Thunder rumbled on the way to breakfast, but by the time we rode away from our hotel, 30 minutes later, the thunder had been replaced by a light shower.

Our ride on the quiet A1A continued with miles of parks and small clusters of a variety of homes of all sizeswhat you see above is less than half of the house, squeezed between the highway and Atlantic, many with docks on the river.

Only one bridge, over the Sebastian Inlet, once again affording views of the Atlantic; though our earlier shower did not last long, the dark clouds continued to threaten.  Shortly thereafter, the sky turned ugly, almost tornado; but the worst of it was our southwest tailwind we had been enjoying was swirling and slowing us down.  An hour later, it started to sprinkle again and then quickly turned to into a downpour.  Thankfully, we had just tucked into a park cabana for pictures of the ocean.Under cover, we debated whether to forge on.  By the time we dug out our raincoats, covered up and started to ride, the rain tempered and the sun came out.  A mile later we stopped in a surf cafe for a real breakfast; earlier this morning was coffee and muffin, but this was a 4-egg Greek omelet, yum.

As we were enjoying our rest and refreshment, in walks Dan, a friend that lives in Melbourne.  In spite of the in the water direction our tracker took us today, he found us.  It was a great visit, but we still had 20 miles to our hotel.  By the time we left breakfast, the wind had switched directly out of the west.  Any deviation of direction either hurt or hindered, we were feeling the strain.  This last stretch boasted beautiful condos, more parks this great treehouse and the very long stretch of Patrick Air Force Base.  We concurred that the Air Force must have the best base locations of all the services; this is in the base’s backyard.

We did not realize how close we were to Cape Canaveral, until we checked in to our hotel and the famous Virginia astronauts were everywhere.

 A few hours later, Dan met us at our hoteldrove us back to his beautiful home for dinner, perfectly cooked steak (note to Justin) on a spinach, arugula salad with goat cheese, plus our first Key Lime Pie since arriving in Florida…….Fabulous ending to our tough 56 mile day.