Friday January 11th 2019

The temperature roller coaster reached its low point last night. It was in the forties inside my RV this morning. I turned on the electric fireplace and went back to bed for an hour. I still needed to turn on the propane furnace when I finally began the day. The temperature climbed quickly. It was above seventy around noon.

This was a moving day. I only had forty miles to travel, but I hadn’t gotten a head start yesterday. I had all of the outside tasks and many of the inside tasks to complete this morning. There were a couple of additional tasks this morning. A stop at the dump station to empty my holding tanks was necessary and the only practical location to connect up the towed car was in the picnic area parking lot half a mile away.

Once the RV was close to ready for travel, I drove the car to the picnic area parking lot and walked back. Any other location on the narrow campground roads would have blocked traffic while I got everything ready for travel. It only added a few minutes and I got some exercise. Back at the campsite, I finished up making the RV road ready and drove over to the dump station. My tanks were little more than half full after two weeks of living without a sewer connection. A little more conservation and I can easily stretch the tanks longer.

By the time I got the motorhome and towed car all hooked up it was after noon. I left Little Manatee River State Park at 12:15PM. Taking the slow route north, I arrived at the Hillsborough River State Park northeast of Tampa around 1:30PM. This turns out to be an older state park with narrow roads and campsites designed in an era where tents were the most common type of equipment. Most of the sites have been upgraded to have plenty of room for modern RVs, but they aren’t the most level sites.

I’m backed into an odd shaped site for the next week. My RV is not fully level, but it’s good enough that I don’t feel the slant inside. When I took a walk around the campground, it became apparent that my site is one of the worst in this part of the campground. Lucky me. I’m surrounded by tall trees and a swamp twenty or thirty feet away. The swamp shouldn’t be a problem. There isn’t much rain in the forecast. The trees are a bigger problem. I don’t have satellite access for my DirecTV. The more than sixty over the air channels will have to keep me entertained.