During the night drive it started to rain and there was a big thunder storm lasting a couple of hours. By morning it was still raining so it was decided to skip the hiking and camp out as it was going to be to wet. We had breakfast at a rest area and had bagels and fresh fruit, sandwiches were also prepared for the drive down to the swamp outside New Orleans. We bypassed the top of Florida as the weather was expected to be bad. As it turns out this would allow us an extra day in the west.
We stopped of at a National Park and made veggie chilli and had a swim in the park swimming pool, before heading on our way again in the early evening. The bus stopped at a Wal-Mart so we could stock up on beer’s etc., it was here that the bus did it’s nightly change for the sleeping arrangements. The bus has two large areas for sleeping on with the tiers in the middle of the bus, the driver that is resting has his own cubby hole for sleeping in so a group of us (Hudson, Chelsea, Rachel, Dave and Jonathan - Paula was up the quiet crowd at back of the bus) sprawled up front with the beer coolers until about 3-4am talking nonsense and having to get the bus to stop for pee breaks every ten miles.