Sunday December 4th 2022

I had a tough time getting started today. The sounds of my neighbors packing to leave woke me shortly before 8AM. After raising a couple of blinds and completing other first thing in the morning tasks, I laid back down on the bed. The next thing I knew it was after 10AM. The campsites around me were all empty by the time I finally got my day started. It turned into another beautiful day with a sunny sky and high temperatures in the low to mid eighties.

Today I walked around the far side of Dixie Lake in the state park. The water level is high, but not to the level that the path is wet. It looked like the level had retreated from a higher level earlier in the year. There is also evidence of a few trees that needed to be cleaned up after the recent storms. The trunks with clear evidence of chainsaw cuts sat along the sides of the trail. My guess is the wet ground made them vulnerable to the wind.

The park remained very busy with day use guests today. The fishing piers on both Hammond Lake and Dixie Lake were lined with people fishing. I chose to stay well away from the chaos of little kids and adults casting sharp hooks into the water. Most of them don’t last very long before they move onto another activity. It is like the family has a checklist of things they have to do while at the park. Cast a line in the lake three times, fishing check. Throw a Frisbee for five minutes check and so on… That’s the observation of this bystander.

As night approached the park filled up again. The weekend tent campers with Florida license plates were replaced by RVs with out of state plates. Tonight I saw a fair amount from northern states. New York, Ohio and the Canadian Provence of Ontario were well represented.