Tuesday June 20th 2023

Today was a rainy day. I heard the sound of rain on the roof of my RV home shortly after sunrise. It rained steadily well into the morning with the occasional rumble of thunder before transitioning to off and on status into the early afternoon. The remainder of the afternoon could have gone either way, but it stayed dry until a line of thunderstorms passed through around 7:30PM. During the dry part of the afternoon the temperature peaked in the low eighties. The weather forecasters are calling this a “winter” weather pattern. All of the storms are moving from west to east across the entire southeast. Maybe it will all change tomorrow since it is the first day of summer.

Most of my day was spent inside my RV home, but I did get some of the settling in tasks completed during the lull in the rain. I have a couple more to do once I’m confident it will be dry for an hour or so. The biggest arrival issue at this park is getting used to the sounds of low flying jet airplanes. You can hear them all and feel some of them. From past experience I know that you eventually get accustom to the noise. Today a few of the faster, lower ones still got my attention.

Monday June 19th 2023

There was bright sun and blue sky this morning to get ready to travel. I was up early to start the final packing for an 11AM checkout. One of the things I had to clean up was the material I received when I checked in three weeks ago. It turned out to add a lucky hour to my checkout time. The material indicated that checkout was now noon. I’m pretty sure it used to be 11AM.

I pulled out of the campground at 11:45 for my seventy mile drive. Ten of which are the result of taking a longer route around a lot of road construction at the intersection of Intestate 95 and 295 in Jacksonville. I arrived at Pecan Park on the north side of Jacksonville about 1:30PM. It was a successful travel day, but it had its challenges.

About twenty minutes into the journey I started to see dark clouds in front of me. The cars approaching from the other direction all had their headlights on. I was clearly headed for one of the forecast thunderstorms. It wasn’t long before I was battling a strong wind with even stronger gusts. The majority of the wind was hitting me broadside on the drivers side of my rig. Staying in my lane took two hands on the wheel and a lot of concentration. After a couple of minutes of wind, rain was added to the equation. The windshield wipers got cranked to the max to allow forward vision. If there was a safe place to get off the road, I would have taken it, but the safest alternative was to proceed carefully. The worst was over in about ten minutes. It continued to rain off an on for the rest of my travel day.

My last visit to Pecan Park was last June. I think it is more expensive this year. The park doesn’t seem to be as full this year. In addition to travelers it is used for long term stays and temporary living situations. There are about ten rental cottage style park model RVs. The remainder of the three hundred plus sites are concrete pads for RVs. Part of the park is very near interstate 95. The other part that I’m in is under the runway approach for Jacksonville International Airport. There are lots of low flying planes. I recognized several of the RVs from previous visits. There are clearly some long term residents.

Sunday June 18th 2023

I am going to take a risk and say there was no rain today. Last time I wrote a similar statement at the beginning of the bog, I had to retract it before I finished writing the blog entry. It was a mostly sunny day with plenty of humidity and a high temperature just above the ninety degree mark.

I got a few errands done today and made another stop at Walmart for groceries. The most important thing on today’s list was a few gallons of water. I have been going through it fast in the last few days. I also got some pastries and desert items. In hind sight I was probably hungry at the grocery store. Many of the things I came home with were on the junk food or sweet side of my usual diet.

I took my first walk of the day after I got back to the RV park. The campground emptied out of the weekend crowd while I was out. It hasn’t gone down to mid week level, but it is down from Saturday nights peak occupancy. I suspect it will go down more tomorrow. The birds were missing from the retention pond today, so I didn’t get any bird pictures. The last few days the same few birds have been hanging around. There are still plenty of squirrels willing to pose for a picture.

This is my last full day at the KOA in Starke Florida. Tomorrow I’m moving on. I’ve been here a little over three weeks. That is two weeks longer than I originally planned. I extended my stay twice to get my Inverter issue worked on. So far, that problem seems to be fixed. Check out time here is at 11AM tomorrow. I’m only going about sixty miles, so it will be a short travel day.

Saturday June 17th 2023

I was surprised to wake up to the sound of rain on the roof this morning. Last night’s forecast called for afternoon and evening thunderstorms, not morning storms. It turns out most of the early day storms moved across the Florida peninsular south of here. This area caught the northern edge of the storms. From about ten to six it was a very nice mostly sunny day. The temperature climbed to ninety degrees. Around six the rumbling of thunder started to develop to the west. The rain is falling harder now than this mornings episode. It is forecast to continue most of the night.

The morning rain woke me earlier than expected, but the gloominess kept me in slow mode all morning. Eventually I got out for my first walk of the day. The park is in weekend mode so not a lot of people departed this morning. Later in the day more travelers arrived to add to the occupancy of the park. I think it is pretty close to the Memorial Day weekend for occupancy.

This afternoon I finally got around to doing the laundry. I bought the laundry detergent I was out of on Monday, but have managed to procrastinate since then. Getting it accomplished here is cheaper and more convenient than at my next stop so it makes sense to get it done now. I didn’t have a huge amount of laundry to wash. Even so, it took over two hours of more or less dedicated effort to get the job done. The laundry facility is not far from my site and it is safe to leave the machine unattended. These are older machines that don’t have a digital timer and there isn’t a sign indicating the length of wash cycle. After thirty minutes I walked back to check on status and it hadn’t reached the spin cycle yet. After forty minutes the wash was complete. For drying, I checked after forty five minutes and it still wasn’t done. I opened the door and pulled stuff out after fifty minutes so I still don’t know how long the drying cycle could have taken. Getting the clean clothes back to my RV home and packed away in the draws and closet took additional time. The bottom line is “Laundry takes time” even when you don’t have multiple loads.

Friday June 16th 2023

Yesterday’s rain stopped before I went to bed last night. Over two inches of rain fell over about ten hours. Shortly after sunrise this morning another round of rain stated to fall on the roof of my RV home. The day didn’t look to promising at that point, but the rain stopped before 8AM. Around noon the sun was out for a couple of hours. Late in the day the clouds returned and it looked like rain, but it never developed. The temperature peaked around 90 degrees with a lot of humidity.

I finally got back to fully operational power in my RV home today. When I arrived here my inverter/charger wasn’t working. All I could use was the non inverter AC circuits and any use of 12 volts would drain the batteries. I finally got a mobile tech here last week. He was able to get all of the AC circuits to work, but the charger part of the inverter/charger was still broken.

I had two options sending the inverter/charger off to be repaired or buy a new one. The repair option had no real timeline. It would take two or three days to ship it off, two or three days to ship it back, and an unknown amount of time at the repair facility. There was also a chance they couldn’t fix it and there was no warranty on the outcome. A new one was likely more expensive, but it was probably quicker and had a warranty. I went with the new one and it got installed today. Now I have to get used to turning lights on without worrying about turning the battery bank on and then off quickly when I’m done.

The retention pond at the back of the campground has a little more water in it today thanks to the runoff from yesterday’s storms. It is still down from the level it was at when I arrived here three weeks ago. The water birds were more interested in the shore of the pond today.

Thursday June 15th 2023

As the saying goes, it was a dark and stormy day. The sun didn’t make an appearance all day, but at least it stayed dry during the AM hours. In last nights blog I wrote that the storms were remaining north of here. Shortly after I published the blog the sky opened up. It rained hard with a lot of thunder until around midnight. A little more than twelve hours later the rain returned with a vengeance. It has rained at a moderate to heavy rate since then. The wind comes and goes as does the loud rumbling thunder and the lightening. On a positive note, the temperature is down from near ninety to the high sixties.

Since the rain started, I’ve been pretty much in hibernation inside my RV home. I put my noise canceling earbuds in to listen to random YouTube videos and more importantly to mask the noise of the rain on the roof. The alternative is to crank the volume up on the TV so you can hear it above the roar of the rain hitting the roof. The noise canceling earbuds make for a much more relaxing environment.

I only got one walk in today. It was during the late morning after the mowing crew was through in the campground and before the rain started. There didn’t seem to be much turnover in the park today. The staff is getting ready for the Fathers day weekend. Several events are planned.

Wednesday June 14th 2023

The bad weather stayed north of here today. There are tornado watches and warnings just north of the Florida Georgia line. The forecast calls for the storms to be further south into this area tomorrow, but that was what they said yesterday about today. It’s just a wait and see type of forecast. Around here today it was overcast and very humid. The temperature climbed into the upper half of the eighties. Shortly afternoon we were subject to a cloud burst. It was filled with huge rain drops falling heavily for about five minutes.

This was the first morning this week that didn’t start with the sound of a chainsaw. I think that allowed me to get up in a better mood. Breakfast was a slow affair. I lingered over my coffee and bagels for a couple of hours while catching up on my internet reading. That was followed by my first walk of the day. More people departed the campground this morning than I expected, but they were replaced with new residents by the end of the day. I guess there are a lot of travelers passing through.

The cloud burst interrupted and provided me with an excuse to differ my next task. I’ve been ready to do the laundry since I bought laundry detergent on Monday. It just isn’t one of my favorite tasks, so it is easy to procrastinate doing the laundry. There isn’t a lot of competition for the machines during the day, so I’ll be able to get it done in the next couple of days. I cooked a more elaborate mid day meal than usual. I grilled a strip steak and baked a potato for my second and likely last meal of the day.

My second walk of the day was later than usual. Possible to offset for not getting three distinct walks in today, my second walk included two full loops around the perimeter of the campground. The perimeter is lined with park model units. At least half of them are not occupied right now. The residents are away for the summer.

Tuesday June 13th 2023

The summer heat arrived today. The temperature peaked in the low nineties. With the humidity the discomfort level was much higher. This area did not get any thunderstorms, but twenty five miles or so to the north there were severe thunderstorm warnings this evening. The severe weather is forecast to be further south in this zone tomorrow afternoon. Rain is needed. The grass is starting to look dried out and the retention pond at the back of the park has gone down more than a foot in the last couple of weeks. It is becoming a weed filled

The chainsaw noise was back this morning, but I ignored it, rolled over and went back to sleep for a few minutes. This was a chores around the RV kind of day. The biggest task was tracking down the source of a bunch of little tiny ants that have invaded my RV home. It happens from time to time when you park near an ant source. They follow the hoses and cords from the ground into the RV. In the past I’ve seen a parade of ants from the ground toward my RV home. That wasn’t the case today. The source remains a mystery. Inside I hit the ants with a sponge and hot water in food areas and bug spray on the floor. It is also a good excuse to clean things up a bit. Outside I move the various hoses and sprinkle bug killer around the new locations. In really bad locations, I have had to surround the tires and leveling jacks with bug killer as well. Hopefully I’ve dealt with the little pests. I still think I feel them climbing by legs.

On my walks around the campground I was surprised that the park was well occupied. Instead of emptying out in the middle of the week, tonight, the park seems to have a higher occupancy rate than over the weekend. I don’t get it. Is it the start of summer vacation travel? Is it early arrivals for the Fathers Day weekend? Either way there are more walkers, bike riders and generally active people in the park tonight.

Monday June 12th 2023

Today began overcast and cloudy. It was still warm, a little humid and windy. The temperature climbed into the mid eighties. Late in the afternoon around 4PM the sun made an appearance. With direct sunshine the temperature climbed into the low nineties.

The weekend is over so the campground staff was back at work on maintenance tasks this morning. Before I was out of bed they had their chainsaws powered up to work on disposing of the tree remains from last weeks tree service activity. Since I sleep with the windows open for fresh air, it was another rude start to the day. From their prospective the idea is to get the work accomplished before it gets too hot.

I have been putting off grocery shopping since last week. As I hoped, the Walmart wasn’t extremely busy this afternoon. This is a smaller store. The aisles are closer together and the volume of stock on the shelves is lower than the bigger stores. Still, I was able to get most everything I needed. I’ll be in the area of a bigger Walmart next week. Over the weekend I made a detailed grocery shopping list. I don’t usually make a list, but I needed to remember a couple of infrequent purchases. Guess what? I forgot the list. I shopped for all but one item on the list. The simple act of writing the list causes me to remember most of the items on the list. They didn’t have a couple of the items on the list, but I looked for them. I’ll find them at the bigger store next week.

The campground didn’t seem to finish emptying out from the weekend this morning. Most of the RVs that were here on Sunday night were still here tonight. That is different than last week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights seem to be the low point for occupancy in the park. It will be interesting to see if the pattern holds tomorrow.

Sunday June 11th 2023

It didn’t rain today. The forecast had a twenty percent chance of rain late in the afternoon. All we got was the sound of thunder in the distance, but the sky overhead remained drenched in sunlight. The clear day allowed the temperature to climb to ninety. The next few days have highs forecast in the nineties with a low chance of rain.

Today was a very quiet day in the campground. I got a few chores done, but spent the majority of the day reading. On my walks around the park I didn’t see a lot of activity. All that changed at 7:15 this evening. The power in the park went out. Everything got even quieter. All of the ACs running full blast to keep the inside of the RVs cool went silent. People that haven’t been out of their RVs in days emerge to find out what was going on. People started to communicate with their neighbors if only to say “my power’s out too.” I learned that the RV beside me is occupied even though I haven’t seen anyone outside for the two plus weeks I’ve been here.

For the first half hour of the power outage the park remained very quiet. As people realized it wasn’t going to be a quick, the sound of generators broke the silence. Those folks returned to the solitude of their RVs, but others remained outside in the cooler temperatures of the arriving darkness. Others chose to get in their cars and drive around town in air conditioned comfort while they waited for the power to return. At 9:45 the power and normal activity returned.