Monday May 13th 2019
Today was a travel day. I only had about forty miles to travel to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park south of Gainesville Fl. Since the state park checkout time is 1PM, I didn’t want to arrive early. Waiting for someone else to vacate the site they legally posses until the checkout time could be rude and is certainly inconvenient. I stopped at a rest area on Interstate 75 for a few minutes so I arrived after 1PM.
Today was also a day filled with thunderstorms. The first one passed through around 9AM. I worked on getting the inside of the RV ready to travel while it rained outside. The sun was back out by 10AM giving me plenty of time to be ready to leave by the 11AM checkout time. On the drive south I dodged a few thunderstorms. The dark clouds passed by to the west dropping only a few random rain drops along my path. My luck changed a little after I killed time at the rest area. A storm passed across the highway in front of my path. As I got closer to my destination I caught up with the storm for a couple of minutes. It had passed by to the east by the time I got to the state park.
I setup on a very wet site in very humid conditions. It wasn’t raining and the temperature was only in the low eighties, but I was dripping with sweat from the humidity. Shortly after I was through setting up another thunderstorm arrived. It only lasted a half an hour, but everything got wet again. By late afternoon the sun was back out and the storms were gone. The cold front still hasn’t had an impact on the humidity yet, but it is dry.
I was in this state park for almost two weeks at the end of February. This stay is only three nights, but I look forward to enjoying the park again. I don’t have time to take any of the long hikes to see the American Bison heard, but I’ll visit the observation tower a time or two. This park has the right mix of wildlife and nature to keep me happy after several weeks in structured RV parks.
