Sunday May 21st 2023

It was sunny when I got up this morning. As the morning progressed clouds moved in and started to obscure the sunshine. During the afternoon a brief storm would pass through every hour or so. This evening, as I’m writing this blog entry, there is a heavy thunderstorm lingering overhead. Flashes of lightening filter through the gaps in the blinds and the sound of rain on my RV home’s roof completely drowns out the TV. It hasn’t been a great weather day.

The park emptied out quickly this morning. By the time the 11AM checkout time arrived there were only about twelve units left in the sixty or so sites in this area of the campground. When I walked around the rest of the campground I found it equally as empty. I really thought there might be more people staying during the week leading up to the holiday weekend. Perhaps the return to more traditional work styles as opposed to work from home has resulted in a return to weekend only camping for many.

I got lost in research mode on the internet today. This was one of those times that I looked up one little thing which led to another and another. Before I knew it a few hours had gone by. In the end I read a lot of information, learned a few things, but didn’t reach any conclusions. That is pretty typical for me. I study and ruminate on a subject for a long time, then make decision and move out forward quickly, when I least expect it. There is always a plan or a plan for a plan.

Saturday May 20th 2023

The temperature was a little lower today, but the humidity seemed higher. The temperature peaked in the low eighties under a sunny sky. There didn’t seem to be thunderstorms anywhere in the area. Each of the next few days has a higher chance of rain.

I got a very slow start to the day. I woke up at my usual time, but rolled over a few times while I waited for the hot water heater to do its job. I had it turned off yesterday and overnight. It usually takes about half an hour before I’m sure the water is ready for my morning shower. Today I gave it more than an hour.

It really was another lazy Saturday. I committed to plans for the next two plus weeks. First I extended here as long as I could. I am now going to leave here on Thursday. This park is full for the holiday weekend. Rather than going to an Army Corp of Engineers park for the holiday weekend and beyond, I’ll go to an inland commercial campground that I’ve used for a similar holiday weekend escape in the past. This isolates me from any issues with the federally funded park closing abruptly because of the debt ceiling. Most likely this is over thinking, but I’m removing a possible future stress.

This park was quiet during the day. Most of the people that are here for the weekend were out doing things today. St. Augustine is a tourist draw. In addition to the old city and fort, there are beaches and a few typical tourist attractions. Judging by traffic I’m guessing that the beaches and boating are the biggest weekend draws. Staying off the roads and out of those areas on weekends when you can go during the week is my approach to touring in this area.

Friday May 19th 2023

The thunderstorms missed this area today. The majority of the storms were further inland or south of here. It was only a moderately humid day with high temperatures in the mid eighties resulting into a very nice weather day. The rain is forecast to return over the next few days. Next week might be more wet than dry.

The news this morning had me reconsidering all of the tentative travel plans I was figuring out yesterday. A big chunk of the next few weeks was going to be at an Army Corp of Engineers campground. The current debate in congress over the national debt ceiling could impact the ability to stay at Federally funded campgrounds. In the past when budgets were not approved in a timely fashion the campgrounds have closed and people have been told to leave. I don’t want to deal with the uncertainty and possible need to scramble for alternatives at the last minute, so I’m scrambling now.

The weekend crowd has arrived at this RV resort. There are still empty sites, but the atmosphere is more lively. People are sitting outside in the evening. Conversations can be heard all over the park and the kids are back. There were quite a few people in the pool this afternoon. During the middle of the week people were mostly inside their RVs with the AC running. The formal campground recreation activities also resume with the weekend crowds.

Thursday May 18th 2023

It looks like this area is in a summer weather pattern. Just like the last couple of days the day began humid and sunny, but during the afternoon a line of thunderstorms approached. Today’s storms were filled with lightening. The heavy rain only lasted half an hour, and everything was clear again within about an hour. It cooled the mid eighties high temperature for the day down into the upper seventies for a while.

I need to accept the fact that almost daily thunderstorms are here to stay until fall in this area. That means I need to stop letting the storms get in the way of my daily plans. They really aren’t a problem if you aren’t driving during the downpour or stuck outside somewhere. Today I didn’t take my own advice and let the storm dictate my afternoon. In my defense, the lightening and accompanying thunder associated with the storms started almost an hour before the actual storm arrived.

My focus today was on planning the next few weeks of travel. I still need to get some maintenance completed on the motorhome and on my SUV. Finding places to do the work and coordinating all of the associated logistics is a challenge. My immediate concern is booking the Memorial Day holiday weekend. It doesn’t seem to be as big a problem as it was the last couple of years. I’ve seen reports that the camping and RV boom associated with the pandemic is over and this would seem to confirm it. Now if the price of a night of camping would return to the post pandemic level it would be great.

This weekend crowd at this park has started to arrive. In this area of the park the number of occupied sites seems to have doubled today. There are still plenty of vacant sites in this area and in the other areas of the park. I suspect many sites will fill tomorrow and the park will be about the as full this weekend as last.

Wednesday May 17th 2023

Today seemed to follow a summer weather pattern. It was a humid day with thunderstorms moving back and forth across the Florida peninsular. There was the sound of thunder nearby late this morning, as the storm line formed a little west of here and moved inland. This afternoon around 3PM the thunder returned. This time it brought heavy rain with it from the west as the storm line returned and headed out into the Atlantic. The rain lasted about an hour before everything started to return to normal.

I was finally able to sleep in this morning. Both Monday and Tuesday morning the landscape crew managed to force me to leave my bed before I really wanted to. On Monday it was lawn mowing that started before eight in the morning. Tuesday morning the same crew was back with string trimmers and leaf blowers to “finish” the job. I know it has to be done and it is cooler in the morning, but it doesn’t allow one to sleep in. Since it still gets down into the high sixties or low seventies over night, I prefer to keep the windows open rather than run the AC. This tends to exacerbate my annoyance.

Once I did get up the threat of rain and then the actual rain kept me at home all day. I held off leaving the campground when I heard thunder in the late morning. About the time I figured it wasn’t going to rain and make travel difficult, the sky was starting to darken again. The second hesitation was the right decision. I wouldn’t have enjoyed being on the road in the downpour and doing anything outdoors would have been impossible.

Around 6PM I got in my daily walk around the campground. There were still a few puddles along the sides of the road, but the road surfaces were dry. Unfortunately, the heavy rain caused many of the flower blossoms that I like to take pictures of to fall off the plants. The opportunities that were already slim were even slimmer after the rain.

Tuesday May 16th 2023

As I’m writing this blog entry I can hear the sounds of thunder to the west. A a late in the day line of thunderstorms is approaching. Up until now it has been another beautiful day with a high temperture around 85 degrees.

I drove back to the east side of US 1 to another park near the inter-coastal waterway. Today I hiked the trails in Vaill Point Park. It is on the south side of the same creek I visited yesterday. The trails in this park are all paved walking paths. There are a few pavilions, an overlook and a fishing pier along the tails. There may have been other structures, but I had a big enough challenge navigating the trails I walked. I didn’t see any map and there were no direction signs. It was a maze you could easily get lost in. On a positive note, it was well shaded and the views were fantastic.

Back at the campground this afternoon, a Snowy Egret decided to visit the park’s retention pond while I was on a walk around the park. I stood by the pond and watched the bird for a few minutes. It made a full circuit of the pond’s shore looking for food. Every now and then it would dart forward to grab something tasty. After about a loop and a half it move on to another place.

Later in the same walk I found another Hibiscus plant that was in bloom. I really think they missed this plant and the other one I found earlier in my stay. The majority of the Hibiscus plants are all severely pruned. I understand that the plants will turn into massive bushes if they aren’t tended to occasionally.

Monday May 15th 2023

Today’s weather was a clone of Sunday’s. Overall it was a nice sunny day with high a temperature in the upper half of the eighties. There were no thunderstorms today, but some are in the forecast for later in the week.

This afternoon I drove to a little county park on the side of a creek leading into the Matanzas River. The river is the Intercoastal waterway in this area between the mainland and the barrier islands. The park is primarily a boat launch area, but it also has a paved trail and some benches. The tide was out so the water level was low. There were mud flats and what looked like oyster beds in view. I walked the trail along the creek and sat on the bench and watched the birds on the far side of one of the tidal flats.

The RV park continue to empty from the weekend crowd today. Everybody was up early since today was lawn mowing day. They seemed to get started before eight this morning. I could hear the sound of the mower in the distance as early as 7:30. Before I dragged my sleepy body out of bed the lawn mower sound was right outside my open windows. I let the sounds of a nice hot shower block the noisy lawn mower sound, but my day began a little sooner than I wanted.

Sunday May 14th 2023

Today began overcast just like Saturday, but the day didn’t follow the same course. The overcast transitioned to a bright sunshiny day. There were very few clouds in the sky all afternoon. The temperature peaked in the upper eighties.

This was another lazy day. I spent most of my the day reading and watching TV. On my walks around the park I found a lot of empty sites. The weekend residents really cleared out. A lot of the remaining residents are travelers. The cars and RVs have license plates from all over the country. In addition to the full time RV states of residence of Texas and South Dakota there were RVs from California, Missouri, Arizona, Oregon, Wisconsin and New York. Just to name a few. The majority of the Florida license tags are locals, but a few, like me, are also full time RVers.

On my walks around the campground I carry my camera to capture pictures to include in the blog. At this park that usually means flower blossoms. In the past there have been many Hibiscus plants in bloom. This year all but one Hibiscus plant has been pruned back to the base. Yesterday I included a picture of one blossom on the remaining bush and tonight I’ve included the other blossom. There just aren’t a lot of colorful blossoms right now.

Saturday May 13th 2023

The day began with an overcast sky, but there was no rain in the forecast. While I was out on my first walk of the day in the early afternoon, the forecast turned out to be overly optimistic. It started to rain when I was about as far away from my RV home as I could be and still be in the campground. By the time I got home it was raining at a steady rate. Over the next couple of hours it rained and rained some more. Sometimes it was very hard and other times it was just a light rain. There was no wind or thunder and lightening. As evening approached the sky cleared.

I spent the day decompressing from yesterday’s travel. Other than a few additional setup tasks around my RV home it was mostly a very lazy day. In addition to the rain shortened walk I took another one later in the day. Both walks were focused on observing the changes to the park since my last visit last summer. There have been a lot of improvements. My first observation was that some of the park roads had been repaved. The road was filled with broken pavement and pot holes last year. Now it is a smooth surface, but not all of the runoff issues have been solved. There were still a few good size puddles after the rain.

The biggest change seems to be improvements to some of the sites. Many of the sites that were gravel last year have been lined with brick pavers. They look very nice. It also explains why there were fewer price categories when I booked my site. By upgrading the sites they were able to group the sites into a higher price category. I know I’m paying more this year than last, but haven’t done the research to figure out exactly how much. I’m guessing it is close to twenty percent more. That increase might explain why there are more vacant sites this weekend than I remember from last year at about this time. There also seem to be fewer long term residents.

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.