Wednesday November 10th 2021

Today was the last day of the current good weather trend. The sky was bright blue, the wind was calm and the temperature was in the mid seventies. Toward the end of the day the clouds started to move in. There is rain and cooling temperatures in the forecast for the next few days going forward.

I drove up to St. Mary’s Georgia this afternoon to checkout one of my favorite quaint historic river town on the coast. My last visit was at the beginning of June. The town maintenance people were busy cleaning up from the weekend flooding and decorating the trees in the park for Christmas. There were still barriers along the sides of the road that were used to close off areas during the weekend flooding. Today the river was back in its banks, but the water level an hour after high tide was within a few inches of the top of the sea wall.

On the way back I stopped at the Florida Welcome Center on Interstate 95. They have a big banner at the entrance to the rest area welcoming Canadians back to Florida. I actually saw two Canadian license plates on cars in the parking lot. The border officially opened at 12:01AM Monday morning. Google says it is a seventeen hour plus drive from Toronto, so they must have been among the people crossing the border on Monday. Florida tourism is certainly looking forward to the return of the Canadian Snowbirds. The TV news has extensively covered the reopening of the border. So far, I haven’t seen any Canadian RVs in this RV park or on the road. Most RV travelers will probably stop for multiple nights on the way south.

Tuesday November 9th 2021

Today was a slightly improved clone of Monday’s weather. The improvement came in the form of a few extra degrees of temperature. The high temperature for the day was about 75 degrees under a clear blue sky with only a gentle breeze.

The time change along with some bad TV watching habits have my sleep pattern in chaos. I was still wide awake after 2AM this morning. The result is that my energy level today was equivalent to a sleeping snail. There was only an hour or two of daylight remaining when I put down my reading and internet surfing to go out into the RV park for some exercise. By the time I completed mile and a half to two mile walk around the park it was time to prepare some food to fuel my lazy body. This really was a lost day.

The resident Little Blue Heron seemed to be posing for my camera this afternoon.

Monday November 8th 2021

The weather in Jacksonville was back to full sun with a blustery wind. The high temperature was below normal at about 65 degrees. Overall it was a very nice day.

The return to standard time caught up with me today. I was up later last night than usual. This morning between the late bed time, the time change and the fifty degree inside temperature kept me in bed longer than normal. Once I did get up I was moving slower than normal. The earlier sunset also played into my temporal challenge. The sun was setting and the temperature dropping on my afternoon walk around the RV park even though I was earlier than normal.

The area is slowly recovering from the weekend storm. While I was out today I saw a number of areas with cut up branches on the sides of the road. Some roads were still covered with a few inches of water. I stopped at the boat launch area for the Trout River that I stop at frequently. The water level near high tide was higher than I’ve seen on other visits. The combination of higher than normal high tides because of the moon phase with the additional runoff attempting to flow out the river is the primary cause.

I need to fill up my gas tank, but I’m waiting for the impact of the storm to be fully understood. One of he gas stations in southern Georgia that I often frequent was pumping more water than gas on Saturday. More than a handful of cars broke down on Interstate 95 after stopping for a full tank of gas. I’m sure the problem is resolved today, but waiting another day couldn’t hurt.

Sunday November 7th 2021

A light rain continued off and on all night, but things started to clear with the arrival of daylight. By mid morning the sun was attempting to break through the clouds. It took until late in the afternoon for it to succeed. The wind was still brisk from the north keeping the high temperature in the low to mid sixties.

I got out for my first real walk since Thursday. There was plenty of standing water from the last two days of rain remaining around the RV park and the retention ponds were a foot or two higher. As I walked around the park I saw evidence of some wind damage. One RV awning had come lose from one of its support arms and another one was ripped badly. Keeping an awning out during strong winds is always a risk. In the case of the ripped awning, I don’t think anyone was home during the storm. That awning is probably totaled, but the other one may be repairable. That’s one of the reasons I never leave my awning out when its windy or when I’m not around.

My day was spent watching sports on TV. There were a couple of good football games and the NASCAR championship race from Phoenix to watch. The channel change button on my remote got a good amount of exercise as I channel surfed between events.

Saturday November 6th 2021

I thought Friday was a rain day. Today beat Friday in the miserable day contest by a landslide. The overnight hours started without rain, but lots of wind. About 6AM heavy rain on the roof woke me up. For the next twelve hours it rained continuously. As I’m writing this blog entry the rain has stopped, but another round overnight is in the forecast. More than five inches of rain is forecast before the storm moves into the Atlantic.

The outside temperature didn’t reach fifty degrees. Inside I had to run heat to keep it comfortable. My choice is to use a little electric cube heater. It isn’t strong enough to change the inside temperature quickly, but it does a good job maintaining the temperature. The advantage of the little heater is the decibel level. It is very quiet compared to the other options. The loud propane furnace will get the temperature up to comfort level quickly in a pinch, but you can’t hear yourself think let alone the TV.

Once again I stayed in all day. It wasn’t a day for outside activities. Without any pressing need to be on the roads, it was safer and more comfortable to stay in my Rv home. I spent most of the day binging on YouTube videos.

Friday November 5th 2021

It started to rain during the night and has continued all day. Some areas in greater Jacksonville have experienced street and low area flooding. The wind direction and the monthly high tides have also produced some of the creeks and rivers to push out of their banks a bit. Over six inches of rain is forecast south of the city before it ends late tomorrow. The high temperature for the day was in the low to mid sixties. Overall it was a stay inside kind of day.

Last year at this time I was dealing with a different kind of severe weather. I was in the Florida Keys with a tropical storm that turned into a hurricane headed right for me. I ran from the storm a day before my reservation was up, but should have departed another day sooner. The trip off the keys was in heavy traffic, heavy rain and increasing wind gusts. It wasn’t until late the next day that I had successfully gotten out of hurricane ETA’s path to dry weather. Three days later the storm was headed right for me again, but it weakened enough to be an annoyance rather than a problem.

It seems like I’ve experienced a lot of rain this year, but it has more to do with the part of the country I’ve been traveling through. The southeast is a wetter area than the mountains and deserts of the west. A rain storm or two isn’t a big deal, but long periods of rain with heavy wind is a concern. I remember three or four of those occasions this year.

I spent the day researching next years travel on the internet, reading and watching TV. It was a day with much to write about in this blog entry.

Thursday November 4th 2021

The F-15s of the Florida Air National Guard decided to be particularly low and loud on their take off from the Jacksonville International Airport this morning. Shortly before 9AM at least four and maybe as many as eight F-15s forced me from drowsy wakefulness to fully alert and wide awake. They were exceptionally loud and much longer in duration overhead this morning than other mornings. Perhaps it was the low cloud cover that developed overnight and continued most of the day.

Most of the pictures in this blog entry represent Florida’s fall colors. Nothing is as brilliant as the colors on the deciduous trees in the northern forests, but there are plenty of subtle pops of color. Many bushes develop colors and flowers continue to bloom. There are plenty of examples of wild and planted flowers in bloom.

In addition to the fall colors the dropping temperatures are also advertising the approaching winter. The TV news casts are forecasting another feature of winter in Florida; the arrival of the snowbirds. I have heard two different news stories and read a few internet articles on the opening of the US Canadian boarder next week. Interviews with RV park managers and rental property brokers have reported a huge increase in Canadian bookings for the winter months. For the most part, Canadians weren’t here last winter. I think I saw two or three Canadian license plates last winter. Usually they are as numerous as any northern state. My guess is the vehicles were here when the boarder closed and never returned to Canada. The owners probably flew back and forth to Canada with a self declared essential travel exemption if they even returned north at all. From what I’ve read, the closed US Canadian boarder was easily crossed in an airplane, but far more difficult by land.

Last winter the tourism industry cited the lack of Canadians as one of the key differences in the winter season. I didn’t see any difference in camp site availability at any of the places I stayed, but that could be associated with the places I pick. Even so, I’m glad I have all of my reservations in place for this winter. The competition for sites may be intense. The current forecasts are for a huge year for snowbirds. All that could change with another COVID surge, but somehow I think that would only be a tiny deterrent.

Wednesday November 3rd 2021

I woke to sunshine and warming temperatures, but it didn’t last. By midday thick clouds were moving in and the warming of the day slowed. The high temperature was around seventy degrees. The clouds are forecast to dominate the sky for the next few days. Friday and Saturday are expected to be rainy. The sixty to seventy degree temperature outside isn’t a problem. It is a whole lot better than the thirties and forties up north. The downside is without the sun the inside temperature of my RV home needs help to warm up. I’ll have to turn on some form of heat.

When I was returning to the RV park this afternoon I had to stop for a school bus at the park entrance. The presence of the bus answered one of my curios conundrums. There are a lot of school age kids in the park. I wondered if they were all home schooled or if some were in the local school system. It looks like a little of both. The bus delivered about six high school age kids, but there were others already in the park riding bicycles. This probably tracks to the types of temporary living situations in the park. There are some that have permanent ties to the area and others that are visiting for medium length job assignments. I have seen a number of people dressed for work in hospitals like traveling nurses or medial technicians. There are also a number of out of state pickup trucks with various construction trade signs painted to the sides associated with the RVs in the park.

The task of creating this blog entry has been very slow. Once again tonight, my windows PC is attempting to upgrade various things in the background. I can type whole sentences before the characters appear on the screen. Every time that happens I find at least half the words have typos. With any luck Microsoft will get caught up before I start tomorrow’s blog entry. I’ll leave the computer on overnight to see if that helps.

Tuesday November 2nd 2021

The weather met expectations today. It was a nice sunny day without a lot of wind or humidity. The temperature reached a seasonal norm in the low to mid seventies.

My cell phone has been nagging me to download and upgrade to the latest version of the Android operating system for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been waiting for a stable internet connection enough time for other people to discover the issues. Last night, when I put the phone on the charger, I decided to bite the bullet and let it upgrade. This morning I found the process still going on. My internet connection was down. Thankfully, once I restored the internet connection the process continued. I had visions of a dead phone.

The restored internet connection wasn’t the fastest around. The upgrade that should have taken a half an hour took another two hours. Figuring out what changed and how some of the new “features” work took another couple of hours of exploring. Basically, I took the opportunity to geek out. For the most part it seems to be a true upgrade. Most of the things I use regularly look a little different, but work the same. A few things that I don’t use are radically different, but not in a way that will result in my use.

This seems to be my day for updates. Tonight, Microsoft is attempting to update my Windows computer. I have less control over Windows updates. This update could take all night. The combination of the slow internet connection and all the disk activity associated with the update is causing my laptop to really crawl. Getting this blog entry written and published is challenging.