Sunday March 13th 2022

The temperature got down into the forties overnight. It was fifty one inside at 7:30 this morning. A strong northeast wind kept the overall temperature down all day. The mercury crossed the seventy mark briefly in the mid afternoon, but is in the process of returning to the fifties for the night time hours.

I don’t know if it was the time change or the cold weather, but the campground seemed much less active this morning. I didn’t see the usual complement of walkers and bicyclists. Unfortunately, I had to get up early to attempt to make another winter of 2023 campsite reservation. The odds were against me this morning. Only two sites were available at the state park I’m interested in booking. I hoped to get some more experience with the crappy reservation software if I didn’t have success with the booking. All I got was frustration. I still haven’t found an easy way to use the software and I didn’t get a site. It still takes me two or three mouse clicks once the booking window opens. That leaves me at the mercy of the response time from the server for each mouse click. Somehow other people are getting it done quicker. Tomorrow there are eight sites available. Maybe I’ll get lucky instead of frustrated.

I had long pants and a sweatshirt on for walks today. The birds seemed to be in hiding during my first walk in the morning. I didn’t see any birds in the usual locations. On my second circuit of the campground shortly after the noon hour I spotted a few of the usual birds in the creek, but the snowy egret was nowhere to be found. The time change and the need to eat confused the timing of my evening walk. I was back in my cozy RV home when the sun was setting.

This is my last full day at the Ortona South Campground. I’ve enjoyed my two weeks here. I got the outside travel preparation tasks completed this afternoon. The 11AM checkout time can come fast in the morning. I have about a little less than 100 miles south to travel tomorrow.

My next three stops are in poor cell phone service areas. I will be in the Big Cypress National Forest and Everglades National Park for the rest of the month. I will continue to write my daily blog, but it may not get published every day. Since my last visit to the area, I have added an external antenna for my Verizon hot spot device and today I invested in a prepaid AT&T mobile hot spot as a backup. It still remains an experiment in connectivity. Don’t be surprised if a new blog entry doesn’t show up every day between now and April 2nd.