Sunday May 9th 2021

It wasn’t as cool last night, but it still encouraged a good nights sleep with the windows open. The daytime conditions were much warmer and more humid than Saturday. The only comfort saving condition was a strong breeze.

The RV park was a hustling cacophony of activity this morning. All the weekend residents were packing up to depart. Loud diesel engines and the grinding electric motors on jacks and slide outs kept the quiet away. It continued from shortly after 8AM until the noon checkout time. Later in the afternoon, when I turned from my day’s adventure, the atmosphere was completely different. The quiet was welcoming and obvious.

I usually don’t venture out of the RV park to obvious tourist destinations on weekend days. For some reason I ventured out today. I started to wonder about the sanity of that decision when I was waiting in traffic for the third green light to get through the first major intersection. It was so slow that I expected to find an accident blocking the road, but it was just the volume of traffic. Eventually I got clear of the traffic near the main roads and into only moderate traffic on the barrier island south of St. Augustine.

My plan for today’s outing was a stop along the Atlantic Ocean and maybe a walk on the beach. In my head, this is a shoulder season without many tourists looking to use the beach. In practice half of northeastern Florida seemed to be at the beach today. Traffic along A1A was a continuous line. As you approached every beach access the sides of the road were lined with parked cars. The parking lots were completely full and enterprising merchants were charging $10 to use their parking lots. I kept driving south to Flagler Beach before turning inland and returning to my RV home on the Intestate. There was never a real opportunity to stop.

The RV park is in its midweek quiet state. During my late afternoon walk I saw almost half the sites were empty. All of the hibiscus pictures in this blog entry were taken during the walk.