Sep 18 - a very short ride

Well, I left just after 7:30, got over the causeway and headed north into the wind. A half-mile later it started to rain lightly so I turned down a side-street and took shelter under the overhang of what used to be a gas station but is now a auto body shop. The shop opened a few minutes later and the fellow offered me coffee ... but I declined. As I stood there the shower turned into a downpour and the patchy clouds in the sky completely filled in as far as I could see. I had three options -- ride on, ride back or call Sandy for a ride ... I chose option # 2 and set off home in a downpour.

I rode out of the downpour just as I got home from my 9-mile ride. The shower had just started there and that was the end of it. At our house, other than a brief shower of large drops, we got nothing. I, however, was drenched and came in to change. A better / more dedicated rider would have either ridden on and dried during the ride or changed into dry clothes and gone out again. I bagged it for the day.

We got no more rain. All around us, however, the doppler showed rain. Usually the cloud follows me around -- here it's the patch of sun that follows me around. :)

So ... after an early lunch (always an early lunch for me) we took Abby to the dog beach at Ponce Inlet. It was the highest tide that we'd seen ... where we normally walk on the beach around the one point at the inlet, with dune growth on the land, we had to wade. When I say wade, I mean wade -- it was almost up to my armpits ! Abby, of course, was swimming along at the end of her leash. We should have clued in as we were walking on the path down to the beach and parts of the path were under 1.5 feet of water !

Looking over at "disappearing island" where we normally take the boat, it was gone. I mean gone. The only part of the island that was visible was the part where there is sea-grass -- the sea-grass poking out of the water.

Not much more to report for the day -- Sandy went grocery shopping, as usual, since everything is so close here. We had Wahoo for dinner, which was quite good, along with leftover risotto and a salad.

When she was out for groceries she did shop around for gas -- prices are just under $4 here for regular but two places -- the 7-11 and a Shell/Kwik-Stop have had regular at 3.65. The 7-11 had run out of regular the other day when I filled up the M5 with high-test and yesterday as Sandy was filling up at the Shell it ran out of high-test when her tank was half-full. She completed the fill with mid-grade. The place was apparently a zoo -- with their prices at $0.30 less than everywhere else they were doing quite a business. We are going to Punta Gorda today which entails about 4 hours of driving each way so I'll be sampling gas prices across the State ...

Speaking of which, it's time to get going. It's only going to be 90F in Punta Gorda today ... perhaps I'll wear shorts ...