Day 12, Denham Springs, LA to Wakulla Springs, FL.

Our hotel didn't have breakfast, so we decided we'd grab something to eat a bit later. We wanted to get on the road and hope for better riding today than yesterday.

I saw a dead alligator on the side of the road near Slidell, LA. Yikes....imagine hitting one of those in your car. Maybe someone like Janet scared it to death when it tried to creep up and eat her while she tried to put her rain gear on.

The skies turned dark, and it was obvious we were going to run into rain, unless we got lucky again and it only clouded over and drizzled a bit. We could hope for that. So far on the trip, we'd been pretty lucky at not having to ride in too much rain.

Our luck ran out. We hit a wall of rain. It was so much rain, so fast, I couldn't even see in front of me. I had to pull over to the shoulder of the interstate and even that was a scary thing. I must confess, I didn't have my visor on my helmet, just glasses. I did have it in my saddlebag, so as we sat at the side of the highway getting drenched, I put it on. Tricia didn't have the mesh pants on that Janet and I did, so her jeans were soaked. We managed to get safely off at the next exit. The water was inches deep on the road. We parked under a gas station pump roof while Tricia went inside to buy a dry shirt. I lent her a pair of jeans from my saddlebags, and when she came out, we went into Denny's for something to eat. After lunch/dinner, we got back on the road.

As Tricia pointed out, since we were in Mississippi during the rain, and lunch, we'd now eaten in all 5 states on our trip! Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas!

Tricia in her new, almost dry, t-shirt.
And my jeans, which were dry, LOL.

We managed to stay dry for awhile. We stopped under a bridge, Janet's jacket was flapping loose from under her cargo net. A couple bikes pulled up behind us, it was Mary Youngblood and Maggie from Tallahassee. They were heading home, which was about 3 hours away, and we were still undecided about our destination for the night.

We were dry for the next 100+ miles. We stopped for gas again and to check the map, and about 1 minute after we left the gas station, but thankfully before we got back on the interstate, it started raining. We parked under the bridge and hung out for awhile.

Janet under another bridge!

We had fun under the via-duct, (as Janet's calls it). She sang some gospel songs,told me a railroad riddle (that for the life of me I can't remember) and then she and I took off our helmets and jackets, and we went out into the rain. It was so refreshing! We were sorta singing and dancing in the rain, it was exhilarating!

Trying to wait out the rain.

Our map is getting drenched and
falling apart.

Tricia, keeper of the map. Maybe she'll be
ex-map keeper since she didn't keep it dry,
or in once, piece!

We checked the radar on our phones, and it looked like a dark rainy cloud just over us. We figured if we could get east a bit, then go south, we'd get into dry territory again. We were right, not too long after we pulled out and got off 10 E, we were out of the rain.

The ride down 83 to 20 and then to 267 to Wakulla Springs Lodge was awesome. It was 80F, sunny, and just beautiful roads in that part of Florida. We were getting tired though, so when we did stop for gas, and to find a place for the night, we took the first place we found on our phones, which was Wakulla Springs Lodge in the State Park. It was still 84 miles from where we were, but we needed to know we had a reservation for the night. We did pass a few mom and pop motels between the gas station and our final destination for the night, so lesson learned, but sleeping out in the woods if we hadn't found a place, just didn't seem like an option any of us wanted to chance.

When we turned into the road for the lodge, off of 267, it seemed like we rode and rode and it was hard to imagine any kind of lodge so far back in the woods, but we finally found it and it was a very welcome sight indeed. We were tired and hungry!

Wakulla Springs Lodge.
Our last night "home away from home".

I took lots of photos of the lodge, I'll post them on a separate page! Suffice it to say, another old building (built in 1937) that I loved exploring.

We got our room settled, managed to slip into the dining room before they closed and had a lovely meal before we headed upstairs.

I had an avocado burger and a
glass of wine! Perfect.

All we could get was a double/twin, but when we went into the room, the closet was huge and the attendant told us some folks put a cot in it and used it for their kids. I perked up at the word "cot", and secured one. Rolled it into my room and was a closet dweller for the night! Everyone had their own bed, it was great.

My room, the closet,
and clothes dryer.

Time for a cold shower and some rest. Hopefully the lodge wasn't really haunted, although the guest book by the bed had some entries that would leave you to believe otherwise.

Janet hiding (from a ghost?), nope from the camera!

We rode quite far today, maybe 700 KM, so we definitely made up for yesterday's terrible traffic. We were tired, but happy, tomorrow would be a short day, only a couple hundred miles to go.