Monday December 18th 2017

The temperature started in the 40s and peaked just above 60 this afternoon. A very nice day weather wise.

I’ve fallen into a daily pattern of behavior that doesn’t take advantage of the sunshine and nice weather. I’m getting up a little late by my standards around 9am. Breakfast, catching up on my Internet reading and watching TV seems to drag out until one or two in the afternoon. When I finally leave my RV home I’m already fighting the setting sun. There is around two and a half hours of daylight left.

Little animated deer fawn in the Sam’s Town atrium.

One of the things on today’s agenda was a trip to the Camping World Store in Henderson NV. I had a coupon good for $25 off that I needed to use. There is always something I need for the RV. Today I bought two thirty two inch windshield wiper blades for the RV. It’s a good thing I had the coupon, they were $25 apiece. The wiper blades on the RV got cooked in the summer sun. I knew it was advisable to cover the blades from the UV in the sun, but it wasn’t high on my list of things to do. I have a couple of pieces of pipe insulation that I used my first winter in Florida, but I haven’t put it on the blades since then. Now that I know how quickly the blades dry out and crack, I’ll start using the pipe insulation covers more often.

I don’t plan on putting the new blades on until it is closer to my departure date from Las Vegas. That is closer than you might think. I plan to start for Florida on the 17th of January. It is hard to believe that it is only a month away. I am emotionally ready to leave, but I have a number of tasks to complete before I hit the road. My plan is to take my time returning to the east coast. I’ll stop for two or three nights here and there. I also have to account for the weather. Even on the southern route along Interstate 10 winter storms can bring bad weather conditions for travel. I have plenty of time. My first Florida reservation is February 25th. Dodging Mardi Gras on February 13th in the south and the Presidents day holiday are other considerations in my travel planning.

Here in Las Vegas the Christmas visitors are starting to arrive. One telling sign is the increase in out of state license plates. There are always a lot of California, Arizona and Utah plates, but today I was seeing many plates from the next group of states. In this tier are the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon and even a few from the country of Mexico. The always bad traffic is going to be worse until after the new year.