Friday January 27th 2023

The temperature was down in the forties overnight. When I got up the inside temperature was in the fifties. Luckily, this campsite is open to the sun most of the day. It warmed things up inside nicely. The high temperature for the day was in the mid sixties. Another cool night is forecast before everything starts to warm up. Sunday’s high is forecast to be well above normal around eighty.

This was my day to get settled in at Lake Louisa State Park. After breakfast this morning I got the towing equipment, my bicycle and the rack off the car. I must have been exercising my muscles when I tightened the bold on the bicycle rack. It took some extra effort to get it off this morning. I was about ready to switch to a bigger wrench when it finally came free. Now I have a bolt soaked in WD40 that I have to keep out of the sand. A fun complication to an otherwise easy task.

The middle of the week park residents departed this morning to make way for the weekenders. When I walked over to the lakes shortly before the noon hour there were more empty sites than occupied ones. As the afternoon progressed all of the empty sites filled up again.

Not much has changed in the campground in the last six weeks. A couple of small fences for traffic control have been erected showing that maintenance is ongoing. This park always seems to be well kept. The foliage that was still green in December is black now. The December freeze obviously caught it hard. With the warm temperatures over the next week I expect to see a few more blossoms return to the wildflowers.

It was cold on the side of the lakes today. The north wind was more than a little breeze keeping a strong chill factor. It also made the water level appear higher the wave action kept the logs the turtles and gator like partially submerged. One brave turtle was balancing on the small portion of the log exposed. In another area of the lake an Egret was huddled near the tall grass trying to keep out of the wind.