Monday January 16th 2016

Today’s weather forecast was a repeat of yesterdays. The actual weather was different. It was cloudy most of the day. The sun finally came out just before sunset.

I start most blog entries with a summary of the weather because it has such a big influence on my day. Today’s gloomy weather resulted in a very slow start for me. I had thoughts of going to the St Petersburg Beach area, but the weather discouraged that idea. I kept waiting for it to clear off as it had the past few days. By mid-afternoon it still hadn’t cleared, but I went out to get some groceries and find something to anyway.

Before I stopped for groceries I went out the Nature Park/Beach at Apollo Beach. The parking lot was full and the beach area had lots of kids and fishermen. It isn’t really a good area for swimming. The large number of people at the beach was probably because of the Martin Luther King holiday. The schools, government offices and quite a few business were closed.

The only notable wildlife I say today was this guy dancing around cars in the grocery store parking lot.

I spent about an hour watching the fishermen and boating traffic. They didn’t seem to be catching anything. Judging by the number of people trying, it is probably a pretty good place at other times. While I was at the beach the sun broke through the clouds for a few minutes. Later while I was at the grocery store it broke through for the remainder of the day. The fact that I paid that close attention to the weather, reflects how much it seems to play into my current lifestyle.

On the way back to the campground, I stopped at the “new” Winn-Dixie Supermarket. One of the people here at the campground told me I should shop there. In a 15 mile stretch of US41 there are 3 Winn-Dixies and 2 Publix supermarkets. Except for the “old” Winn-Dixie they all look new. The store certainly had a better produce section than the Publix, but you need to have a frequent shoppers card to get the specials. I know you can usually get the cashier to scan a card at most grocery stores that use the loyalty card, but it’s the principle of having to “beg” for the sale price. I’ll stick with the Publix in this area that doesn’t use the card system and the Super Walmart up the road the other way.