It was a bright sunny day with a strong wind out of the north. The temperature was a little below normal for this time of year. It only barely got above seventy degrees.
Blossom of the day.
Today’s Spring Training game was between the Orioles and the Pirates in Bradenton FL. The game was held at LEMCO field. Built in 1923, it is the oldest active spring training game venue. It was last updated before the 2013 season. Provided you are in the real seats, it is good place to watch a game. If you get one of the bleacher style seats, I’m not sure you would make it through the game. I had a comfortable seat behind the Pirates dugout. The only problem was the weather. I was in the shade and the north wind was blowing right at me. At times it was more than chilly.
The Orioles in Orange start a rally against the Pirates.
The game had a fair share of home runs. Most of the early runs were from the long ball. In the middle innings there were more base runners and some scoring. The ninth inning began with a tie. The Orioles scored two runs in the top half of the inning to go ahead. In the bottom of the ninth the Pirates filled the bases. The next batter continued the day’s theme with a home run. The game ended with a walk off grand slam.
Today was dry with a little bit of sun between the clouds. It was windy overnight and into the day today. The temperature made it into the low seventies.
Bright blossoms along the shore of Lake Manatee
Beautiful tree of blossoms.
I spent the daytime hours enjoying the Lake Manatee State Park. I walked around the campground and down to the picnic area and boat launch. The sixty campsites are full every evening, but during the day there is some turnover. Today everybody seem to be a little sleepy. There weren’t many people out and about.
Gopher tortoise came to visit my campsite this afternoon.
Today’s Spring Training game was a night game in Sarasota between the Orioles and the Redsox. For the most part, both teams started players on the major league roster. In the fifth or six inning the prospects took over. This is what I expect during spring training. I’m disappointed when the teams don’t use many of their good players. Some of the prospects don’t have their names on their uniforms and even end up sharing numbers with other prospects. The stadium announcer and score board operator had a difficult time keeping up with the who’s who of the game.
Redsox warming up before the eighth inning.
The game was pretty good while the starters played, but the later innings were very sloppy. The Redsox had a base running problem that resulted in an unnecessary out and the Orioles allowed several Boston runs on wild pitches or passed balls. The final score was Redsox 6 and Orioles 4.
Tomorrow is another day baseball game. This one is at the Bradenton home of the Pirates.
It began to rain Monday evening and continued until afternoon today. It was mostly dry in the afternoon, but it still wasn’t a very nice day. The temperature never made it out of the sixties.
Blossom of the day.
The weather caused another rain out of the Spring Training game I was planning on attending. Based just on anecdotal evidence if I want to see a game with the Minnesota Twins, it will be rained out. The game I was trying to watch on Saturday when it was rained out was between the Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays. Today the Twins were scheduled to play the Orioles in Sarasota. The good news is this one got rained out before I got to the stadium.
Gecko on the dock.
Since I couldn’t watch the game I did some grocery shopping. I only needed a few things, but managed to buy more than I needed. The rainy weather must have been keeping people out of the stores. The Walmart was almost empty.
Late this afternoon it was dry enough to take a walk from the campground to Lake Manatee. There was nobody out walking. The lake was very choppy making it unattractive to fishermen. I’m used to seeing a few small boats with fishermen, but not today. Except for squirrels and an occasional gecko it was very quiet.
Despite worrisome forecasts it didn’t rain during the daylight hours. It remained cloudy and cool all day. The high temperature was just on the plus side of seventy. As I’m writing this blog entry the rain is falling on the roof of my RV home.
Red blossoms on the tree provide a nice blast of color.
Today was day four in the Spring Training game watching marathon. I returned to the site of Saturdays rain out in Port Charlotte. The Pittsburgh Pirates of Bradenton were playing the Tampa Bay Rays at the Charlotte Sports Park. The game was pretty good when I got to watch it. The early innings were scoreless, but in the end the Pirates won four to two. My problem was all the activity in the stands around me. People were still arriving in the second inning only to head for the concessions an inning and a half later. There were also a lot of kids in the stands that weren’t really interested in the game. They were jumping up and down and running all around while their parents talked loudly about everything but the game. It isn’t what they were doing as much as the fact that I was paying more attention to the people around me than the game.
Grounds crew getting the field ready for the game.
The Port Charlotte facility is nice with plenty of ten dollar parking. What it doesn’t have is a good exit strategy. When the game ends the parking lot turns into grid lock. All of the cars are parked head in along about eight long rows. When the game ends everyone has to back into the exit row or wait for the car in front to back into the exit row so you can drive out. Then you wait as one or two cars from each row gets into the exit road for each cycle of pedestrians crossing the main road in front of the stadium. It took almost forty five minutes from the time the game ended until I was on the main road headed home.
The cloud cover this morning seemed to be very close to the ground, but climbed higher and even dissipated for a while during the day. The temperature made it into the low seventies. In the evening a couple of rain showers moved through the area.
Blossom of the day.
Today’s spring training game was between the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles at the Orioles winter home in Sarasota. The weather cooperated for this game. The cloudy skies and a gentle breeze made sitting in the stands as comfortable as you can get. The narrow seats and aisles don’t allow you to get really comfortable. Maybe that’s why nobody around me ever seem to stay in their seat for more than a couple of innings. Just when you think they’re gone they come back in the middle of the game action. Trying to see the field with folks standing and walking in front of you is beyond difficult.
They Yankees won the game, but they didn’t even have their regular line up present. The majority of the major league players were at another game in Clearwater against the Phillies. The Orioles started the game with mostly major league players on the field. They were down by four runs before they tried to come back. The Yankees won 5 to 3.
Tomorrow’s game is back in Port Charlotte. The Pirates are playing the Rays weather permitting. As I understand the forecast, it will be cloudy with a chance of rain.
I up before the sun burnt through the overnight clouds to prepare for today’s travels. I was in line at the campgrounds dump station shortly before 9:30 this morning. I hit the road with empty holding tanks at 10:00am.
Traffic on the northbound side of Interstate 75. It took 55 minutes to go less than six miles.
The first part of the trip went well. I made good time north to the Fort Meyers area. Even buying gas went relatively well. The station was easy in and out, but I had to wait for behind another RV for my turn at the pumps. The real difficult part of the travel was in the last fifty miles. I spent fifty five minutes to go less than six miles in one backup. The cause was an accident investigation team working around a motorcycle in the woods on the curb side of the road. The accident was long over, so I don’t know much about it. The second slow down wasn’t as long. There was a three mile slow down for a mini van in the woods along the median. The next slow down was traffic through construction zones.
The result of all the slow downs in the last fifty miles of travel was more than an hour delay it getting to Lake Manatee State Park in Bradenton FL. I had to hurry and get set up so I could get to my first Spring Training baseball game for this year. The fight through Friday night rush hour traffic was inline with all my driving experience today. It was slow and congested.
Rays vs. Pirates at LECOM Field.
The game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Pittsburgh Pirates was fun. There were several home runs by both teams, a double play and only two walks. The game ended in a tie after nine innings. The teams probably wanted to get home.
Today was my last full day at the Midway Campground in the Big Cypress National Preserve. Tomorrow I relocate to Bradenton FL and switch into Baseball Spring Training Game viewing mode.
To be ready for a busy week of baseball watching I needed to get some errands done today. I set out on the fifty mile drive to Naples with two and a half tasks in mind. I needed to do grocery shopping at Walmart and I wanted to get my hair cut at the SuperCuts nearby. The half a task was refilling the car’s gas tank after using up so much fuel just getting to town.
As it turns out I added another task with a slightly higher priority on the drive into town. The oil change warning display appeared on my dashboard about half way to town. When the oil life gets to 15 percent it starts annoying you. If you clear the warning it will return every time you start the car. The owners manual indicates that it gets even more annoying as it approaches 10 percent, but I can’t confirm that. I prefer to change the oil when it reaches thirty percent, but I have experienced the fifteen percent warning before. So that I don’t experience the nagging at the lower percentages the oil needed to be changed today.
Blossom of the day.
My first stop on the road west was the place I planned to get a haircut. I opened the door to a full waiting room. There were at least eight people taking up all the available seats. Concerned with getting the oil changed, I wasn’t about to wait hours for a haircut. Back in the car, I used Google Maps to find an Instant Oil change place to my liking. It was about fifteen miles away on the other side of Naples. A lot of people were getting service today. I was fourth in line when I arrived. About an hour later my “Instant” oil change was complete.
While waiting for my oil change I found the location of another SuperCuts near the oil change place. There was only one person waiting in front of me at this place. I think the actual haircut took longer than any haircut I’ve ever had. The women doing the cut was slow and deliberate at everything she did including answering the phone. I think she took five minutes every time the phone rang with someone looking for an appointment. The third and final time she was interrupted by the phone she even had to get someone else to help her use the computer. The haircut was typical SuperCuts OK.
By the time I got my groceries and gas it was getting late in the afternoon. If we hadn’t transitioned to Daylight savings time, I would have been returning to my RV home in the dark. As it was I got stuck driving through one of the only rain showers I’ve seen while I’ve been in this south Florida area. It only lasted a few minutes and a few miles, but the road got pretty slick from the rain.
I have about one hundred and eighty five miles to travel tomorrow. I’ll leave here between 9:30 and 10AM to arrive after the 1PM checkout time. My first Spring training game of the year is tomorrow night.
The day began with sunshine occasionally obscured by a cloud. It ended with scattered clouds, but that doesn’t really tell today’s weather tail. During the middle of the day the sun was mostly blocked by clouds and the wind howled hard from the north east. The temperature peaked in the low eighties.
Shark Valley Everglades Observation Tower.
Road approaching the tower.
Road leaving the observation tower wanders through the grass area. Since this is the dry season, some of it is dry and some of it is wet.
Today I visited the Shark Valley unit of the Everglades National Park. The chief feature of this unit is an observation tower in the middle of the Shark River Slough. The parking lot for the Shark Valley unit is along the Tamiami trail and the observation tower is located seven miles south of the parking area. There are three ways to get to the tower. You can walk, take a tram or ride a bicycle. Most people choose the tram. I decided to ride my bicycle.
Tram approaching along the loop road.
The tram takes a clockwise trip to the tower and back. It has a narrator and slows down at various points along the fifteen mile loop. The only stop is at the observation tower. The bicycle and walking route takes the same loop road counter clockwise. By riding my bike I can stop anywhere along the way to take pictures and watch the wildlife.
Younger Great Blue Heron that hasn’t completely turned blue grey.
The seven mile ride out to the observation tower was easy. I was early enough that there weren’t many other riders on the road. A deeper water area runs along the west side of the road all the way out to the tower. It is home to alligators, lots of fish and wading birds. I stopped often to take pictures. Eventually I got saturated with picture taking and only stopped for something special.
There were plenty of gators.
The observation tower has a gradual curving concrete ramp to climb above tree level. The view beyond the small hammock of trees is of the huge grass filled slow moving river that is the Everglades. When I first arrived at the observation tower I had it to myself. After about five minutes a couple of bicyclists joined me on the tower. A few minutes after that the next tram arrived to deposit a load of people which was my signal to get moving.
The return ride on the eight mile section of the road through the open grass area was much harder than the trip out. The wind had picked up and there was nothing to block its full force. Most of the way back I had a head wind. The last two or three miles were torture. I stopped several times to drink and eat a snack. Many of the people that were well behind me on the way out passed me on the way back to the parking lot. I was in a hurry to get started this morning and didn’t eat a big breakfast. I paid the price on the ride back to the parking lot.
This was a little more kind of day. A little more humidity, a few more degrees and a little less wind resulted in being a little more uncomfortable outside. I’m not complaining, I’m observing.
The ground cover is starting to be covered by wild flower blossoms.
While I’ve been here things have brighten up a lot. When I got here at the beginning of the month the Cypress trees were mostly gray and the saw grass areas in the swamp were mostly brown. The Cypress trees seem to be getting greener and the ground cover has a multitude of white and purple blossoms. This is supposed to be the last month or so of the dry season. While there hasn’t been much rain in this area, enough is falling in central Florida and north that the slow flow across the glades continues. I’ve only been in this area in the dry season, so I can only imagine what it looks like in the wet season. There is plenty of water around now.
Pretty blue orchid in the swamp.
One of the places I walked today was the Kirby Storter boardwalk. The first part of the walk is across a dry area of grass that looks like a prairie. Closer examination shows that it is underwater a good portion of the year. As the boardwalk moves into the Cypress strand the vegetation gets thicker and water can be found in pools across the ground. The big Cypress trunk bases and knees are all exposed for inspection. Deeper in the strand the boardwalk ends over the slow moving center of the water. A few birds, gators and turtles were visible when I walked this trail last week. Today none of the wildlife was visible, but the plant life along the whole path was much more alive and colorful.
Campground gator was in a new area this afternoon.
Back at the campground this evening there are actually empty sites. The vacancy sign for single night stays is hanging. The system encourages prepaid reservations, so very few people are going to take the chance and check for a site on the fly. The reservation window for Federal campgrounds is six months. There were only a couple of sites available for the entire two weeks when I booked this site five plus months out. Booking and prepaying six months, eleven months or a year out is one of my biggest dislikes about this lifestyle.
One day is just blending in with the next. The temperature got into the high eighties today, but otherwise was a clone of the previous few.
Powerful jaws.
A couple of days ago one of my neighbors was extolling the beauty and wildlife along one of the loop roads in the Big Cypress National Preserve. Today I checked it out for myself. The road loops through the Preserve south of the Tamiami trail for twenty four miles. More than sixteen of the miles are on a gravel road. The swamp comes up to the road on both sides. At regular intervals a large culvert allows water under the road. Stopping at each of these crossings gives you an opportunity to see alligators, turtles and possible snakes. I saw lots of alligators and a couple of turtles, but no snakes. I wanted to see birds, but they were not visible.
Great Egret with neck fully stretched.
Cormorant ?
It is necessary to stop almost in the middle of the road. The road drops off into the swamp without any real shoulder. Traffic was light, but when a car did go by it kicked up a dust storm. My car was covered in a fine white dust when I got back to my RV home. Overall, I wasn’t that impressed with the loop drive. Most of the road was in good condition, but you needed to watch out for the occasional pot hole and washboard area. It wasn’t really possible to pause and watch for wildlife at your leisure. There are walking trails in the Preserve that have better opportunity with less effort. Stopping at the Oasis Visitors center gives you better access to gators in a single place. There were over fifteen this afternoon. Stopping at or driving by all the culverts on the loop road didn’t produce as clear a view of that many gators.
Watching the world go by.
Back at the Midway Campground during the afternoon, I watched the park fill up for the night. It was more than half empty this morning. It has been full every night I’ve been here.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 