Monday December 12th 2022

It was another cool and cloudy start to the day. Unlike yesterday the weather cleared up by mid morning and remained sunny the rest of the day. The temperature peaked in the low seventies.

I spent the morning finishing the packing for my travel day. Shortly before the 1PM checkout time I set out on my drive to Ocala. This two week period is my replacement reservation for the hurricane Ian flooded Myakka River State Park. I’m staying at the Champions Run Luxury RV Resort in Ocala Florida. This is a new park so it had plenty of available space for an almost last minute reservation. I stayed here for two weeks at the end of August.

My first stop along the way was at the gas station I scoped out yesterday. Access to the station was good and the price of gas was even cheaper than yesterday. The price of regular gas has gone down to $2.98 per gallon. It was $3.03 yesterday and more than twenty cents more expensive two weeks ago. The tank was very low. I put in over 58.5 gallons and it still wasn’t quiet full.

There are several ways to travel the seventy to eighty miles from Clermont to Ocala. I picked a route that would avoid all the stop and go through the Villages area. The 55+ collection of housing communities is a very built up and congested area. The route I piked cuts out to interstate 75 south of the Villages. It turned out to be the wrong choice. I got stuck in a traffic backup ten miles or more long. It took well over an hour at stop and go speeds. During most of the crawl I was completely surround by tractor trailers. The traffic light obstacle course through the Villages would have been far better.

I arrived at Champions Run a little after 3:30PM. I was met by a staff member in a golf cart at the entrance and escorted to my site. While I was setting up another staff member brought my check in packet to my site. I don’t think I’ve come across a similar check in process on my Rambling Road trip.