Tuesday September 20th 2022

My two weeks at the Eastbank Campground on Lake Seminole was up today. I worked off and on all morning to get ready to leave. I pulled out of the campground around 1PM for a little over a one hundred mile drive to Perry Florida. Basically I traveled from an area northwest of Tallahassee to an area about the same distance to the southeast of the capital city.

It was not the best travel day I’ve had. The motorhome engine was running very rough at the start. It seemed to get better after a few miles. Maybe because of that or just a little bit of paranoia I was hearing lots of rattles and odd noises along the way. Continuing with the theme when I stopped for gas my credit card was refused for the second authorization. This isn’t unusual, but it hasn’t happened in a long time. I ended up with only three quarters of a full tank of fuel. The issue with the credit card was cleared up later with a reply to a text message.

My travel woes continued with heavy traffic going around the north side of Tallahassee on Interstate 10. Traffic never came to a stop, but all of the weaving in and out by cars trying to enter and exit the highway made for slow and unsafe conditions. Later in my journey I had an alarm from the monitor for my towed car auxiliary brake. I had to pull over and check the brake. It required a power off and restart to clear the alarm and presumably get the brake working again. This has never happened before so I am not sure what caused the issue.

I arrived at the KOA in Perry Florida after 3:30PM. Check in went fine, but my day’s surprises weren’t over. When I tried to hook up my water line, I discovered I had left my water pressure regulator at my previous campsite. I’ve only done this once before and that was at the same campground when I was evacuated for Hurricane Sally. That time I got my water pressure regulator back when I returned from evacuation a few days later. This time it’s gone for good. I used and older pressure regulator that is suffering from diminished flow. It will do until I can buy a new one.

Monday September 19th 2022

Today is my last full day at the Eastbank Campground on Lake Seminole. It was another very nice late summer day. The temperature climbed a little from the last few days. The peak temperature was in the high eighties.

My walks around the campground were a little more challenging today. It was lawn mowing day. The mowers seemed to be in the areas I wanted to walk through resulting in a change in my course. Lawn mowing in campgrounds continues to be a nuisance. The park really needed a good mowing. The park looked like it needed mowing when I arrived thirteen days ago. Today they had grass to mow that was almost a foot tall in some areas. On previous visits I think they were mowing weekly. I suppose it may be a cost savings exercise, but the people doing the mowing are employees so the only savings would be for fuel.

I don’t have to rush to checkout tomorrow. Checkout time is 3PM and I only have a couple of hours to travel. The late checkout may be my undoing. Knowing I have plenty of time tomorrow, I haven’t done as many prep tasks today as I normally complete on the day before travel.

Sunday September 18th 2022

Today’s weather added a little to Saturday’s great weather. The wind was a lot stronger today out of the north. The temperature reached the upper eighties, but the wind kept it comfortable.

It is NFL football season, so there is always a game or two to watch on Sunday. I watched bits and pieces of three games today. In between I got in my three walks around the campground and some cooking.

My cooking adventure was a pizza party for one. Every now and then I get ambitious and create a pizza from base components. I use a pizza dough mix and bottled pizza sauce, but I assemble all of the parts and cook it. Today I made a sausage pizza, so I had to cook that as well. It turned out to be tasty even if it was heavy on the mozzarella. I had a little bit of pizza with my cheese.

Since it was the end of the weekend there was a lot of turn over at the campground, but I was surprised to see many of the sites occupied by new residents this evening. Last week the beginning of the week was very slow around the campground. It doesn’t look that way tonight. Maybe the better and slightly cooler weather associated with the arrival of fall is having an impact.

Saturday September 17th 2022

The brief rain shower overnight gave an early warning to the slight change in the weather. It was more humid today, but blue sky and sun still dominated the weather. The temperature peaked in the mid to upper eighties. A nice breeze kept everything comfortable during the day and it still ended with a beautiful sunset across Lake Seminole.

Other than three walks around the campground and one of the overgrown trails, my day was filled with routine chores, reading and watching TV. The simple chore of cooking breakfast proved that my toaster will live for a while longer. Overall it was a very relaxed day.

Thursday September 15th 2022

The nice weather trend continued. Today was very similar to the last few days. It was bright sunshine, blue sky and low humidity all day. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties.

My daily breakfast usually involves my toaster. It may be used to turn bread into toast or heat an English muffin to golden perfection. This morning I loaded the bread into the toaster on the counter and sat down to my coffee and the internet. Moments later I was startled by the smoke detector and the smell of acrid smoke. Setting off the smoke detector with the toaster has happened before, but the acrid smoke rising from the toaster was a new experience. It was time to clean the toaster.

My toaster is stuck to the counter with 3M mounting tape so I don’t have to pack it away before each move. It has been that way since 2018. I use the sliding tray under the toaster and occasionally the vacuum cleaner to empty the crumbs. I’m not sure the last time it was emptied. The acrid smoke called for a more drastic cleaning. I unstuck the toaster from the counter, turned it over and shook the contents into the sink. It looked like half a loaf of bread in crumb form came out. Ok, nearly a cup. Along with the crumbs was a twist tie and a little piece of plastic wrap. I’m assuming the plastic wrap was the source of the acrid smoke. I’ll use the toaster for a couple of days to make sure it’s working before I stick it down again. Worst case is I need to buy a new toaster after a decade or more of use.

New RVs are arriving for the weekend. I don’t think the campground will fill up, but it will likely be the most occupied it has been since I arrived. Many of the new arrivals have brought their boats. The activity at the boat launch has increased and the sound of outboard motors can be heard during the day. There isn’t any place to keep the boats in the water, so they get loaded back onto their trailers after every use. The available parking in the campground is filled with trailered boats.

Wednesday September 14th 2022

The trend of very nice days continued. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties with very little humidity and lots of sunshine. The day ended with a very vivid sunset across Lake Seminole. It was a perfect late summer early fall day.

My blog entries have been very monotonous lately. They reflect the rather laid back approach to my travels lately. The blog entries seem to begin with a weather report and include a discussion of the condition of the campground. In between these dry paragraphs I try to include a few interesting pictures. They are usually of birds or interesting blossoms. I’ve even included a few too many pictures of the sky to document the weather.

The blog fills one very important element in my life. It provides some structure. I know that every evening I will sit down in front of my computer to create a blog entry. During the day I take my camera with me on every walk and outing to capture content for the blog. I also use my walks to consider what I will write about at the end of the day. Sometimes I use those thoughts in the blog and other times I take the easy way out and write more about the weather between my pictures. Either way it provides a record of each day on my Rambling Road Trip.

I would like to thank everyone that reads my blog entries. I’ll strive to make them a little more textually interesting as I continue my Rambling Road Trip and daily blogging.

Monday September 12th 2022

After nearly a week of overcast cloudy days it was nice to see a blue sky today. For the majority of the day only a few fluffy white clouds filled the otherwise blue sky. Near sunset a couple of big black clouds arrived to threaten rain. So far everything has stayed dry. The temperature peaked in the mid to upper eighties.

I got a slow start to the day. The TV coverage of events in the United Kingdom caught my attention. It is a historic and sad event, but does it really warrant coverage on American broadcast TV networks? It seems like a perfect topic for internet streaming services. If you want to watch it, you can seek it out.

Walking around the campground today was more interesting than the last few days. The sunny weather seems to have raised the activity level. A few more of the weekend residents departed this morning. As the day went by more campers arrived to fill in some of the vacancies. There are more campers in the park tonight than any other night since I arrived early last week.

Sunday September 11th 2022

Today began as a gloomy day and got worse before it got better. Shortly after noon the thunder boomers arrived. It was loud and persistent with steady rain for a couple of hours. The sun was out by late afternoon.

I spent most of the day inside. Lucky for me NFL football is back on TV. I watched parts of several games along with some Indy car racing and some NASCAR racing. It was a big sports watching day.

When the sun came out I took my first walk around the park of the day. The weekend residents had departed, but were replaced by an equal number of new arrivals. The park remains about a quarter full. I tried to time my second walk of the day for sunset, but I really didn’t know when it was. My confusing location on the boarder of two time zones makes looking up the time for sunset a challenge. I thought it was a lot earlier than reality.