Thursday October 27th 2016

I had two objectives today. The first was to slow down after yesterday’s heavy tourist focus. I’ve been in a fairly heavy tourist mode for the last couple of weeks. It goes with the territory. Orlando is after all a tourist mecca.

The second objective is to prepare for a travel day tomorrow. My two weeks here at Tropical Palms is ending. I’ll be moving north to the St. Augustine area for a week or two. So far I’ve only been able to secure a reservation for 6 nights, but I have a couple of other places to check.

When I’ve been in one place for more than a week, the travel preparation is a little more complicated. For shorter stays I generally put stuff away as soon as I finish using it and some things just don’t come out of their storage area. Over a two week or longer stay things seem to come out and stay out until it’s time to move on. Since I’m only moving about a hundred and fifty miles, I don’t have to rush in the morning. I will have time to finish packing things before the 11AM checkout.

Five or six foot alligator in the pond at the campground.

On my daily walk around the campground I finally saw an alligator in the pond. All of the warning signs on the fences raised my suspicions that I might see one. On my last walk about the campground, the gator crossed the pond to get a good look at me. It was almost like it was expecting me to feed it. I hope others haven’t been feeding the alligators.

Spooky looking head of the turtle under the surface of the water.

I also saw the big turtle again. I’m more impressed by the turtle than the alligator. Although this is the first alligator I’ve seen this fall, they are more common than the turtle. Both creatures look very much like the ancient dinosaurs they evolved from.

I made one more grocery run this afternoon to restock the refrigerator and cupboard for the next few days. While I don’t believe there are any issues, I am traveling into an area that hurricane Matthew impacted heavily.