Friday January 8th 2021

A cold front passed through the area last night with a little rain. It left behind a cloudy day with a few brief periods of sunshine along with lots of wind. Being parked under a tall Live Oak with lots of Spanish Moss is nice most of the time, but not on a windy day. Leaves, nuts, small branches and the Spanish Moss all seem to come crashing down on the roof of my RV home. Nothing is big enough of heavy enough to do any damage. The problem is the moss gets hung up on things on the roof like antennas and vents. Once the moss is stuck it seems to trap some of the other falling items. Then the wind comes along and noisily drags the moss with its trapped junk across the roof. A trip onto the roof to clean things up is in my future.

While I was out driving around in the Bradenton area today, two interesting changes from my first drive of this stay early last week were apparent. The first was the price of gas. On the first of the year the price went up about twelve cents. The rapid change probably means a tax increase, but I haven’t heard or read anything about it. The other change I knew about. A nearby county park that I visited on the 30th with plans to return is now a COVID-19 drive through vaccination site. Tom Bennett park is now filled with message boards, orange barrels, white tents and parking areas for people to wait while being monitored for side effects. They are doing a steady business.

Today’s walks around the state park required an extra layer of sweatshirt. There seemed to be even less activity than usual. Curiously, the type of people in the campground for the weekend has changed. It is no longer Florida families out for a weekend with friends. It seems to be back to travelers from northern states. There are a lot of New York, Michigan, Ohio and other northern license plates around the campground. It seems that some of the post holiday snowbirds are coming to Florida after all. I don’t think it is anywhere near normal though.