Plum Island Between Thunderstorms

Tonight I finally made it to Plum Island. My husband and son planned a fishing trip up there so I decided to hop in the car with my bike and ride while they fished. My original plan was to bike an easy, flat 20 miles, which would be down and back the length of the island. But things often don't turn out as planned and tonight was no exception.A huge thunderstorm (which was quite a spectacular sight) was just leaving the area when we got up there, so we had to wait a bit for the lightning to go offshore and the heavy rain to stop. Things subsided a bit and the boys headed off fishing while I headed down the island towards the state park.
The views were beautiful up near the first parking lot, with the salt marshes and big open spaces. The sky over this salt marsh was blue in the distance but still raining where I was. I took this picture of a swan in the rain so it's not the best shot, but it was a beautiful sight. There were five other swans swimming in a group behind this guy.

Even though the road was flat, riding was harder than I thought, mostly due to strong head winds. The ride down was shorter than expected, too, because the road turned to gravel after only 3 1/2 miles - not really an option with my skinny road tires. I was happy to turn around since there was absolutely no one down there other than me and I started to feel a bit too isolated out there on my own. On the way back, I thought I might extend my ride in other direction by heading off Plum Island towards Newburyport, but the next thunderstorm was fast approaching and huge bolts of lightning were lighting up the sky over that area.

So instead of an easy, flat 20, I logged only a moderate 8.5 in the rain with strong head winds. This was good, though, and exactly the type of training I need since my century is along the ocean in September. It's 12 times longer than this ride... and it could very well be in the rain with strong head winds...