Saturday January 7th 2017

Winter has arrived at my location South of Tampa Florida. It rained for about eighteen hours at varying intensities. As the rain ended early this afternoon a strong wind arrived. Awnings are flapping and the wind is howling tonight. The temperature at 7PM is in the 40s and going down. I’ve had other brief periods of cold weather this winter, but not accompanied by rain and strong winds. Full sunshine is slated to return tomorrow, but the high temperature won’t be out of the sixties until Tuesday or Wednesday.

Tampa South RV Resort after the rain let up.

For the second day in a row, I didn’t leave the campground. Today, I blame the weather. It was shortly before sunset when the sun broke through the clouds for a minute or two. I was comfortable outside with a sweatshirt, but many people had winter coats, hats and gloves. At the other end of the spectrum were people still in shirtsleeves and shorts. Crazy snowbirds that won’t let a little cold weather get them down.

In addition to the usual TV entertainment, I also got to watch my neighbors take a big couch out of their fifth-wheel trailer. The two guys were huffing, puffing and cursing to squeeze it out the door. Later in the day, I saw it in the dumpster. It might have been easier to cut it up to get it out of the trailer. I wonder what they will be replacing the couch with.

My neighbors are road construction workers or something similar. They leave every weekday morning before I get up and return around four in the afternoon. Their uniforms are florescent green shirts. Judging by the trucks that stop by to drop off or pickup stuff, there are several of their coworkers staying here too. I don’t have any issue with working neighbors, but some people do. To give management an excuse to exclude similar residents some parks become 55 plus parks. I’m told, it is a far more common reason than to exclude families with kids. This is of particular concern in oil drilling areas like Texas and North Dakota. Most parks just want money until it becomes an issue for some reason.