Chillin'

It stormed pretty good again overnight, but Saturday morning, we woke up to sunshine, to 200 miles in our pocket, and to newspaper stuffed in our boots.  Outside, plenty of dense clouds remained, but the sky was otherwise blue and the humidity was gone.  So, we felt pretty optimistic, leaving dry with jackets and heavy gloves, and with dry roads under our wheels.  Back up on 81, southbound, hammer down.

The only truly large city on this route is Charlotte, as opposed to I-95 whose only purpose is to connect a never-ending string of them.  We (I) avoid that bullshit at pretty much all costs, and in fact this route adds ridiculously little mileage to a 1,000+ mile trip, waaaaay outweighing the rage it saves.  Let's keep this our little secret - K?

Before we got out of Virginia, however, the gray skies and mist returned, followed eventually by more rain.  Temps dropped into the 40's. We were bundled up and fighting cold all the way though Columbia, SC and the short leg of I-26, where we stopped again for gas and booked a room right below where we'd be soon be dumped onto 95.  There, we were greeted with a Cracker Barrel 2 doors down from our budget-friendly Days Inn, right alongside the shoulder of the interstate.  We got dinner out of the way, checked in, and stayed in.  Aside from the party-girl sistaz from Miami that ended up sitting on Donna's bike for a selfie, the only action was getting showered and staging everything for an easy escape in the morning.

Leaving after a leisurely breakfast, again with jackets and optimism, it was a hot minute to Georgia and not even noon when Florida arrived in view across the St. Mary's River.  Jacksonville is the only city left on 95 aside from its terminus in Miami, and is where both nav systems, set with our destination so we'd have the arrival time, lost their minds due to the road construction leaving the route alignment as a work in progress.  We can still read highway signs, though, and highly recommend doing so to everyone.  Traffic itself was typical weekend, busy but tolerable, and the turn onto I-4 for the run inland to Orlando was less than an hour off from here.

I-4 through downtown Orlando right now is a ridiculous mess of temporary roadway, itself the slightest of improvements over dirt biking through a cornfield.  Nonetheless, we survived and pulled into the Holiday Inn Waterpark Resort under a warm sun, still actually wearing jackets and still wearing smiles.

Before long we were chillin' again, but this time poolside with a nice beverage.  Tomorrow I'll log in for the day's work like any other Monday, except not like any other Monday.