Friday May 12th 2023

Today was another sunny and humid day. The temperature climbed to around 90 degrees again. Getting packed up was a drippy affair. I was sweating heavily. Once I was on the road the air conditioning in the motorhome cab kept me comfortable from the heat and humidity, but the sun was another issue. If I wear sunglasses I can’t really monitor the dash or backup camera. If I don’t wear the sunglasses the glare is horrible. I end up with the sunglasses on my head most of the time and lower them when I need to see through the glare.

I departed my site at Lake Louisa State Park a couple of minutes after 11AM. By the time I got through with the dumping station and drove to the entrance over two miles away it was closing on the noon hour. I arrived at my destination in St Augustine around 3PM. In between I had all kinds of excitement.

On today’s journey I missed turns, made wrong turns and had to do an emergency swerve. My plan was to take Florida route 19 most of the way northeast across the state from Clermont to Palatka. The first problem was missing the turn from US 27 onto Florida 19. At the next major small city of Leesburg I turned east on FL 44 intending to intersect with FL 19. It worked, but not without grief. Leesburg is in Lakes county Florida. All of the big lakes make simple directions confusing. After turning east I found myself on the southbound side of US 441 and my GPS compass said I was going northeast. It is all because I had to go around various lakes, but I got back onto FL 19.

Next up for today’s excitement was the wrong turn. Trying to navigate through Palatka I attempted to follow FL 20 to get to US 17. It wasn’t a well marked route. When I came to an intersection with a bigger road I thought I’d reached US 17 and turned right. As soon as I completed the turn I knew I was on the wrong road. A fairly empty Dollar store parking lot saved me. I went in one entrance and out the other back on my intended route. Next up that route was a railroad underpass that was closer to my height limit than I’d like. It was 14 feet six inches. My radio antenna scrapes at thirteen feet.

The final issue had the potential of being the most dangerous. Coming around a blind corner on a two lane city road, I was taking up most of my lane of the road and the oncoming traffic was a little bit on my side of the center. Luckily another road slanted off to the right at the peak of the corner. I swerved into the side road. All kinds of stuff inside the motorhome went flying, but no damage was done. I took the next left back onto my intended road. Not a fun incident.