Thursday November 10th 2016

If you read my blog regularly, you might get the impression that I’m obsessed with the weather. I don’t think I am, but I am aware of how heavily it impacts my day. I needed to wear a sweatshirt until about 10am this morning and again after 4pm this afternoon. Tonight’s overnight temperature is expected to go down to about 45 degrees. This is the first real evidence of fall here in northern Florida that I recognize.

Today was a moving day. The veterans day holiday falling on a Friday has created a 3 day weekend for some people. I feel lucky to have a nice site at a campground not far down the road from my location for the last week. The competition for a place to stay this weekend caught me by surprise. My site for the weekend is actually better and cheaper than my previous location. I am now at Compass RV Park. This is an older park that has recently got new owners. There is plenty of evidence of updates and expansion. This campground even has a pond and a hiking trail to explore.

Site 37 at Compass RV Park

Packing up to move this morning was a little quicker than normal. I didn’t have to dump the tanks and put the sewer hose away. The site didn’t have sewer services. I could have stopped at the dump station on the way out, but since I have a connection at the new campground I choose to wait. That did mean it took longer setting up at the new site when I emptied the tanks. It doesn’t matter if I’m moving 2 miles or 200 miles I still have to prepare the same way. The preparation and setup time on both ends of the travel day take a fixed amount of time.

For the holiday to tomorrow, I need to see what’s open. I’m getting the impression more celebration of Veterans day happens in this area than I’m used to in New Hampshire.

Wednesday November 9th 2016

The last twenty four hours were wasted. They weren’t productive in any way. I didn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t derive any particular enjoyment from the period and worst of all I didn’t get enough sleep.

It all started with election coverage. Somewhere around 10pm I got drawn into watching the reports. I had to watch for more than the length of a commercial break on a non news channel to find out why there wasn’t a declared winner yet. That was enough time to get me hooked on the coverage. I wasn’t watching to find out about my dog in the fight but more because it wasn’t going like all the polls predicted.

I found a channel that Directv established just for election coverage. It showed 4 or 6 channels of election coverage simultaneously. Listening to FoxNews provided a far right opinion, MSNBC provided far left coverage, CNN was a little closer to the center than MSNBC and BBC World News America was just strange. An interesting observation was they didn’t all call states at the same rate. If you took the aggregate of their predictions, the verdict would have been in much earlier, but making that final call all of the channels were very careful making.

Around twelve thrifty or one I went to bed with the TV on. I dosed off shortly after the Democrats sent their supporters home. When I woke an hour later Trump had already made his acceptance speech. It was time to get some sleep.

The Marine Salvage storage trailer on the left and the front of my RV on the right. The boat they were working on in the middle of the night was beside the one in the picture.

Around four in the morning the Marine Salvage group across the field decided it was time to start working on a boat. I don’t know what that was all about. They have been quiet night time neighbors up until now. After about a half an hour they drove off with the boat. Then around six more workers started to make a racket around their storage trailer. Maybe I’ve slept through the commotion other mornings.

Next up in the annoying distraction parade was rain. It rained off and on all morning. I dragged myself out of bed between 9:30 and 10:00 but I was pretty much sleep walking all day. On TV the true politicians were all upbeat today with seamless transfer of power discussions. The political commentators and the people they interviewed were all gloom and doom or rah rah change is coming. Only time will provide the true answer.

It is now evening and I’m finally motivated to do a few things like write this blog. Cooking, eating, watching TV and writing this blog are the extent of my accomplishments for the day. Not very impressive.

Tuesday November 8th 2016

It was a cloudy day today and that about says it all. The weather reflected my mood and energy level. One thing about living in an RV is you’re more consensus of the weather. If it were rainy day I might have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. Instead I just started slowly.

My focus for the day was mostly running errands. I also put a few miles on the car. I didn’t have to drive many miles to accomplish my errands, but it went along with my cloudy day induced mood to kill time. One of the roads I drove on was through a very swampy area. The water was only about a foot below the road surface. There were signs warning of water on the road so I hadn’t receded to its current level very long ago. More significantly, the road was lined with downed trees. Tree crews were still working on a few trees that were still leaning into the woods. Since it is now a month after the storm hit, this must have been a really bad area.

Most of my tasks for the day were phone call and internet based. One that proved more complicated than I anticipated was making a reservation for Thursday night through the weekend. It never occurred to me that this was a long holiday weekend. I guess more businesses in the Florida area give their employees Veterans day off or it is just a good excuse to have a long weekend. I got one of the last sites in a campground down the street from my current location. My first attempt down the coast in the Fort Pierce area was a total bust as was extending at this park. Staying in this area will give me more time to complete the car registration process that brought me to this area in the first place.

Cloudy sunset

The TV coverage on the election has been interesting. The stations are interrupting regular coverage every half hour. They rush reporters to every polling area with the slightest of issues. This morning they were broadcasting a live remote from a poll that had a paper jam in the ballot box. The first report was there is an issue we’re sending a reporter. A half hour later the reporter is there saying an engineer has been called to fix the problem, but not to worry the ballots are being captured in a backup box. The next report was the engineer has dislodged the jammed ballot from the ballot box. They promised to make sure that the ballots in the alternate box would be feed into repaired box. How they are going to keep that promise is beyond me. In all they spent over two hours hyping a minor issue. Other reports were on how provisional and absentee ballots are being processed. That at least that report was informative.

I’m relying on the cable channels for my entertainment tonight. I’ll check in with the election coverage periodically, but I’m not going to stay glued to the talking heads.

Monday November 7th 2016

It rained again overnight, but the day was pretty nice. It was Sunny in the high 70s with a good breeze most of the day. Tonight the clouds have moved in again.

I woke up early again this morning. The time change hasn’t caught up with my sleep cycle. The marine salvage operation on the other side of the field got an early start as well. I’m not sure where they are working but they routinely return with boats in need of repair. This seems to be a staging area and equipment supply area. They don’t work on the boats here. It has been a month since the storm went through the area. I’d think the salvage operation should be winding down.

After breakfast and morning television, I took a ride over to St. Augustine beach and the areas to the south on A1A. I turned back inland before I got to Marineland. The storm damage in the area I traveled through didn’t look as significant as the area north of St. Augustine. I have heard that Marineland south through Flagler county is not in good shape.

Looking north from the St. Augustine Pier area.

Looking at the waves breaking under the pier.

I stopped at the St Johns county pier in St. Augustine Beach. The tide was in for a change. The previous three or four times I’ve stopped at the pier the tide has been out. At high tide it is not possible to walk under the pier without getting wet. The slope of the ocean bottom must be somewhat flat since the waves were breaking a long way from shore.

The temperature, wind and it being a week day kept the sun bathers down. They were widely scattered. One enterprising guy was taking advantage of the wind to fly a kite. It was pretty red, yellow and black sail that was giving him a good battle. I’m surprised I haven’t seen more kites. I have seen several kite festivals advertised.

Later in the day I was out on the roads again to pickup some food for supper. I came home with a couple of pieces of steak for the grill. One for tonight’s meal and one for another day. The only complication was darkness. I finished the grilling under the lights. Getting used to the time change is hitting me hard this year.

Just think after tomorrow the political ads turn into Christmas ads. It will be a nice relief for about a week. Then I’ll be ready for the after Christmas sale ads and so it goes.

Sunday November 7th 2016

It rained hard overnight. The day started cloudy with the threat of rain at any minute. As the day went by it got progressively brighter, but mother nature still managed to produce a couple of three minute showers when you least expected it.

Today started out earlier than usual curtisy of the end of daylight savings time. With this lifestyle I should be less aware of the time, but it seems like I have more clocks and other time devices to worry about in the motorhome than I had living in a house. Many of the devices that display time manage to change back to standard time on their own, but I still end up verifying that it did what it was supposed to.

The other thing that the time change accomplished was to reaffirm that fall is here. In Florida I haven’t been exposed to the things I expect as harbingers of fall. The trees don’t turn pretty colors, the leaves don’t fall off the trees in a big way and the weather change is much more subtle. It is a little cooler and less humid but high temperatures are still around 80 degrees. Tonight it was dark by 5:30.

The signs warn that alligators are present in the pond at the back of the campground. I haven’t even seen a bird.

The uncertain nature of the weather today made outside activities less than ideal. I dawdled around the campground this morning watching the Pirates pack up and leave. Many of the weekend residents were attending the St Augustine Pirate Gathering next door. Watching a guy in full pirate costume pack up a trailer is not something you see everyday.

Shortly after noon I went out for a drive and a provisioning run. I went south on I95 then back north on US1 into St Augustine. The tourist shops at the intersection of I95 and US1 are now advertising Navel Oranges and had lots of orange bags out front. November is the start of the season for Navel Oranges so I need to keep my eyes out for a true citrus stand to buy some. I’ll be closer to the citrus region of the state at my next stops so I shouldn’t have a problem.

For groceries and other incidentals, I stopped at Walmart. I continue to use Walmart for everything but meats and fresh pastries. I still have a hard time finding reasonable and quality produce. Walmart has a fair price for stuff that has traveled a long distance. The supermarkets have higher prices for stuff that might be from closer by, but you really need to look. Some of these fruits and vegetables aren’t my favorite foods so I want good stuff when I (force myself to) eat them.

I am now settled in for my long winter night. What will I do until the winter solstices arrives and the days get longer? It’s not that bad; tonight I’m acutely aware of the arrival of night fall.

Saturday November 5th 2016

It was sunny with low humidity and lots of wind today. The temperature peaked in the high 70s. Florida’s idea of fall is here.

After a leisurely breakfast of cinnamon roles and coffee I tackled the satellite TV problem again. I surveyed the tree branches above the RV roof and decided to back the motorhome up another 2 feet. This proved to be a bad idea because it put the dish righ under a different set of branches. The sound of the light weight branches scraping on the dish as it tried to find the satellite was akin to fingernails on a chalkboard. I moved the motorhome forward a foot to clear that branch and I got a lock on the satellite. I now have satellite TV 95% of the time. Occasionally the wind will blow a branch in front of the dish blocking the signal. I’m getting occasional drop outs for a few seconds.

Satellite dish on top of RV found a hole in the tree branches.

Now I have entertainment options when the broadcast channels are unwatchable. I’m thinking of next Tuesday night when it will be non-stop who’s winning and who’s loosing the elections. A couple of minutes of coverage at the top and bottom of the hour would be enough for me. I don’t like the endless speculation of what each and every exit poll and early result means. It might be more entertaining if each commentator had to wear a sign or political button that declared their bias. I’ll happily watch home repair on HGTV or a sappy Christmas movie on one of the Hallmark Channels.

Water drainage pond behind the campground that separates the campground from the flea market.

After lunch I walked over to the St Augustine Flea market. It is located on the other side of a retention pond at the back of the campground on the side of Interstate 95. This is a more traditional flea market. Unlike the Jacksonville Flea market and Farmers Market I visited in September which sold mostly cheap new junk from china, this flea market sold PUUJ. That’s my acronym for Possibly Useful Used Junk.

One of several collections of strollers for sale at the Flea Market.

I saw lots of old furniture, old electronics like TVs and computers, old DVDs and other collections of used stuff. For some reason there was a run on kids strollers. Several places had dozens to choose from. Another collection that I had enough interest to actually inspect more closely was fishing gear. Rod and Reel combos for fresh water and salt water could be purchased at several booths.

There were lots of people walking through the fleas, but I didn’t see many purchased of PUUJ. People were buying plants. Several places were selling flowers and ground cover style plants. One place even had palm trees for sale. These places were doing a brisk business. It may be a seasonal thing.

I didn’t buy anything at the flea market.

Friday November 4th 2016

It was a beautiful warm humid day in the low 80s until evening. A cold front is approaching from the north complete with thunderstorms. It is only forecast to be in the low 70s tomorrow.

My obsession for the day was getting my satellite TV to work. I’m parked in a field with a line of trees between the camp sites to provide some shade. Unfortunately the trees are also interfering with my roof top satellite dish finding its target. So today, I moved the RV back 3 feet to what looked like an opening in the tree cover and sent the dish up again in search mode. When that didn’t work, I took another walk around the campground to check the orientation of other satellite dishes. I also downloaded an app for my phone to assist in finding the satellite.

Site A8 between trees. The satellite needs to point a little to the right of the camera angle.

I moved the RV back another few feet for another try. I still didn’t have any success with getting TV, but I also had a failure with my automatic leveling jacks. I should be able to push one button on the dashboard and get the four jacks to automatically deploy and stabilize the rig on a level plan. This time one jack didn’t deploy and I couldn’t get the rig to level automatically with the jacks down. I spent an hour or so trying various things to fix the issue without success.

This is by no means a catastrophic failure, I just need to level manually until I get it fixed. I’ve dug out the manual and will be searching the internet for ideas. What it did do was distract my attention from finding the satellite. I will try again to get the satellite aligned tomorrow. Until then I will have to live with the limited over the air TV reception. I get CBS and Fox along with a bunch of sub-channels.

I also went for a drive to check out the area to the west of the campground and Interstate 95. This is an area that I haven’t been in during my previous tours of the area. Other than a few new home developments, I didn’t find anything remarkable. I never even got out of the car. I just drove in a big circle for about an hour and a half.

The campground has filled up tonight. Some of the new arrivals are clearly snowbirds returning to Florida for the winter. Other new residents seem to be here for the weekend. This park is next door to the local Flea Market and an event field that has the St. Augustine Pirate Gathering going on this weekend. These may be the attraction for some of the new arrivals. I’ll probably check out the fleas tomorrow.

Thursday November 3rd 2016

I moved to another campground about 6 miles south on Interstate 95. It sounds simple, but it was a little more complicated than you’d think.

The first complication was the weather. The day started out cloudy and dry. About the time I needed to finish up the outside tasks it started to rain. The last 45 minutes of my travel preparations were done in a heavy rain. By the time I dumped the tanks and stowed the sewer hose, water hose and electric cord I was socked. The rain continued and I still had to hook up the car.

The site I was parked in was on the end of a row with one way roads that required a short turning radius to get out of the site heading for the exit. Keeping in mind that once I hook the car to the motorhome, I can’t backup, I decided to move the motorhome out onto the campground road before hooking up. It was the right decision as I did need to backup. Walking back the 200 feet or so to get the car coincided with an up tick in the rate of rain. Once I completed the hookup process, I took a minute to dry off before driving away.

The second complication was that I left the campground right at the 11AM checkout time and the new campground had warned me that I wouldn’t be able to get in until after 2PM. I was told that the office isn’t staffed from 10:30 to 2 and the gate is locked. It turned out there wasn’t a gate, but the point was made. I shouldn’t arrive before 2PM.

To kill time I drove to one of the outlet malls and parked in the parking lot. The lot is divided by many plantings and concrete curbs. The result was that I was parked in a very awkward way. To keep from getting boxed in I was taking up way to many spots. Around noon the influx of shoppers was making my location less and less attractive. I chose to move on. I went south on the Interstate beyond the exit for my new campground to a rest area. There is plenty of space for RVs in Florida rest areas. The good news is about this time it stopped raining.

After having lunch and watching some TV, it was 2PM and time to travel back to St Johns RV Park. I needed to go south to the next exit and reverse direction on the Interstate. All total to relocate 6 miles, I traveled more than 20 miles over 3 hours. I was setup on my new site by 3PM.

My RV at night on site A8 at ST Johns RV Park

This is not the best site in the world. It isn’t even the best in this campground. There is an emergency boat service operation setup in the field across from my site. They are working on small boats damaged by the hurricane. During the time I’ve been here three or four boats have been dropped off. At quitting time 5 or 6 workers returned with trucks and a couple of boats. There was a real parking lot in front of my RV.

Wednesday November 2nd 2016

Today started with an early morning rainstorm. I got up long enough to make sure it wasn’t raining in any of the open windows then went back to sleep. By the time I finished my morning shower the sun had returned to dominate the sky. It was a partly cloudy day with a temperature that peeked a little above 80 degrees.

Since my time at this campground ends tomorrow, I spent some time today making reservations. Tomorrow I will move about 5 miles to the St Johns RV Park for a week. I also made a reservation in the Tampa area for the month of January. I’ll be staying at the Tampa South RV Resort from the end of December until the end of January.

With the exception of 5 days at the end of next week, I have reservations at various places in Florida until the end of January. I will be crisscrossing the state a few times over the next couple of months. From here in the St. Augustine area I’ll head for the Fort Meyers area on southern Gulf coast for two weeks. That will be followed by 12 days back on the Atlantic coast in the Port Canaveral area. I cross back to the center of the state for a few days stay at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground, followed by two weeks at Lake Manatee State Park just east of Bradenton Florida back on the Gulf coast. I remain in that area for the month of January before I head west toward Arizona.

The other major task for the day was laundry. I got caught up on that little duty in between finding the places to make the reservations and watching TV. Actually, the TV is on for background. Today in particular, I’d be hard pressed to tell you what was on the TV. My focus was on other things.

This afternoon I took a drive along the coast north of St. Augustine toward the Jacksonville area. Route A1A in this area is only a sand dune or line of houses on the dune from the Atlantic. As expected, this area had more evidence of hurricane Matthew’s impact. The piles of debris along the road were higher and they contained more building and household debris. More significantly may buildings had spray painted “X” in a box symbols on the front. I believe this means the structure is not suitable for occupancy. From the street side they don’t look to bad, but a couple that I could see the ocean side didn’t look that good. It looked like most could be repaired and some construction was already underway.

Looking south along the Atlantic Ocean north of St Augustine FL. Beach is flat with the sand pushed into the dune or off the beach.

Surf in the Atlantic north of St. Augustine

I ended up going to just south of Jacksonville Beach. It was to far north. I got stuck in Jacksonville commuter traffic getting home. I’m trying to decide if I want to go back to the Jacksonville Beach area over the weekend for the Sea and Sky Airshow. The Blue Angels are the featured performers. Without a static aircraft display, I’m not sure there will be enough to keep me interested.

Back at my RV home this evening I started the travel preparation process. I put the bicycle rack back on the SUV and loaded the bike. The gas grill and the outside chairs have been stored in the basement. After I finish this blog post I’ll pack up the computer for travel. In the morning I will try to work slow

Tuesday November 1st 2016

Today started out much better than yesterday. The sun was shining as in broke over the eastern horizon. It got windier and cloudier as the day progressed. The temperature topped out in the low 80s. It didn’t set a record high like it did on Monday.

I drove east today across the St Johns river to Green Cove Springs. I picked up my mail from my mail service St. Brendan’s Island and declared Green Cove Springs as my domicile at the Court House. I’ll be registering my vehicles and getting my Florida Drivers License at the building next to the court house in the next few days.

Just like the roads in St. Augustine the roads had piles of debris stacked on the sides. I saw a number of trees greater than two feet in diameter that were down. Some were snapped off halfway up the trunk and others were just pulled out of the ground. The massive root balls show just how shallow the root system goes down. I didn’t see any actual property damage. It is either subtle or has already been cleaned up and repaired.

Marina on the St. Johns River

Long docks to reach deep water

There was a good wind out of the northeast today. The St Johns river was choppy. I stopped at a boat launch and harbor just north of Green Cove Springs to check out the river and watch some of the boat action. Other than crab fisherman coming in with a load of empty pots, I did see much action.

Rafter of Turkeys in the field behind the campground.

Later in the day back at the campground I got my wildlife fix for the day. Out in the back field, beyond the RC aircraft runway, a rafter of turkeys was feeding. They were all pretty good size birds. I bet if they knew about Thanksgiving they’d be a little lest conspicuous.