Sunday July 11th 2021

It rained a little overnight, but this morning was sunny. There weren’t any real clouds overhead, just the haze associated with the high humidity. When I was out exploring the park I found the level of standing water had decreased. I could use paths that were flooded earlier and I even managed to cross a couple of soggy lawn areas. That luxury went away later in the day. A very heavy thunderstorm with lots of rain visited this afternoon. The good thing is that’s a normal fair weather pattern for this area in the summer. The cloudy rainy days I’ve experienced since I arrived last Thursday are over for a few days.

Today was another day of exploration in the Fontainebleau State Park. The campground emptied out this morning as expected. The occupancy level tonight is similar to when I arrived last week. The day use area of the state park was the site of the action today. Many families were gathered to have picnics. Church buses arrived in the parking lot this afternoon bringing groups of people that looked like they came straight from the service. The beach area and the kids splash pad were filled with people.

I took a hike on another of the hiking trails today. Navigation was still an exercise in puddle avoidance. It probably wouldn’t have been possible yesterday. Today’s trail was mostly through swampy forest. Huge old trees draped with Spanish Moss were dotted along the trail. The hike was good exercise, but not particularly photogenic.

My second walk of the day was to the beach area during the early afternoon. I wanted to checkout how busy the area got. The parking lot was less than half full and most of the picnic goers were using the pavilions. Many of the standalone tables were in the middle of the soggy lawn areas. While I was at the beach area a very black cloud was on the northwestern horizon. I decided the prudent thing to do was head for my RV home. The first black cloud passed by to the north, but about an hour later darkness descended on the area followed shortly by heavy rain. Thunder and lightening were very close together. It took about three hours for the storms to clear the area.