Day 35 - Okaloosa Island - Panama City

66 miles












I was able to sleep in and leave at 7. The riding the whole day was awesome. Magnificent scenery. I was basically hugging the coast the whole ride. Also had a pretty strong tailwind the whole ride is well. Really easy riding.


There was rain in the forecast for the whole day unfortunately. But when I started riding it was blue skies. 


I went through these perfect little towns. Seem like they were from a dream. One of the towns was actually had the Truman Show filmed there. I got to see the house they used.


Road for a little bit longer and then I noticed things start to change. The birds stop to chirping, the wind picked up, and dark clouds were forming behind me. 


I rode on for another 15 minutes and looked behind and it seemed the clouds were still off in the distance.


Another 15 minutes, and they still seemed pretty far away.


And then it felt like 5 minutes of riding, and I looked at the clouds were dang near right on top of me.


I took shelter before it started raining. The raining wasn't really the bad part, it was the wind. When I say bad, I mean unsafe. It got up to 28 mph, and then there were probably 40 mph gusts of wind. Not safe. The rain wasn't all that much, it was just coming down so hard with the wind.


I took shelter in a parking garage and stayed there for two and a half hours. At one point a car stopped right next to me. The security came at one point and told me a better place to set up shop.


But once I got back on the bike after the two and a half hours, it was smooth sailing. Made it to Panama City and my host. Thank you Jan for the awesome place!


Good food, good conversations, and we watched a good movie. Bikes of wrath. People that biked the route of the grapes of wrath.


Anyway, a pretty fun and solid day



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