Saturday May 21st 2022

Thunderstorms started threatening Friday afternoon, but never really materialized all day or during the overnight. There were a few close calls, but this area only got a few random rain drops. This morning the wait for the thunderstorms resumed. It was an overcast and very humid day. Around 5PM the long awaited thunderstorm finally arrived with lots of rain, wind, thunder and lightening. It was a short storm that transitioned into many random rain showers.

My big accomplishment today was getting out of the campground. It wasn’t a long or eventful excursion, but it was better than I’ve done for the last few days. The purpose of the outing was to replenish my fresh food supply. On the way I filled the gas tank for a few cents a gallon less than a week ago.

Walmart was moderately busy on a Saturday afternoon. As usual the grocery side of the store had more shoppers than the general merchandise side. I managed to get all of the stuff I wanted. The shelves in this Walmart seemed to be well stocked compared to some of the ones I’ve been in lately. I don’t think it is shortages as much as it is not having the staff to keep the shelves stocked. This Walmart seemed to have plenty of staff even at the checkouts. I used an “assisted” checkout rather than self service. For my troubles I got behind a customer that must have been stocking their own store of some sort. They had cases of various products that the cashier had to ring up as individual products. There is always something different or curious at Walmart.

Walking around the campground late this afternoon I noted more people had arrived today. I imagine most of them will be departing in the morning. Next door to me is a trailer that arrived Friday afternoon. I’m curious when the occupants will arrive. A couple of guys in two pickup trucks brought the trailer and outdoor furniture. They set it up then departed. My guess is the equipment is a rental for people that will arrive later.

Friday May 20th 2022

Today was a more humid version of Thursday. The humidity was at the summer level that feels like you need to cut the air with a knife to walk through it. The mid nineties high temperature was more uncomfortable than yesterday. Thunderstorms have passed through the area this evening, but so far they have missed this specific area. Tomorrow has more rain in the forecast.

Looking back at my day, I didn’t really do anything. During breakfast I got in to a rabbit chase for information on the internet. I don’t even really know what I started looking for, but during the searches I looked at options for places to stay this summer, this fall and next spring. It wasn’t all travel planning, because I also did searches for smart watches, new TVs and bicycle trails. Overall I spent more than three hours chasing the information rabbit. I came up for air around 1:30PM without any definitive results.

Next on the day’s agenda was a walk around the campground. The weekend residents started to arrive early. It is not a surprise to find the park has more occupied sites tonight than it has all week. Even the RVs that have appeared abandon all week have people in residence tonight.

This campground has very nicely manicured lawns and grounds, but it doesn’t have many flowering plants or things of color. I am not finding a lot of things to take pictures. There are only so many squirrels to photograph.

Thursday May 19th 2022

Today was a little hazier than Wednesday. It was a little more humid, but the overall temperature remained in the mid nineties. Tomorrow is forecast to be a little cooler with a much higher chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

I woke up this morning to the sound of lawn mowers. I’ve been lucky for the last few weeks. The last time I got annoyed by the sounds of lawn mowers was in early March. This is not a new experience at this campground. Probably because they start on or before the end of the overnight quiet hours at 8AM, the mowing at this park really gets to me. There is one guy on a zero turn mower and another guy with a string trimmer. As soon as the day starts to warm up they quit for the day. I expect to hear them again tomorrow morning, but they shouldn’t be right outside my window again.

This was a day for catching up on chores around my RV home. Between tasks I got in a little reading, TV watching and a couple of walks around the campground. Overall it was a busy day, but not much to write about in this blog entry.

Wednesday May 18th 2022

The temperature was in the mid nineties under almost full sun today. There was no wind to keep things cool, but the humidity was fairly low. The majority of the afternoon rain was well to the south of here. It wasn’t the oppressive, but outside activity was best done in small doses.

I got the remainder of my setup tasks completed this morning. This is a familiar campground. I was last here in May of last year. It is a nice campground near the center of Starke Florida. There are stores and restaurants near by. The down side is there isn’t a lot of recreational activities in the immediate area. Most of the places in my interest areas are twenty miles or more away. All of that’s OK, because I’m here to relax and decompress after more than a month of activity in central Florida. Theme parks filled with people are fun, but I need alone time too.

The campground isn’t particularly busy this time of year. As a guess I’d say half of the sites are empty. The ones that are occupied have longer term residents, people working in the area, or units that only get used on weekends. I was the only one that checked in yesterday according to the woman in the office. Today I saw a handful of new arrivals. The location of the campground is good for travelers cutting diagonally across the state from the Jacksonville area to Interstate 75 north of Tampa. My guess is it will be busier on the weekend.

Most of the schools in Florida end their year at the end of May. That starts the travel and vacation season around here. As the northern states end their school years in June tourism picks up. The campgrounds aren’t as full in the summer as they are in the winter, but they are usually busier than they are right now.

Tuesday May 17th 2022

Today was a travel day. I was up working on breakfast before 8AM. On travel days breakfast is usually interspersed around packing tasks. Checkout time was 11AM, so I didn’t have to rush.

The only deviation from the norm this morning was I decided to back out of my pull through site. I was parked under a tree with low hanging branches. They were so low that they banged into my radio antenna and brushed the roof when the wind blew. By backing out I avoided having the branches scrape along the entire roof of my RV home. Coincidentally, there was a tree service in the campground working on tree branches. I imagine they got to my site shortly after I left. Because I backed out of the site, I needed to use the campground road to hook up my towed vehicle. There was no traffic to block and everything went well.

I pulled out of the campground about ten minutes before checkout time. My trip was north along the spine of the Florida peninsular about 150 miles to Starke Florida. Most of the trip is on US27. The last fifty miles is on US301. The US27 section is up and down hills in moderate to significantly developed areas. That equates to lots of traffic lights and lots of traffic. After passing almost through the center of Ocala, I follow US301 the rest of the way. It is much less developed and the speed limit between towns is 65. In towns it drops to at least 45. The route from Ocala north to Interstate 10 is also known for speed traps. It was notorious a few yeas ago for catching northerners, but they’ve cleaned up the behavior a lot in the last few years.

I arrived at the Starke Gainesville NE KOA about 2:15PM. I’ll be here through the Memorial Day Holiday. The bright sun I traveled in rapidly clouded over as I started to setup camp. A brief cloud burst of rain greeted me. It cleared as quickly as it started. The high temperature for the day was in the mid 90s.

Monday May 16th 2022

The chance of rain was lower in today’s forecast. It was down to a twenty percent chance or rain for the day and it looks like I made it through the day in the dry area. The temperature continued its climb from last weeks mid eighties to the low nineties today. It was an overall great weather day.

After a leisurely breakfast that stretched into the noon hour, I headed to Disney Springs for a visit. The shopping and entertainment area was still fairly empty in the early afternoon. Early in the week Disney Springs gets less traffic. Vacationers to the Disney resort spend there time at the theme parks early in the week. Once they’ve got their initial fill of rides and shows, some groups take some time to visit the shopping area. The evening into the night is also a big visitation time because of the entertainment venues.

It was nice walking around Disney Springs without the crowds. It was possible to wander into shops and actually see the merchandise instead of the back of peoples heads. There was also space on the benches along the water to sit and watch the goings on. On my last visit, about a month ago, it was as busy as one of the theme parks.

The wind was calm enough to allow the amphicars to take passengers around the lake, but it was too strong to allow the balloon ride to operate. How they can make money on the balloon ride is a mystery. It doesn’t operate in the wind or rain which are common in the area. I have seen the balloon in the air from a distance, but I don’t recall ever being at Disney Springs when it was operating.

This evening I got most of my outside travel preparation tasks complete. Tomorrow I’m moving about 150 miles to the north. I’ll be in my new location until after the Memorial Day holiday at the end of the month.

Sunday May 15th 2022

It was cloudy when I woke up this morning, but turned into a partly cloudy day during the afternoon. The temperature climbed into the low nineties. In the evening a thunderstorm moved into the area from the southwest. The bulk of the storm passed west to east a little south of my location. This area was just outside the severe thunderstorm warning box. Overall it was a nice day. Unfortunately, I got fooled by the weather forecast and changed my planned activities to another stay at home day.

When I woke to a cloudy day, I turned on the TV to catch the morning weather forecast. The forecast had a 75 percent chance of rain for the day. In my not quite awake state I didn’t take into account what the high number really meant. I thought I was in for a rainy day. The forecast area for the Orlando TV stations is very large. It goes from south of Melbourne in the southeast to west of Ocala in the northwest. The simplest interpretation of the 75 percent chance of rain is the worst. If you are in the forecast area you have a 75 percent chance of rain. The more complex interpretation is not as dire. That interpretation recognizes that the day is long and the area is big. Not every area will have rain at all times. Some areas won’t get rain at all.

The rainy forecast caused me to change my plans from a visit to Sea World to another stay at home TV watching day. They are currently between festivals so it would have been a regular day st the park. The last festival ended a week ago. I probably will not get back to any of the theme parks until fall. Tomorrow is my last full day in this area. I may go to Disney Springs one last time.

Saturday May 14th 2022

Yesterday’s late evening thunderstorm allowed the overnight temperature to get down to a good sleeping temperature. This morning the bright sunshine set the temperature on a steady climb to the upper eighties. The wind off the water wasn’t strong enough to bring new thunderstorms in the evening. Tomorrow will be back to the summer weather pattern with afternoon and evening thunderstorms.

This was a day to catch up on things. First on the list was catching up on my sleep. I didn’t roll out of bed until 9AM. That set the laid back mood for the day. Other than cooking some food and a walk around the campground, most of my day was spent reading and watching TV.

The campground is far from full this weekend. May is very much an in between season for tourism in this area. The snowbirds are all back in the north, the spring breaks are over and the local school year is still a couple of weeks from over. This weekend the cabins and tent sites at this campground are very active, but the RV sites are fairly empty. The fancy sites near the swimming pool are mostly empty and there are about a dozen RVs scattered over the remaining sixty sites in the lower area. This is about the same number that were here when I arrived on Tuesday.

Friday May 13th 2022

Today I continued my return visits to the Disney theme parks with an afternoon trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. My goal was to see some shows and hopefully find wait times on some of the rides at reasonable levels.

I checked the show times ahead of my visit and new that I needed to be in the park by 4PM to get in line for the last Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular show of the day. Traffic in the resort area was very heavy but I managed to arrive at the park by 3:45. The line for the 4:30 Indy show was already forming. By 4:10 I was seated waiting for the show.

The stunt show only returned to the park in December after the pandemic shutdown. It has been modified to have less audience participation and generally use fewer people in the cast. It still had plenty of action, explosions and fun. I’m glad I made the effort to see it.

Next on my agenda was the Frozen Ever After Sing Along. I’ve never seen this show before, but I have read about it from several sources. The sing along part is for the kids in the audience, but the comedy by the people on stage telling the story of Anna and Elsa is very much for the adults. It was also a very fun show.

Checking wait times on rides I was very much out of luck. When I first arrived in the park three of the big newer rides were closed for technical difficulties. Later they all had waits from 65 minutes to 120 minutes. Other than the nauseating Star Tours motion simulator that I had no intention of riding with a five minute wait all of the rides had at least a 45 minute wait.

I wasn’t in the mood to wait in any of the lines, so I walked around the park waiting to see if the wait times would go down. I also checked out some of the menus at the counter service restaurants looking for a good choice for my evening meal. The only thing on the menus that was remotely appealing was the hamburgers, but not appealing enough to spend money on. Wait times for the rides were also climbing rather than going down. An approaching thunderstorm was all it took to end my visit to the park. I was home around 8PM when the rain arrived.

The two shows and the few hours of people watching made the day worth while. It is not just the attractions that the park interesting.

Thursday May 12th 2022

Since I’m still in the central Florida area instead of the northern part of the state, I decided to continue to use my passes to the theme parks while the opportunity was available. This evening I went back to Disney’s EPCOT to have dinner and continue to enjoy the Flower and Garden Festival.

I got to the park about 4:30 in the afternoon. Most of my visit was spent wandering around admiring all the flower beds and topiaries, but did do a few things to kill time before the Harmonious Fireworks and Laser show at 9PM. The American Adventure and Soaring Around the World attractions were good for a good half hour each in addition to their entertainment value. I also got plenty of exercise with three laps around the World Showcase lagoon.

Here are some of the photos from my evening at the park.