Friday November 11th 2016

It was another cool day. The temperature didn’t get much above 70F. The sun was out in the morning but it clouded over by mid afternoon. That concludes the weather report for this blog.

This area seems to be very focused on celebrating and thanking out countries veterans. Many of the communities held parades and other celebrations. Empty parking lots implied several local non-retail businesses were closed. The strong support may be because of the heavy Navy presence in the Jacksonville area or just plain patriotism. Whatever the cause, it’s a good thing.

Traffic today was very heavy. Going to the grocery store I had to wait at every traffic light at least one cycle. At a couple of signals, I waited two cycles. It wasn’t fun travel. It is probably the holiday but it may be the arrival of the snowbirds. The number of non Florida license plates are increasing rapidly and campgrounds like this one are filling up for the winter.

Another possible explanation of the traffic in the shopping districts is Christmas shopping. This years great marketing ploy seems to be early Black Fridays. As soon as the election ads ended, the department stores and big box stores have started ads for weekend sales with an emphasis on getting started on Friday. Looking at the calendar it is hard for me to believe that Thanksgiving and Black Friday are two weeks away. It’s just another one of those disconnects resulting from unfamiliar seasonal clues. Fall in Florida doesn’t look like fall in New England.

Campground retention pond complete with water circulation fountain.

This afternoon I walked around the campground. This campground like others in Florida is situated on reclaimed marshy, almost swamp land. The area is dried out by creating water retention ponds. To keep the water moving and aerated they put a pump and fountain in the middle. The pond in this campground even has fish stocked for catch and release fishing. It looks like they are adding a path and bench seating around the pond. I’m really impressed by the work the new owners of this campground are doing.

Thank you to all the Veterans.