Friday December 16th 2016

It was sweatshirt weather when I got up this morning. The overnight low was in the 50s, but it warmed up quickly. Today was moving day. My stay at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort was over.

Getting ready to leave was a little different today. I never unloaded the bicycle from the car. The CR-V had just sat since I arrived on Sunday. Walking and Disney transportation was my means of transportation this past week. The other difference was connecting the car up to the motorhome. There was no room to complete the task near the site. Disney provides an area for hitching and unhitching toad cars on the entrance road. These work great for couples that can drive between the site and the hitching area separately. I needed to find an area that I could put the car then return to get the motorhome. My solution was putting the car in the main parking lot near the check-in area and using the bus to get back to the rig almost a mile away. This took an extra half an hour or so. I got underway shortly after 10am.

Disney always seems to have an ongoing road construction project or two. To get to Interstate 4 I had to navigate new bridge construction and a new bus lane construction project. The width of the lanes required careful navigation. The concrete barriers were close to the sides of the motorhome. I wonder if Florida road construction rules apply on Disney property.

Site 29 at Lake Manatee State Park.

My destination was the Lake Manatee State Park in Bradenton Florida. It was mostly interstate highway travel on I4 and I75. The area between the Orlando area and Lakeland was smooth travel. It is not heavily congested. From Lakeland to south of Tampa on I75 the traffic was very heavy and unpredictable. How traffic exceeding the speed limit can coexist with traffic 20 mph below the speed limit is beyond comprehension, but it does. I had to do a lot of lane changes to maintain a speed about 6 mph below the speed limit.

After about 2 hours of travel I arrived at the state park. I a site reserved for the full two limit. Check in was smooth and easy. I am on site number 29 out of about 60. Exploring the park and the area are on the agenda over next few days.