sharing of meals, conversations and the routines of our daily lives.  This connection helps makes the world a better place to live through friendships formed over barriers of nationality, language, religion or politics.  By connecting the world one friend at a time, we create a world of friends that becomes a world of peace!

Us with Kyoko and Takashi

This year we welcomed 17 ambassadors from Hiroshima, Japan.  Two of them, Kyoko and Takashi Shimasaki, stayed with us in our home from March 1 -6.  They are an energetic couple whose command of English was excellent.  We shared a whirlwind of activities with them - they were able to visit parks and great Florida destinations, e.g., Edison Historic Residence, Echo, sail on a catamaran on Charlotte Harbor, airboat ride and tour of the Everglades, and a Farewell Dinner overlooking the Peace River complete with Karoake, line dancing and clowning. 

You can also travel with Friendship Force (either with your club or with another) to many places in the world.  This June we will accompany our club to Stratford/St Mary's and Halburton, Ontario, Canada.  In the past, we have chronicled our journeys to Friendship Force clubs in Costa Rica, Belgium, north Germany, and Australia.   Want more info?   Check out our website or the international website at Friendship Force International.

Our two clubs pose for a picture of the 2017 Hiroshima Japan Journey here