Day 22 - August 27 Wrap-up 3 and Where's the Water?

Today is the first day of week 4 on the road.  This past week we covered 2231.8 miles touching 12 states.  Our total cumulative mileage is now 7782.6 . We visited two iconic places in NY and two national parks.  We reached another piece of Torrey's quest for the four corners and checked off 3 others' special requests.  The weather has held thus far and in fact moved into the hot and humid range. There were some long days this past week, but with the incredible scenery - it has all been worth it. 

It was like walking into a sauna when we stepped out of the room to go to the bikes this morning.  The moisture made the air seem thick.  Exiting the island went much more quickly than getting there.  We rejoined US 17 south bound for the Georgia line.

Yesterday we rode US 17 all day and never really saw the water, and considering that 17 and I-95 run almost on top of each other, we opted for I-95 through Georgia today.  We stopped off briefly at Golden Isles HD in Brunswick, GA. The roads were wet as if it had just rained.  The skies were grey.  There was a discussion about whether to put on the rain gear or not before we pulled out of the parking lot.  It was decided we would take our chances.  After topping off the tanks we took a curved on ramp up onto the interstate.  A wall of rain came into view and we decided we'd better don the rain gear afterall.  The rain only lasted a few minutes, but we kept the rain gear on just in case as we crossed the Florida line.

The next scheduled stop was going to be the St. Augustine HD store.  As we neared Jacksonville, FL the rain started up again.  A sign on the interstate indicated there was a HD store at the next exit.  We took it.  When we pulled in at Adamec HD in Jacksonville we were the only people wearing rain gear.  All the customers were wearing shorts and were dry.  It was like we had come from a different world.  We peeled off all our wet gear and went inside to check it out.  Latin American Motorcycle Assoc (LAMA) was hosting a BBQ so we opted to support their event and grabbed a bite. While we were there the storm we rode through caught up to us and came down at the dealership.  It passed while we finished our lunch. 

The rain had stopped and we were done lunching, so it we mounted up and headed for St. Augustine where we planned to catch the 1 so we could finally ride along the coast with views of the ocean.  Thirty miles down the road as we pulled into St. Augustine, we were steamed like clams.  We were still in our raingear despite not a drop of rain since we left Jacksonville.  Torrey said the rain gear made us just as wet under the raingear as we were on the outside when it was raining.  We chose not to go to the HD shop after all as it was a t-shirt shop only and it was just off A1A which was crowded with Saturday afternoon visitors.  We did get a brief glimpse of the ocean water.  We ditched the rain gear and headed for a spot down the way.  A1A was way too slow and US 1 didn't really provided the views we were hoping for so we ended up on I-95 again.  The location down the road turned out to the be Daytona, FL HD shop.  It's a huge complex that's a central location during bike week.

Back on I-95 south, we continued on our way.  As we got close to the exits for Orlando and Port Canaveral the clouds were getting very dark again.  We used an overpass bridge as a shelter as we again donned the rain gear.  This time the rain lasted maybe 3-5 minutes. 

For good measure we left the rain gear on, but it was hot and uncomfortable. We noticed that none of the bikers we passed were wearing rain gear.  It was easy to pick out who the tourists were!  We had watched so many weather reports that called for rain that we were half expecting each time to be the time that the rain would last the rest of the day.  It didn't happen that way.

We got to Vero Beach around 4:30pm.  After we checked in and showered, we went to dinner at the resort.  It was fun to have a surprise visitor stop by our table.  Following dinner we walked out to the beach.  Finally!! We made it to the Atlantic Ocean.  Tim went down to meet it.

Total miles today: 412.4;
Time to travel that distance: 9.5 hours;
Total Cumulative miles: 8195
Tomorrow: The Keys