Palmetto, FL: End of the Road for 2015

We had a rough start yesterday (our final day on the road for 2015), thanks to Lana throwing up in bed at 5 am.  We got some more sleep once that was sorted out, only to wake up to find it raining (the forecast had showed that it would be dry for our two day trip across the state).

Lana enjoys her new den.

We left early, with me riding the first 37 mile leg.  The traffic was much lighter than yesterday, though most of the roads had no shoulder and one long stretch was pretty rough.  Just before I rendezvoused with Alea I had gotten soaked to the bone in some fairly heavy rain.  

Soaked to the bone, my final ride is over.

It was lighter rain by the time that Alea took off, with the weather getting drier and the tail winds stronger as time wore on.  We decided to end our cycling a few miles early in Wauchula (after Alea had ridden 28 miles).  It was lunch time, and it just made more sense to end there, rather than riding just a few more miles on a full stomach.

Almost there...

Anti-climax: Alea coasts to a stop in Wauchula.

The last couple of days were a mini-shakedown cruise of sorts for our recent changes to the van.  Nearly everything worked great, though we learned that it was necessary to move the location of our floor pump, as doing so provided more room for me to get my bike out of the side door.  And we made a minor adjustment in how we store the generator, partly to protect its control panel when Alea's bike is removed and stored, and partly to make it a bit easier to get her bike in and out.

We're thinking we will donate our pop up bug shelter to the Goodwill.  We used it once, and it worked as expected.  But we have come to find that using lemon-eucalyptus oil or a similar non-DEET natural oil bug spray is usually good enough at keeping the bugs at bay, especially if we also use our citronella candle.  We have room to store it, but not without making it more complicated to store and access other items.  That is counter to our mantra of being able to access any piece of gear directly, without having to remove any of our other gear.

We arrived in Palmetto around mid-afternoon and set about getting settled in.  The sun briefly greeted us as we rolled into the driveway, and was a welcome change after a cloudy and rainy morning.

A happy Lana settles in at her temporary home.

Our home for the next two months.

Our view of Terra Ceia Bay.

The backyard.