Tuesday May 11th 2021

This was a slow day. I got a few chores accomplished and just hung around my RV home. The weather was threatening all day. Late in the afternoon a line of showers passed through. It last about an hour from first rain drop to last.

Florida is in transition from a winter weather pattern to a summer weather pattern. The periodic cold fronts that pass through the state form northwest to southeast is the winter pattern and the afternoon showers crossing the state based on the strength of the sea breeze. There is another cold front coming tomorrow night, but in the mean time the heat of the day is causing the summer thunderstorm pattern.

Usually I experience the summer pattern in August and September when I return to the state from my summer travels. Every year my departure from Florida seems to get later. In 2016 I departed in early April and was in New England before May arrived. The next year I headed west at the end of February to spend March in Arizona. By the middle of May I was already in Idaho. In 2018 I left Florida at the end of April and was in Michigan near the end of May and slowly heading back south before going north again in the fall.

In 2019 I departed Florida in the middle of May and made a quick dash across the south. I spent Memorial Day weekend in New Mexico and the fourth of July in Washington state. Last year I didn’t spend the winter in Florida. I was in Las Vegas from November to March before going to ground for the months of April and May in Arizona to sit out the pandemic stay at home orders. By the Memorial Day weekend I was starting to gradually move north and east.

This year I planned to stay in Florida until the end of May. I thought it was going to take that long to get the COVID shot, but that task was accomplished by the middle of April. Technically, I’ll be in Georgia on the 24 of May, but the campground is within spitting distance of the Florida state line. My summer journey begins at that point. Now I just have to figure out where I’ll be staying beyond the general category of the Southern Appalachians.