Wake to an unusual sound: rain. We quickly get our gear into shelter and of course the rain immediately stops, but at least we're on the go early. This frontal system has been promised for days but that's all the rain we see: Florida will continue with it's drought. We breakfast quickly and leave the park (seeing an owl en route), retrace our route to Rt 90 over the steep climbs and head east. Soon leave the main road, though, today and return to quiet back roads and trees.
A few sights enlivened our way: a chain gang by a prison (black inmates, white guards), a family of quail and 2 alligators basking in a river. Also had a god view of the dam creating Lake Seminole as we cross the Apalachiola River and into the Eastern time zone. Find lunch in Quincy (the county town of Gadsen County) and picnic in the middle of town on food from a grocery straight out of the 1950's. We've found that county courthouses often provide convenient park benches. Tallahassee proved an easy city to traverse (passing the Florida State football stadium) before returning to the back roads for a loop south, then north again to I-10 where we found a well appointed KOA site right off our road, and for once we were not approaching sunset.
Time to eat well, catch up on laundry and diary and prepare for a long ride tomorrow. Also manage to finalize the plan for the end of the route: we'll cover the last 270 miles in 2 days to St Augustine, then ride to Daytona for the night and on to Ocala, borrowing Grandma's car there to get to Orlando and the rental car. Organized at last!
