Monday November 9th 2020

Tropical Storm Eta passed over the Florida Keys and out into the Gulf of Mexico southwest of the Florida peninsular over the last twenty four hours. I was in a safe place to ride out the storm.

The storm passed through the keys about thirty miles east of where I was last week. I haven’t heard any specific reports, but I imagine the campground at the state park was flooded and took a heavy beating from the wind. The state park’s web site indicates the park is currently closed. The area around my Saturday night’s stay where I had intended to be right now got several inches of rain and was subject to tropical storm winds.

Here, just north of Titusville, there was some rain and wind but nothing severe. It rained off and on over night. Sometimes the rain was accompanied by wind and sometimes it wasn’t. The pattern continued through most of the day. At times it was nice outside weather under a cloudy sky and during other periods you needed to be inside away from the rain. Overall, I was in the right place during the storm.

Currently, the storm is going to stall in the gulf until Friday. This morning the post Friday track had the storm heading across the Florida peninsular from north of Tampa to Jacksonville. By the end of the day, the projected track was further west into the Florida panhandle toward Tallahassee. That means this area should be safe. Unfortunately, this campground is full over the weekend. I need to find a place to stay from Friday to Monday. My reservation starting on Monday is about twenty miles from here. There are several options.

I spent the day still in a run from the storm mindset. I wasn’t ready to relax and settle in for the next four nights. I still haven’t taken the bicycle off the car. The weather forecasts on the evening news helped me ease my mind a little. My satellite dish is blocked by a big tree, so I haven’t been able to watch the Weather Channel. There are plenty of over the air TV channels to watch. For the last four weeks I have been out of range of all the TV stations. Which is nice since the fall TV shows are starting to air.