Pre-Turkey trip to North FL. Day 1 St. Augustine

 As mentioned it was a quick turn from picking up the coach to rolling out the next day.  Lucy works on Saturdays and with all that's going on in the world, she needs to be avail, so we left a a day later (plus the coach pickup, etc.).   As I got back home around 1ish on Saturday, I went through all the mechanicals and made sure everything was ready to roll for a decent run of about 270 miles.   All systems were go and she ran like a champ on the 90 miles back from Okeechobee, so I started the load out for the next morning, as I wanted to be on the road no later than 10AM as I surmised it would be about 4:45 to 5 hours.

Things went as smoothly as one can expect, and we were indeed on the road at 9:59AM.  The ride north had a bit of a headwind, and bouts of rain.  

Around Melbourne, we hit an accident.   I was ready to get off and use Wickham road as an alternate, but Lucy said WAZE was saying it was only a 10 minute delay.  It was closer to 20, but even so, probably close to a wash with the detour, so we stayed the course.

This allowed me the time to get an odometer shot for my buddies (we play this game and to win, I should have been going 94 MPH which would be ludicrous in the GMC)....the speedo is off as I was actually not moving and it reads about 10 mph slow.   the Odo is spot on though.

The worst of the rain was around New Smyrna/Daytona area.   We powered through it and got into the sunlight for a short time.   By the time we are at the gate and waiting our turn to enter the park (3ish), I saw on the radar that the nasty stuff we ran through was chasing us.

We got to our site and I plugged in and hooked up the water.  I immediately took a bike off (oh BTW, my bike tire was flat after filling it up right before we left so 5 hours max on ride time) and did a proper surf check.   4 guys out, wind hard sideshore and cold, and while it was head high, didn't see anything rideable in the 15 min I was watching it.  Should have brought  a spring suit but as a SFL guy didnt think of it.  Anyway, the rain was coming up fast, so I peddled hard back to the campground whizzing past Lucy who had just turned around herself.

We arrived back at the site just as the monsoon rain was setting in, and our friends Beth and Lee and their  dog had just shown up.   We put our 13x13 shelter up in the rain and moved under it.   We need to Scotch Guard it again as it leaks, but it took care of us for the most part.

Here we are riding the storm out, albeit without the REO Speedwagon soundtrack.

Plan B for the filet mignon that Beth and Lee brought over.   Hard to light a campfire in a deluge, so the trusty camp grill did the trick, and Lucy prepared the veggies on the griddle inside the coach (nice to have options!).

 

About the time we finished eating the rain moved out and we got busy burning wood for light, conversation, and entertainment.   As you can see it was a roasty-toasty fire.   We enjoyed this for quite awhile and just before they left for the evening (they live fairly close by), we headed down to the beach.  Full on hijinks and hilarity ensued and we chalked it up to another classic evening spent with friends enjoying the good life.