Last we spoke I was enjoying writing yesterday’s article beach side. After I finished up, I packed up my bags and climbed into the tent. Almost instinctively I decided to close up the rain fly. As I was climbing back into the tent the winds really whipped up and it started raining very hard. I remained dry inside but was worried about how well I staked the tent. Being waterproof is good but it wouldn’t matter much if I started blowing away. That storm cell lasted maybe 30 minutes. I had a hard time falling asleep with the heat and lack of airflow that the rainfly creates. I was expecting much heavier storms around 3AM so I left it up. It rained once but not heavily. At about 7AM you would not guess what woke me up. I saw this glowing orange glow from inside my tent almost like the sun decided to come out.

I was in the middle of a tropical storm and was fortunate enough to wake up to a clear sky and nice weather. I couldn’t be happier. I broke down camp while trying to reduce the amount of sand that was in everything. It’s inevitable that I will find sand all throughout the rest of the trip from this past evening but that is just fine. I proved to myself that I can correctly stake a tent to withstand 20+MPH winds.

I was on the road by about 830AM. I desperately needed to clean and lube my chain so about 40 miles from camp I started my routine cleaning routine. Step 1: Buy coffee, water, and a snack. Step 2: Clean chain with WD-40 and grunge brush and wipe clean. Step 3: Apply chain lube and let sit. Step 4: Drink coffee while letting the chain lube dry and fill up camelbak.

I decided to postpone leaving FL tomorrow because of this tropical storm. There is no purpose in me spending a full day or two in the rain while being miserable.

Short update today but I’ll take a look at the digital camera photos tomorrow and hopefully upload some gems. Lets go Hawks!