26th DAY: The Final Stretch

It rained hard at night but it was fine when we woke up. Wasn't no clear day but the good thing was, we were able to dry our tent before we put it away. Apparently, Fuji only shows itself 60 or so days of the year so it was no surprise we didn't pick one of those days, especially with our bad luck.

We didn't drive far before the rain came again. Nigel was being extremely cautious and was driving 40km/hr so when I saw a place we could stop, we parked the bikes and hoped the rain would at least die down. We were there for awhile and it didn't so we kept going. Little did we know, we only had to drive 4-5 km further out of the mountains and the roads were dry. I was ahead and I fell asleep while driving and hit a plastic marker with my side bag so we stopped again for some coffee. Our goal was Nagoya but it was a fair ways away so we stopped at Miho for a 3rd break. It was at the tip of a peninsula and there was a lighthouse so I thought it might be a good photo opportunity. I was wrong.

We did find a beach with 2 tents for shelter and it seemed like it would be a secluded place to rest overnight but we were wrong about that too. We ate dinner and waited for the sun to go down. Then came some people, then more and more. They were having a BBQ and firework party. It was dark now so we decided to stay there anyways since they had facilities. The tents were low so we tried to sleep in the open under the tents. That was a mistake. It soon was drizzling so I set up the tarp to block that off. Good thing it didn't last long.

Then Nigel became paranoid people would hurt us every time a car pulled up so he prepared his utensils in case. Of course, nothing happened. Then worst of all, came the mosquitoes. Mosquitoes love me and so even with one buzzing in my ear, I can't sleep. There were more than a few. The mosquito repellent wasn't good enough so I only got 1-2 hours sleep that night. But when the day broke, and the mosquitoes were most prevelent, that was when Nigel finally got comfortable. I was not so fortunate. I had to wait until he woke up.

I took advantage of that time. I did a little writing on my computer, went for a walk and saw the sunrise, saw that all those cars were just people coming there to go fishing, experienced a wicked fog come over the area, took a shower, ate breakfast and even cleaned up our mess. Funny thing was, I was fine to drive for the rest of the day.