Saturday October 15

Today started with rain and end with clouds and wind. In between it was a partly cloudy day in the 80s. Overall a good day to do very little.

As is common for my first day at a new location, today was a slow day focused on getting acclimated to the park and the area. I took a couple of walks around the resort and encountered some of the resident wildlife. There are several bodies of water in the park that birds hang out in and around. Why am I seeing more birds here than earlier in the week at the larger lakes in Lake Lousia State park? There are also a high volume of warning signs about alligators and snakes that would indicate either now or at sometime in the past an alligator or two was in residence. Of course they may have been put up by the parks lawyers when Disney had problems with gators last spring.

Some of the bird residents at the campground

The big trip for the day was to the grocery store. Around noon I went to one of the nearby Walmart Superstores to stock up on meat, bread and a few other essentials. I’ll have to try another one next time. This Walmart appeared older. The aisles were barely wide enough for two shopping carts to pass.

The fun part of the day was this evening. I walked up to Old Town and the Fun Spot Amusement park. Saturday nights at Old Town are for Cruisers. Many antique cars and hot rods were on display along with their proud owners. Several were decorated for the Halloween holiday with skeletons, spiders and other seasonal elements. The cars were getting a lot of attention.

Next door to Old Town at the Fun Spot Amusement area, the go-cart tracks were getting as much attention as the antique cars. There are two fancy go-cart tracks that climb spiral ramps 30 or 40 feet in high then descend on wide sweeping turns. I watched about 8 rounds of rides on the two tracks. Every round had a major crash or traffic jam. The more cautious drivers aren’t moving fast enough to make it up the hills without bogging down. The slow drives get rear ended by the faster go-carts. The collisions are loud, but nobody got hurt. It sure kept the guys manning the ride running up and down the track.