Friday December 11th 2020

Today’s weather was an incremental improvement on Thursday. It was just as sunny with about three degrees more warmth. It peaked once again in the low seventies, but crossed the magic comfort level that allowed me to take my sweatshirt off during the warm part of the day.

I ran out of non butter spread for my toast this morning. Rather than take the small backup container out of the freezer, I moved the next trip to the grocery store up a couple of days. I made a trip to Walmart for groceries. Clearly I wasn’t prepared. About half of my purchases were sweets or borderline junk food. The store wasn’t overly crowded and had an employee monitoring mask usage at the entrance.

The campground is filling up for the weekend. Once again the type of guests using the park changes as the weekend approaches. During the weekend families from the local area take over. The equipment changes from big motorhomes and fifth wheel trailers to tents, tent campers and smaller trailers. The other change is to the noise level. Loud conversation, music and other unnatural sounds increase throughout the park.

Thursday December 10th 2020

The day began a little warmer than the last couple of days. By the time the sun started to set the temperature had reached the low seventies. It was just about equal to the normal high for the area.

My plan for the day included accomplishing a few household style chores. It was pretty much a failure. On my way back from my first walk of the day I checked the availability of the laundry facilities. This campground has one set of washing machine and dryer in each rest room. They even take credit cards eliminating the need for scarce quarters. The machines in the rest room nearest my campsite were available when I checked. When I arrived back at the restroom fifteen minutes later with my laundry and supplies the machines were in use. Not only that, but the amount of dirty laundry waiting to go in the machine was more than one loads worth. I checked back several times over the next four hours and the machines were still in use most likely by the same individual.

Rather than moving on to other chores, the busy washing machines became a fixation. Getting other things done didn’t seem important. Taking advantage of the returned good weather, I sat outside my RV home reading and watching TV most of the afternoon. When it got too cool to sit outside, it was time for another walk. The laundry and other chores are pushed to another day.

Wednesday December 9th 2020

The overnight temperature was around forty degrees again last night. Once again the bright sun struggled to get the daytime high temperature above sixty. Many areas in the middle of the country had a higher temperature today. This area is experiencing high temperatures about ten degrees below normal.

My adventure for the day was a hike around Hammond Lake in the Lake Louisa State Park. Much of the land that makes up the state park was open cattle land or cleared citrus groves before the park was designated. Most of the trails follow the edges of the open land. Recently the park staff has been grooming the trails with a tractor tiller or rake attachment. I’m not sure why they are leveling and softening the trail surface, but it shows all kinds of tracks.

I’ve always thought the area should have lots of deer so I was watching for deer tracks. Most of the way around the pond I saw human tracks and what I think were dogs, but nothing special. On the far side of the lake a side trail climbs a hill. While following that trail to the top I spotted what looked like deer tracks. A little ways further up the hill I found a bunch of dug up ground that wasn’t done with a tractor. Something had really torn up the ground looking for food. It caused me to reconsider the deer tracks. They may well have been feral pig tracks. Checking pictures on the internet, I can’t tell the difference. Nobody is going to mistake me for an animal track expert. Either way, I’d like to see deer, but I really don’t want a close encounter with a wild pig.

On a positive note, I found a lot more wild flower blossoms on my hike. The area around the campsites is mostly green and brown. The colorful blossoms are either past or haven’t opened yet.

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.

Monday December 7th 2020

It rained most of the night. This morning it was in the low sixties inside my RV home and cloudy outside. The clouds with a little more rain thrown continued well into the afternoon. The high temperature for the day was a degree or two north of sixty. It cleared in time for sunset and to allow radiational cooling tonight. It is forecast to be in the high thirties overnight with tomorrow remaining below sixty degrees.

There wasn’t much about the day to encourage me to get up and moving. Before I turned the TV on this morning I thought it was Sunday. Somewhere over the weekend I lost track of the passage of time. The cold damp look out my windows kept me inside until after the lunch hour. I took my first walk of the day around the campground at 1PM. It looked like it was starting to brighten up, but before I completed the walk it briefly rained again. The second walk of the day at sunset was under a clear sky.

Inside my RV home I surfed the internet with the TV playing in the background. I got a steady diet of home improvement shows, old Christmas movies and even older game shows. I’ve heard several different ways to hang a window on the home improvement shows, got reminded of about how inexpensive product prices were in the 80s on the game shows and watched the same plot with different characters and subtle variations on multiple Hallmark Christmas movies. Even the actors play the same character using a different name on multiple movies. If you are supposed to lose the real person in the character to be immersed in a quality performance, none of these actors are going to win any awards.

Sunday December 6th 2020

The day began bright and sunny allowing the temperature to rise from the high 50s overnight to the low 70s. In the early afternoon the rising temperature trend reversed with the arrival of clouds. Rain is expected overnight with the arrival of another cold front. The week ahead is forecast to continue the below normal temperature trend.

I spent the day wandering in the state park. The weekend days bring a lot of local families out to enjoy the park for hiking and picnicking. Today there was even some sort of coral or dance group practicing in one of the fields. All I know is there were a bunch of socially distanced kids dressed up in white robes and angel wings waving their hands.

One nice thing about today’s weather was the lack of wind. It made it possible to sit by the lakes watching the reflections and occasional wildlife in comfort. The lakes in the park don’t seem to be much of an attraction for birds, but today I spotted a couple of turtles taking the sun. In the past I’ve seen alligators in the lakes, so I know they are present. They just haven’t made an appearance since I’ve been here this year.

Saturday December 5th 2020

For a day that began cloudy and gloomy it turned out to be a beautiful day. Around ten or eleven this morning the clouds started to break and a bright sunny low seventies day emerged.

I hiked part of the General James A Van Fleet State trail today. The trail is a paved section of former railroad tracks used for bicycling and hiking. It extends 29.2 miles from Polk City Florida near Interstate 4 to just west of Clermont Florida on state route 50. I explored most of the trail during the winter of 2015-2016. Today I was in the area of the trail without my bicycle and decided to hike a portion of the trail.

Besides the two ends of the trail there are two access points that break the trail into thirds. Today’s hike was along the middle third of the trail north of Green Pond Road. I walked north on the trail about three miles and returned to my car. I was concerned my lack of any recent long hikes would result in two tired feet, but the six mile total was an easy excursion.

The hike started through cattle ranches and continued through swamp land with tall pine trees lining the path. It wasn’t too busy. An occasional biker would pass, but I only saw one other hiker. The sound of birds and dogs at a distant ranch echoed along the way, but it wasn’t until I got to the bridges crossing flowing water that I found any significant wildlife. In a log surrounded by water two large turtles were taking the sun. At the next bridge a family of alligators occupied the shallows. I’m not sure they were a family, but there was one big alligator and lots of little ones. On my return to the car I spotted one scurrying gopher tortoise. Overall it was a nice hike.

Friday December 4th 2020

How can today’s weather be better and worse at the same time? That’s the question that kept passing through my head today. It was warmer in the mid seventies, but it was also an overcast dull day. Late in the day a few light rain showers passed through the area and more rain is in the forecast overnight.

Today was another day of driving around. Yesterday’s driving was primarily south of my RV home. Today’s exploring was a little to the north and then east and south before returning to the state park. My touring included a drive through some of the Disney World resort. The reduced tourism was abundantly clear. Traffic was a fraction of normal and there were very few Disney buses getting in the way of car traffic. All of the parks and most of the resorts are open at 35% capacity, but the attendance on a non weekend cloudy day was probably much less.

Overall, I’m seeing more out of state cars in this area. It is nowhere near the usual volume, but more than I saw in the Keys or on the Atlantic coast. In the campground I’ve seen Alaska, Ohio, New York, and Michigan in addition to the Texas, South Dakota and Montana license plates that probably indicate full time RVers. It is still a small percentage of the normally diverse representation of states in the park. Most of the people that stay here seem to be here for nature and the good weather. The Orlando area attractions are a minority interest for people staying here.

I continue to watch the current surge in COVID-19 cases. Florida hasn’t escalated as fast as many other states. Its current positive cases per day are still high, but not as high as they were in June and July. Most of the counties with population centers have mask orders in place along with social distancing rules. Orange county, home to Orlando, will begin levying a fine on business that do not comply starting on Sunday. They had been trying to publicly shame businesses into compliance without success. My assumption is Florida will be among the last states to shutdown again should the need develop. I continue to be aware of potential options should that happen. The uncertainty associated with all of this is just one more challenge to life on the road.

Thursday December 3rd 2020

After another cold start to the day it warmed up to the low side of the mid seventies. This is in line with the seasonal average high temperature for the area. As the day progressed the bright blue sky gradually grew white with increasing cloud cover. It is not expected to be as cold overnight tonight.

Last January when I made the reservation to stay here I expected to repeat the tourist experience I’ve had in this area several other years. Specifically, I wanted to enjoy the Christmas lights, events and atmosphere at the Disney theme parks. With the pandemic that isn’t going to happen. When you weigh the risks against what is possible and the cost it doesn’t add up. The things I like best in the theme parks aren’t running. The shows and night time entertainment are suspended for the duration of the pandemic. Rides are open, but they’re low on my must do list when visiting the parks. Outside the parks in the resort it is always nice to look at the decorations at the various hotels, but that is problematic right now as well. To get to the resort hotels you have to take Disney transportation which is limited to resort guests with reduced capacity. The only real possibility is the Disney Springs shopping and dinning area, but the entertainment there isn’t happening either.

I was out today driving around looking for neighborhoods with Christmas decorations. A daytime scout of possible areas to visit after dark to raise the chances of finding good light shows and lowering the chance of getting lost was one possible solution to my Disney withdrawal. I found a couple of residential neighborhoods with possibilities. I’ll check a couple of others during the daytime before venturing out at night. They are all a good distance from the state park.

Wednesday December 2nd 2020

It was the coldest overnight temperature in the Orlando area since last January. The reported low was 33 degrees Fahrenheit in this area to the west of Orlando. Fifteen to twenty miles north was in the twenties. The bottom line is it was cold for central Florida overnight. It is not unusual unless it goes on for an extended period which it isn’t in the prediction. The temperature made it into the low sixties today. Tomorrow will see a similar increase in temperature to the low seventies after another slightly warmer night.

Inside my RV home it was in the forties when I turned up the heat this morning. I returned to bed under the covers until it was warm enough to shower in comfort. By the time I finished breakfast it was almost noon. The pattern for a very lazy day was set.

Today I walked around the campground a couple of times and visited the two lakes the campsites sit between. The northeast wind was in my face looking out onto Dixie Lake so I didn’t spend much time on the dock. The wind was at my back on Hammond Lake, so I was able to hang around and watch the lily pads float in the wind. On a warmer day or once I get acclimated to the cooler temperatures I plan to follow the trails around both lakes.

My last walk of the day coincided with sunset. I was hopeful for a pretty sunset, but the limited clouds and dry moisture content in the air washed out a real pretty sunset. I’ve got a few more opportunities for a good sunset or two over the next week plus of sunsets.