Tuesday December 8th 2020

The clear sky and calm conditions overnight allowed the temperature to drop below forty degrees by morning. The outside air was slow to warm up only reaching sixty before the sun started to set. The sun was a big help to the inside temperature in my RV home. By 10AM I turned the heater off to prevent the inside temperature from passing into the eighties. At 3:30PM the sun was blocked by tall heavily folliaged trees. I had to turn the heat back on along with a light or two. Sunset is around 5:30PM, but you’d never know it from the location of my RV home.

Today was another day of driving around central Florida. My journey extended south about 40 miles to the city of Winter Haven. Along the way I was looking for parks or trails to visit, but I didn’t find any. One area that I thought contained a boat launch was now a shopping center. My current philosophy is not to risk exposure to the virus indoors unless I have a specific need. That means I’m not stopping at stores, gift shops or arbitrary attractions unless I intend to buy something. Consequently, today was a lot of driving and a lot of traffic.

The media is reporting that the snowbirds aren’t in Florida yet. Reservations improve after the holidays, but not to the normal level. Usually part of the heavy traffic are many out of state license plates. Today I saw very few. One can only speculate on how heavy traffic will get when the snowbirds return. My guess is that will be next season. Smart snowbirds, particularly the senior ones, are likely to wait to be vaccinated first. The current media speculation calls for that not happening before the end of the snowbird season and spring approaches.

It was an interesting drive. The area continues to change from agriculture in the form of orange groves to housing developments in the form of gated communities. The first time I was in the area was to visit Cypress Gardens. I don’t remember much about that visit, I was only ten or eleven years old. I’ve been back a few times in the intervening fifty plus years, but not since Cypress Gardens became Legoland. The area surrounding the park is one of the heaviest developed areas I passed through on today’s journey.