Day 2 -Florida 2013

After freezing a good part of the night I was ready to go.  By the time we packed, dealt with the truck parking and biked out of the park it was 10:00.  For the next 7 miles we rode on a bike trail to the town of Keystone Heights.  We ate at McD’s and got our last real time weather report.  It looked good for today, but things were looking bad the next two.  There was one bit of good news; a tailwind.  We so rarely have a tailwind it was heaven.  The wind was just 7-8 mph but still.

Our hope was to have a dry day, sleep with no rain and pack up dry.  A big hope, but we always go big.  The day was dry with just the lightest sprinkle as we pedaled  the 56 miles to O’Leno State Park, so we counted it dry.  It rained for the shortest period during the night, but the tent was dry when we got up.  Still good.  We cooked breakfast, packed.  Just as we started to pull out another camper came over to give us a weather update.   Tornado watch, 80% possibility of severe thunderstorms and possible hail.  Well,  that was scary.   We pulled out and the rain began as soon as we started to pedal.  It was light at first but soon became a rain.

We had already changed our plans for the night and we headed for a hotel in Lake City 22 miles away.  Again the winds were favorable and we made good time.  The rain even lightened up a bit and we were feeling we might make it without getting too wet.  We pulled under the portico and the bottom completely fell out.   As we holed up in our room we were just happy to be dry.

 waiting out the rain