Tuesday January 11th 2022

For the first time since early December I wore long pants and a sweatshirt today. The strong northeast breeze kept the high temperature around seventy despite the cloudless sky. This weather represents normal for this area. The last few weeks have been warmer than average. The long term outlook shows these normal conditions continuing for the next few weeks.

I finally got my new TV permanently mounted in the bedroom. Early this afternoon I went back to Home Depot for the Loctite to keep the bolts from vibrating loose. Once back at my RV home I took the TV down from its temporary mount and installed the mounting bracket with all four bolts using the Loctite thread glue. I used several garden hose washers as spacers to align the mount along the irregular shape of the plastic back to the TV. After all of the connections to the antenna, Satellite receiver and DVD were made, I tested the TV one last time. With everything tested I put the final six screws in to lock the bottom of the mounting bracket to the cabinet door behind the TV. It should be fine in the earthquakes of travel on bumpy roads.

It seemed like everything had to get used to the cooler temperature. On my walks around the state park there were fewer living creatures out and about. I didn’t see any tortoises today. The squirrels and birds seemed to be in hiding as well. Even the number of people out and about was down from most of the previous week. The wind out of the northeast made sitting at the lake shore or fishing from the boat dock less desirable an activity.

The campground had a large turn over today. I was surprised that many of the people that came in late last week didn’t depart on Sunday or Monday. It was beginning to look like a lot of people were here for a longer stay like me. Today was a correction to that impression. Tonight there are many apparent short term visitors sleeping in small tents or in a couple of cases cars.

Monday January 10th 2022

The weather pattern continued the slow change from warm and humid to cool and dry. It was sunny until late in the day when clouds started to filter into the area. Scattered severe thunderstorms were reported in the area. It stayed dry here, but the high seventies temperature dropped as evening approached.

I made a trip to Home Depot for some bolts and other stuff to complete the TV installation. As often happens with projects like this I didn’t get everything I need. I was so proud of myself for finding the exact bolts I was looking for in the Home Depot maze, I forgot to pickup an additional item I needed. Another trip is on tomorrow’s agenda for Locktite to keep the bolts from vibrating loose.

While I was out I stopped at Walmart to replenish my food supply. The shelves were not well stocked for a large Walmart. Several items I wanted were missing from the shelves. Why weren’t there any boxes of cornflakes on the shelves? Both Kellogg’s and the store brand were missing. Also, I couldn’t find any bagged yellow onions. There were plenty of loose onions. There were other things too, but these are the ones that stood out as particularly odd. Is it a supply chain issue or just low staff to keep the shelves stocked? It isn’t a significant impact to me. I have enough groceries for another week and a half or so.

I only got one walk around the park in today. The weather at the end of the day was blustery and cool. My walk was during the middle of the afternoon. After seeing my first Gopher Tortoise for this trip yesterday, I saw four more today. I don’t know where they’ve been hiding, but they were out today.

Saturday January 8th 2022

It was a sunny bright day with the wind out of the northeast. The high temperature for the day was in the low eighties. Tomorrow is forecast to be the last of the warm days. Another cold front on Sunday night will usher in a week of weather in the low seventies.

Today was a slow day with a few chores accomplished and my usual two walks around the state park. There was the usual level of heightened weekend activity. A few campsites turned over and the day use area had many picnics taking place. All the activity seemed to keep the limited wildlife in hiding. The usual complement of common birds and squirrels were not around today. I only took a few pictures today.

Friday January 7th 2022

There were a few very brief periods of rain overnight as the cold front passed through the area. The only impact on the today’s weather was the wind direction switched from the south to the northwest. It was still a warm day with a high temperature in the upper seventies.

I’ve been carrying my bicycle with me on the Rambling Road Trip. It rides between campgrounds on a rack attached to the back of my SUV which I tow behind the motorhome. At most stops I take the bike and the bike rack off the back of the car, but I seldom use the bicycle. It stays locked to the picnic table or the ladder at the back of my motorhome.

A couple of weeks ago, at Myakka River State Park, I tried to use the bike. After I filled the tires and hoped on the bike, I discovered a problem. The front brake was seized. This had happened once before. Water runs down the brake cable and gets caught in a metal tube just before the caliper connection. Rust builds up between the cable wire and the tube. Last time, it was a simple task of adding a little pressure and some oil. This time it wasn’t as straight forward. I ended up drenching the area in WD40 and putting it aside until another time.

Today was the day to work on the bicycle. I disassembled the connections around the offending area and tried to work the cable free. It was still refusing to cooperate. This time I left the offending area to soak in a little dish of penetrating oil overnight. I’ll try again in the morning. The next option is to buy a new brake cable. I also need to replace the rotting bicycle seat. It may also be time to seriously consider if it is worth dragging the bike around the country with me.

Thursday January 6th 2022

As the next cold front approaches the area, the sun and clouds had a battle for dominance of the sky today. Every hour or two the sky would change from bright and sunny to dull and cloudy. Even with the clouds the temperature climbed into the low seventies.

Today was a day of relaxation with a few chores thrown into the mix. My breakfast meal time extended until near noon as I chased various threads of information on the internet while sipping my coffee. My first walk of the day which followed showed less turnover in the park today. It looks like the weekend residents have started to take over the park. All most all of the vehicles are from Florida. Earlier in the week there were more northern state plates.

Many of the campers have arrived with canoes, kayaks and boats. Lake Manatee seems to be getting more use this year than during many of my previous visits. Each day when I stop by the boat launch area on my second walk of the day I see people returning from an afternoon of fishing. Some report catching a fish or two, but most come back empty handed. I just enjoy watching comedy or occasionally drama associated with loading the boats on their trailers. In the last three days I’ve seen one boater get a little wet after a slip and another come close to damaging his trolling motor after forgetting to raise it.

Wednesday January 5th 2022

The first half of the day was cloudy. Over the remainder of the daylight hours the sun gradually became the dominant presence in the sky. The temperature peaked in the low to mid seventies. The lack of clouds at the end of the day will allow for more radiational cooling and thus a colder overnight.

In yesterday’s blog entry, I wrote that I knew where to find the Best Buy to buy a new TV. That turned out to be a little optimistic. I set out shortly after the lunch hour to drive to the Best Buy in Bradenton FL. It didn’t appear to be located in the area I expected it to be located. At a traffic light I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and asked for the “nearest Best Buy”. A list of three came up and I selected the first one in the list assuming it was the closest. Google had me turning south at the next intersection. I was uncertain on the accuracy of the instruction but followed the direction. With each passing intersection I became more certain it was taking me on a wild ride. Once I got to the airport on the Sarasota Bradenton line, I gave up on Googles direction and reversed direction until I found a parking lot to stop and reassess my route. When I selected the Best Buy from the list at the traffic light, I’d selected the one in Sarasota. The Bradenton store I was seeking was right around the corner from the traffic light I started following Googles instructions.

At the Best Buy I found the TV I identified on the internet as appropriate on display. I verified that it had the correct orientation of mounting wholes. Everything was looking good except they didn’t have any in stock. I found a similar LG TV in white instead of black. An interrogation of the sales associate collaborated that it was the same TV in a different color plastic. It took twenty questions to get that simple answer. I bought the white LG TV. Getting home was a lot easier than getting to Best Buy.

Back at my RV home it took only a couple of minutes to get the old TV disconnected and off the cabinet door. The mounting bracket is in two parts. The part attached to the wall implements a French Cleat to hold the TV up. The part mounted to the TV forms the part that hooks over the cleat. The mounting bracket will fit on the new TV, but I’m going to have to get some longer screws and some spacers to allow it to hang straight. I have it hung temporarily tonight.

The new TV is a Smart TV. It took longer for it to boot up and answer the questions it demanded that it was to get it hung. Getting used to its features and using the remote is going to take some time and study. How easy it will be to change the configuration and find new channels when I move remains to be seen. For now I can watch TV in the bedroom again. Figuring out what to do about the bigger TV in the living area is still an issue.

Tuesday January 4th 2022

The inside temperature was fifty degrees at 7:30AM. I turned on the electric fireplace and went back to bed unit it warmed up a bit. Eventually the day warmed up to the low seventies. It was ten degrees warmer than Monday, but still ten degrees cooler than Sunday. Today’s temperature was about the average for this time of year.

Between my two walks around the state park I went in search of a solution to my TV problem. I found that I’m looking for something the stores don’t stock heavily. A 32inch TV is to small to be displayed in many stores. The nearby Walmart use their space to display the big TVs measuring 60, 70 and even 75 inches diagonally. The few smaller sizes they stock are in boxes in some obscure area. I really would like to see the back of TV to verify the mounting hole pattern before I buy one. I didn’t make it to the local Best Buy. It wasn’t located were I thought it should be. After consulting Google, I know where to find it now. Traffic in this area continues to frustrate me. Tomorrow is another day to solve my TV problem.

The residents of this campground continue to turn over on a regular basis. I have new neighbors again tonight. The tent on the next site has been replaced by a van camper. Down the road a U-haul truck is serving as a sleeping area for another group. There is a real wide range of campers in this park.

Monday January 3rd 2022

This morning a few minutes after 4AM the howling wind woke me up. The latest cold front was approaching. I got the open windows closed before it started to rain. The weather reports indicate it was a very brief rain and wind event in this area, but I was back asleep, so I can’t confirm it. When I did get up this morning the sun was shining, the wind was blowing out of the northeast and the temperature was in the low sixties. It never got any warmer.

When I returned from my first walk of the day, my long ignored TV troubles doubled. The back light on my main TV broke more than a year ago in late 2020. I learned to work around the problem while waiting to find an appropriate replacement. Today the TV in my bedroom bit the dust in similar way. Everything works, you just can’t see the picture unless you shine a flashlight on the screen at the correct angle.

There isn’t a good simple solution to the problem. The cost to fix the 32 inch TV in the bedroom is about the cost of a replacement TV. Fixing the 42 inch TV in the living area might be viable if I had a free helper to get the TV off the wall and transported to a repair facility. An at home repair service, assuming they’d agree that my RV qualifies, would bring the cost close to the replacement cost of the 42 inch TV. All of this assumes the replacement parts are available and not back ordered from Asia.

Replacing the TVs is also tricky. They are both mounted with custom brackets and openings in the wall behind them for the cables. When I investigated the 42 inch TV replacement I found that new TVs of a similar size didn’t use the same size mounting pattern. Mounting a replacement would require fabricating a new mounting system. This is one of the repairs I have tried off and on to get RV service people to work on without success. So today, when I started to investigate replacing the smaller bedroom TV, I didn’t have a lot of hope.

It turns out that LG hasn’t changed the mounting bracket size or the location of the connections significantly in the new models from the six year old model. It seems to be the only brand that uses a 200mm square mounting pattern. Most of the other 32 inch TVs are using a 100mm square pattern. Tomorrow I’ll take my current TV off the wall and check for other issues and maybe make a trip to Best Buy for a replacement. I also have a backup plan. My third TV is in a compartment outside that I don’t use often. It is identical to the broken TV in the bedroom. I could bring it inside, but a quick look at its mounting bracket was discouragingly complicated.

While looking for a suitable replacement for the 32 inch TV, I may have found a solution for the bigger 42 inch TV. Toshiba makes a TV with a 400mm by 200mm mounting that I might be able to use by drilling two new holes in the mounting bracket which was designed for a 400mm square mounting. I’m not impressed with the quality of the Toshiba, but anything may be better than nothing. If all goes well with the 32 inch replacement, I might try to replace the bigger 42 inch TV myself. The concern with managing the bulky TV alone remains, but knowing that I don’t have to find someone to weld a new bracket is a positive.

Sunday January 2nd 2022

It was windy day ahead of tonight’s passing cold front. The sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds that occasionally blocked the bright sun. The humidity was also high so the low eighties temperature felt even warmer.

The campground had a very big turnover today. When I walked through campground at midday more than half the sites were empty. All of the people that were here for week between Christmas and New Years or even just the New Years holiday weekend had departed. By the time I took my second walk just before sunset the empty sites were all filled with new residents. This park draws a very diverse range of camping equipment from tents to class A diesel pusher motorhomes.

Today I checked out the park for changes since my last visit in March 2021. The biggest change seems to be along the trails. The vegetation has been cut way back. Most of the paths are more than twice as wide as they used to be. The trails are mostly in areas of the park managed by prescribed burns. According to the signage the area is intentionally burned every one to three years. I don’t recall seeing the results of any recent burns, so maybe the heavy pruning is in preparation for another prescribed burn.

I am also in wildlife withdrawal. After two weeks at Myakka River State Park where I saw birds, alligators and deer most every day this park is a big change. Today I saw a dove and a couple of squirrels. Even the wildflowers seem to be in short supply. The yellow blossom I’ve included pictures of is located in the wet ground along the lake and is the only wildflower with any abundance.