April 5th, 2026

Florida Loop 2026 is the not so clever name for my motorcycle touring trip, riding a loop of the state of Florida…. hence the name of the trip

Florida Loop 2026 Total Miles = 2,261

Day 2 miles traveled = 286 Miles riding Big Lagoon State Park in Pensacola, Florida east on US Highway 98 to Holiday Inn Express in Perry, Florida

The original end of day plan for today was to camp at the Ocen Pond Campground near Lake City, Florida.  However, I had a very late start today rolling out of camp around 1:30PM waiting for the heavy rain to subside enough so that I wouldn’t have to tear down camp in the heavy rain.  I hate packing away soaked gear (it was still wet but not soaked by the time I packed up camp).

The heavy rains started at about 5:30AM and persisted for most of the day up until about 11:30AM – Noon. 

Camp setup and tear down took me a bit longer than normal as a lot of my gear was new to me on this trip and I was also a bit rusty having been nearly 3 years since I last moto camped during my USA Midwest 2023 motorcycle tour.