Thursday August 4th 2016

It was extremely humid this morning, but the actual temperature was much lower than the last couple of days. It was still cloudy in the high 70s at 9:30 or so when I got underway. It only seemed to get to the mid 80s during the day.

Today’s route was straight down I95 out of South Carolina, through Georgia and into Florida. The thirty or so miles in South Carolina was the worst road of the day. The combination of concrete and pavement made for a very bouncy ride. Particularly annoying is the dips at the leading and trailing edge of bridges. The road in Georgia and Florida are 3 and 4 lanes wide, nicely paved and smooth.

Just before I stopped at the Florida Welcome center to stretch my legs and get my teaspoon of orange juice it started to shower. There were brief periods of down pour strength rain followed by just sprinkles. This continued all the way through the city of Jacksonville.

Sign at the Florida Welcome Center. Why does a tourist care who the governor is?

About an hour after I drove through the area between the Florida Georgia line and the city of Jacksonville severe weather passed through the area. I safely missed a small tornado that touched down in the town of Yulee.

I followed I95 right through Jacksonville. Usually, I take the I295 beltway around the city to the west. It was the middle of the day and traffic seemed light so I gave the shorter route a try. Traffic wise it was a success. Road surface wise, it was a mistake. There was a lot of construction on the route through the city.

Site 20 at the Stagecoach RV Park in St. Augustine Fl.

I’ve stopped at the Stagecoach RV park outside St, Augustine for a few days. I may stay at this park longer or move to another park in the area. I didn’t want to commit to a long stay until I get a sense of the park and the area. I will be in this area for as long as it takes to get my Florida domicile established in nearby Clay County. I also need to be somewhere safe to leave the camper when I fly back north to finish cleaning out the house.

Tomorrow I’ll do some reconnoitering of the area and some shopping. I’ve been to St Augustine before so sight seeing is not the first priority, although there is likely to be some of that before my stay in the area is over.

Wednesday August 3rd 2016

I got on the road at about 10am this morning. It was later than I had planned, but I put the time to good use. I reviewed the paperwork associated with selling my house in NH. It is now officially under contract. If all goes well the sail will close by the middle of September.

My destination for the day was the Point South KOA in Yemassee South Carolina. This is an OK stop for a night or two near Interstate 95. I’ve stayed here a few times. It seems to be well located for my travel style. I stopped here last December and last April. In April I stayed here for four nights while I toured Charleston SC.

To get here from Washington NC I had two choices. I could take route 17 south from Washington all the way to the KOA or I could take Interstate 95. Route 17 would take me through Wilmington NC, Myrtle Beach SC and Charleston SC. It might me shorter mileage wise but it would be a more difficult drive. I chose to back track a little going west and north to I95 then straight south through the remainder of North Carolina and most of South Carolina. It was about 350 miles total.

Welcome to South Carolina sign out the dirty window.

The only real event on my journey was at the gas station. When I tried to pull into the pumps my path was blocked by a car getting a jump start in the middle of the entry road. I went by and turned around in an empty parking lot, then waited for the access to clear. It turns out that the car needing a jump start was being pulled by a motorhome already at the pumps. For some reason he had disconnect his towed car to backup the motorhome only to find it had a dead battery. I didn’t get all the details. The gentleman driving the motorhome was quite flustered. He was still there after I’d gotten my gas and moved on.

Site 26 at the South Point KOA.

The weather this morning was sunny and not to hot. The humidity was way down from the weekend. The further south I got the worse the conditions looked. I ran through a few short rain showers as I drove, but nothing severe until I was ready to stop. As I arrived the KOA the clouds opened up. I got soaked going into the office to register. After I was escorted to my site I just sat in the RV until the rain letup enough to get outside and hook-up to the utilities. I was fully setup for the night about 5pm.

Watching to the TV news from Savannah GA this evening I heard an interesting statistic.  Today was the 43 straight day with the temperature in the 90s.  The record is 46 days.   I think it is far to say they are having a heat wave.

Tuesday August 2nd 2016

Today’s weather was very similar to yesterday. The high temperatures were in the upper 80s and thunderstorms rolled through the area late in the day.

I was in recovery mode today. I stayed at the RV all day. After the last few days of lots of people and lots of activity, I needed a slow day. I did some planning for the next few days. Chief among the plans was a reservation for tomorrow night. I’ll be getting the travels underway again in the morning.

Besides watching TV and surfing the WEB for information to help with my planning, I’ve also been working with my real estate agent on selling the house in NH. I’ve been negotiating over price with a potential buyer since Saturday. We may have reached an agreement this evening. I’m holding my enthusiasm until everything is in writing.

This afternoon, I started packing for tomorrows travel day. I put the bicycle rack and bike back on the car and I put the gas grill away. Inside I put a few things away to get a head start on the morning packing.

Storm approaching from the northwest.

Not long after I got the outside packing chores competed the weather went downhill. About 5PM a line of thunderstorms came through the area from the north. The previous few days the thunderstorms have come from the south and west. It rain hard with lots of thunder and lightning for about 2 hours. It is now in the 70s and very calm outside, but the possibility of more storms remains.

Monday August 1st 2016

Today was cooler than the previous few days. It started cloudy then cleared in the late morning, only to cloud back up with thunderstorms late in the day.

I returned to the river for one last day this morning. Today was dedicated to assisting in cleaning up and putting the toys away. We packed away the traditional toys like the badminton/volleyball set. The big boy toys like the sunfish and golf cart were returned to storage and the jet ski got taken out of the water and washed down. Overall, it was a productive day.

I was back at the campground by 4 o’clock in time for the next round of thunderstorms. Even though there were severe thunderstorm warnings in the area, the ones that passed thorough the local area were not long duration. The biggest impact was that a wind gust knocked my bicycle over. Once I removed the cover from the bicycle there was not enough surface area for the wind to knock it over a second time.

Storm approaches the campground

More interesting cloud patterns as the storm approaches.

This concludes today’s weather report. Thank you for reading. I’ll try to come up with something different to write about tomorrow.