Day 263
Big rain, big miles
Overnight we had our first rain since arriving in the USA. So instead of a lazy breakfast with our new best friends, Dan and Rachel (we were going to experiment with baking a cake on the fire) we all packed up and hit the road.
We were again blessed with quiet back roads and cycle paths. The early morning clouds soon lifted and the sun came out. Tom resisted applying sun cream as we only had a few miles to our camp site for the night, Piddler's Pointe. When we arrived we found we had the whole of the tent area to ourselves, with plenty of free firewood too. Too lazy to go in the pool, we sat in the shade on rocking chairs, totally loving this life. Dinner was at the local diner, a sort of hamburger with gravy, I loved it! Free soft drinks too. By now Tom was regretting not applying the sun cream, I had an early night whilst Tom lazed by the fire. He had to turn down an offer of a freshly caught fish supper from one of our RV neighbours because he was so full up from the diner, shame!
The weather forecast was not good, heavy thunderstorms were due. We had two choices, a sensible option of a 40-mile day, with a few miles diversion to shelter in a small town, or push on through the swampy area on the deserted roads for about 100 miles. OK, Florida is flat, but 100 miles in the heavy rain, no possibility of shortening the day, no option but to keep going, it was a crazy idea.
So naturally we decided to push our luck and try and beat the storm. We set off at 8am, anticipating a 10-hour day. The storm caught us after a few hours, but us being us, we just screamed with delight. The roads were soon flooded. The spray from passing vehicles just about blinding us. We didn’t care! We changed our riding technique, Tom rode in front, sheltering me from the wind. This enabled us to ride faster and also saved me so much energy. Just over 8 hours on the road and just short of 95 miles, we pulled into our hotel for the night, buzzing!
