Sunday August 7th 2016

The weather really got in the way today. Not because it was bad, but because it was unpredictable. It seems like every time I wanted to do something the weather had other ideas.

I decided I’d do some of the tourist stuff in the downtown historic district this morning. The morning weather forecast called for clouds with rain possible near mid day. That’s exactly what it looked like when I stopped for breakfast at McDonalds on my way downtown. When I came out of McDonalds less than 20
minutes later, it looked like night was returning. I assumed the mid-day rain had arrived early.

The rain caused me to change plans. I went to the grocery store and to Walmart for a few things, then back to the RV to put the perishables away and regroup. So far, it only rained a couple of times for less than 5 minutes. None of the weather behavior was aligned with the forecasts on the TV.

Around noon it was looking brighter. The sun came out for a few minutes now and then. I decided to make another attempt at the tourist attractions. My first stop was at a couple of the beaches north of St. Augustine on route A1A. They were occupied, but not so heavily that I couldn’t find a place to park. There was nothing remarkable about this section of Atlantic Ocean beach. It had plenty of sand and the ocean was the ocean. I had the option of driving up the coast to Jacksonville or turning around back to St. Augustine. Returning to plan, I headed for the downtown tourist attractions.

Downtown St. Augustine has many narrow one way roads. I navigated those looking for a place to park without success. My only option was to get in line for the parking garage with about 25 other cars. As I approach the garage the sky opened up again. It went from sunny to down pour in the snap of your fingers. My interest in walking around in the rain was not great, then I saw the cost of parking. It was going to cost $12 to park. Even if it wasn’t raining I wouldn’t spend a lot of time playing tourist. I let my cheap side win and I got out of line and continued looking for a parking alternative. Navigating the narrow one way streets in the rain was even more difficult.

Fifteen minutes later with the sun out once more, I was in St. Augustine beach south of the city. This area seems to be more popular than the beaches north of town. I saw plenty of parking areas, but none of them had any space. While I was considering my options, mother nature turned the switch again. It went from sunny to down pour again. I decided to give up for the day and try again during the week when fewer people will be competing for the available space. My impression is that most of the people I’m competing with are local. There are not many out of state plates on the cars. This is unlike the winter when every 3rd car has an out of state plate.

The campground is prepared for heavy rain. Each road has small drainage ditches that run to a big ditch between the campground and the storage area.

The story with the weather, according to another TV forecaster, is that a tropical low pressure system is stalled over the Lake City Florida area. This is about 100 miles to the west. The counter clockwise flow around the center is bringing water in off the Gulf of Mexico. We are on the fringe of the current area of impact so sometimes we get rained on and sometimes we don’t. As the storm moves east we will get more consistent impact.

What all that means is if I want to do something, do it. Just be prepared to get wet. I just dug an umbrella out of the closet. This now concludes my complaining about the weather’s impact on my life. I’ll grow up tomorrow.