Thursday February 18th 2021

Yesterday’s high temperature was more than ten degrees below normal. Today, the high temperature was more than ten degrees above normal. Tomorrow the temperature is forecast to be below the average. This temperature roller coaster is normal this winter in Florida. Storm fronts move south bringing cold weather, then return north bringing warm temperatures. Meanwhile the areas to the north get hit with cold miserable weather.

It was a very nice day. Bright sun with very few clouds dominated the day. The only wrinkle was a very strong southwest wind during the afternoon. Walking along the paths in the woods was a little dangerous. Dead branches and Spanish moss were falling all over.

This was a three short hike day. First up was a walk out onto the prairie via the Cones Dike Trail after I stopped at the Observation Tower. I wasn’t prepared for a long hike in the hot sun so I only went a little ways to check the creek for alligators. All I found was a lot of green pond scum. That was the way my whole day went with respect to finding wildlife.

I took two walks to the day use area on Lake Wauburg. The first was early in the afternoon and the second was at sunset. The lake was getting a lot of use today. There were two sailboats, a peddle boat and one speed boat pulling a water skier. They all came from a venue across the lake that seems to be some sort of club or camp facility. They have many sailboats, and other water craft lined up along the lake front in front of a building with a long porch towering above the shore.

Between my walks to the lake I watched NASA’s coverage of the mars landing. The tension in the control room as the landing approached was evident as was the happiness once landing was confirmed. I was expecting to see more than a couple of pictures from the lander once it landed, but they ended the coverage before more pictures were downloaded from the distant planet. I’ll be searching the internet over the next couple of days to see if more pictures are published.

Wednesday February 17th 2021

I got another early start to the day. Unlike yesterday, today’s early start was planned. The goal was to book another two week reservation for next January in the Florida State Park of my choice. There were more complications than usual this morning. Getting the computer to boot up was a slow process. It needed to finish installing an upgrade that I didn’t even know it was preforming. With only a minute or two to spare I was ready to click the mouse at 8AM. I was rewarded with a new error message. Most likely, the reservation server was too busy, although the error message offered all kinds of unhelpful information. Eventually my repeated mouse clicks were successful. After fifteen minutes rather than my usual three, I had a site booked at Lake Louisa State Park in central Florida next January. March 1st is my next early morning reservation contest.

Today’s weather wasn’t suitable for outside activity. The high temperature around sixty degrees was cold for Florida, but that seems normal for this year. The real problem was the threat of rain. With each passing hour this morning the clouds thickened and more attempts at rain occurred. By early afternoon the occasional drip drop of rain lasted more than a couple of minutes. This evening one line of rain passed through with more to come later this evening. These are just showers not severe thunderstorms like Monday night. Tomorrow is forecast to be a cloudy day with temperatures twenty plus degrees warmer in the eighties.

Before weather conditions got totally unpredictable I got in a walk to Lake Wauburg. The cloudy rain threatening conditions were great for the fishermen. Several boats were out on the lake and others were on the fishing pier. No one caught anything while I was watching. I also didn’t see any of the birds I usually capture in pictures. The best I could do today was pictures of snakes. I saw at least two on the surface of the water below the boardwalk.

I got back to my RV home before the real rain began. My afternoon was spent doing summer travel research, watching TV and catching up on some of the sleep I’ve lost with my early starts to the last few days.

Tuesday February 16th 2021

As I was publishing last nights blog entry thunder was booming, lightening was flashing and rain was pounding on the roof. Moments later the lights went out. The power didn’t return until 1:30 this afternoon. I didn’t think the storm was particularly windy, but the power outage and many small branches and lots of leaves on the ground this morning indicate otherwise. The storm was over in about an hour.

Normally a power outage wouldn’t be a big impact in my RV home. This one was long enough that even if everything went right it would have required action. Unfortunately, everything didn’t go right. My five and a half year old battery bank is on life support. Over the last couple of months I’ve suspected I had an issue, but since in normal conditions the only time I don’t have another power source running is when I stop while driving to a new location, it wasn’t a big issue. Last night the inverter cut out within in minutes. I shut off everything I could to preserve what little battery I had left and sat in the dark waiting for the power to return. At 7:10 this morning the battery got too low to keep the CO detector running. The detector woke me up as it set off its alarm before shutting down. Welcome to the new day Rob!

Seven thirty is too early to fire up the noisy generator. I took a walk around the campground. It was reassuring to see everyone was without power. Toward the end of my walk the power company arrived in an ATV. They followed the power line down into the woods and out of sight. It turns out a tree came down on the line between the campground and the main road more than a mile away. The big line trucks started arriving around 9AM. Once again I thought it would only be a few minutes before the power was restored. I decided against running the generator and took off in the car for some touring.

My touring took me to another area of the park to visit the alligators and water fowl. The gators were enjoying the bright sunlight even though the air temperature was around sixty degrees. From there I proceeded into Gainesville. It is a far bigger city than I thought. The home of the University of Florida has a population over 130,000.

When I returned to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park the ranger on duty told me the power was expected to be restored by 3:15PM. Not wanting to return to a powerless RV home I drove to the prairie observation tower parking area. The number of visitors was much more acceptable today. Only one couple was on the tower while I was there. The wildlife wasn’t as cooperative. Two wild horses were out at the waters edge, but no bison or other interesting creatures were in sight. I returned to my RV home to the greeting “the powers just came back” from my neighbors. Everything is back to normal this evening. I just need to buy four new six volt batteries.

I’m thankful it isn’t cold. People elsewhere in the US are experiencing both power outages and cold. The southern states like Texas just don’t see freezing rain, snow and deep cold very often. The folks in northern states see it more often, but ice storms have got to be one of the worst types of winter weather.

Monday February 15th 2021

After rain overnight the day began cloudy and dull. The forecast called for the weather front that had been hanging around to the north and west for a couple of days to pass through the area in the evening. The day was supposed to be dry with a few sunny breaks. They got the sunny breaks part right, but they seemed to usher in a brief and heavy storm. There were two half hour cloud bursts during the afternoon.

Tonight the area is under a tornado watch and a severe thunder storm warning. As I’m writing this blog entry I can hear thunder in the distance, but the rain hasn’t arrived yet. Areas to the north briefly had the tornado watch changed to a warning, but it expired quickly. I’m watching the weather radar on my phone. I haven’t been in this area long enough to interpret the TV weather people. If you don’t know the weather talkers tendencies or track record it is very difficult to tell if they are overselling danger. Some get real excited about wind and lightening while others only seem to react when their fancy weather software identifies a possible tornado from the radar images. Others seem to operate on the theory of “it is better to scare people than risk being accused of not providing readily available information”.

I began my day with another post breakfast visit to the observation tower. The park is still in holiday weekend mode, so there were more people competing for a place on the tower than I like. I spent long enough to scan the prairie. Only a single wild horse was near enough to be sure what I was looking at. Other people were looking at bison that I’m pretty sure were bushes. Hopefully tomorrow the crowds will be gone and I can hang out watching for more animals.

Between the showers I got in two walks to the day use area at Lake Wauburg. A pair of photogenic herons entertained my camera both times. Here are a couple of pictures of each.

Wednesday February 10th 2021

Today began with more dense fog. It was so thick that the dew built up in the trees and started to drip like the aftermath of a hard rain storm. I waited for the fog to lift before getting started for the day. Around noon the fog was gone and the sun was out in full force. The temperature got up well above normal to the low eighties. It was a beautiful afternoon. Tomorrow is forecast to start foggy again, but probably not as sunny in the afternoon.

When I finally got out of my RV home, I did some more exploring of the park. Today I took the Cones Dike Trail out into the prairie only to be met after a mile or two with a closed gate indicating the trail was closed do to wet conditions. It didn’t look very wet, but I turned around just as things started to get interesting. There were no wild horses, bison or alligators on the section of trail I walked. From the observation tower near the visitors center the wild horses were visible way out on the prairie in the other direction.

Later in the day I took another hike from my campsite to the day use area at Lake Wauberg. It was a more enjoyable walk with respect to scenery and animals. An armadillo even made an appearance.

Tuesday February 9th 2021

It was foggy when I got up this morning. The official fog warning extended to 10AM, but it was still pretty dreary an hour after that. A five minute peak of brightness that allowed for a few shadows encouraged me to get outside and finish the campsite setup tasks. A few minutes into the tasks it started to drizzle. By the time I was finished a gentle rain was falling.

The weather segment on the noon news explained that this area was caught in the middle. Fifty miles to the north a line of thunderstorms was crossing the state west to east. Fifty miles to the south it was partly cloudy and warm near eighty. This area was forecast to remain cloudy the rest of the day with a decreasing chance of rain. Maybe they got it right. The rain stopped by the end of news broadcast.

I made my first visit to the observation tower overlooking Paynes Prairie. There weren’t many people in the area, so I was able to spend fifteen to twenty minutes sitting on the bench atop the tower watching the prairie. I could identify two wild horses well out on the prairie, but I didn’t see any of the buffalo herd. All of the birds were too far away to identify. I will probably visit the observation tower every day I’m here in search of interesting wildlife.

Later in the afternoon I walked over to the day use area on the lake. I sat at a picnic table and enjoyed today’s ration of sunshine. The sun broke through the clouds for about ten minutes. I was also able to see a few of the larger indigenous birds. A Great Blue Heron was standing in the trees beside me most of the time I was enjoying the sun.