Monday August 14th 2023

The excessive heat warning continued for this area. Today’s weather was a little better than the last couple of days in one way. There were afternoon thunderstorms in the area. Most of the storms have missed this area, but the cloud cover and winds on the periphery of the storm have really brought the evening temperature down. The temperature dropped from the high nineties to the low eighties fairly quickly.

Since it is Monday, I woke up to the sound of lawn mowers. The landscapers were here to cut the grass and beautify the landscape. They seemed to follow a different pattern this morning. On past Monday’s they have mowed my site before I was out of bed. Today it was after ten before they mowed my site even though I heard them in the area a little after eight. The grass was drier this morning resulting in a better looking outcome to the mowing.

Traffic was my nemesis today. When I departed the RV park today I noticed that the Interstate 95 southbound traffic was not moving. I hadn’t plan to take that route, but I should have been more concerned. I continued under the overpass and on about a mile to US 17 which parallels the interstate in this area. I noted heavier traffic southbound on US 17 as well. The interstate had probably been backed up long enough that drivers had made their way to US 17 as an alternate route. I was heading north against the traffic so I thought I’d be fine. Less than a mile later I was stopped in a solid line of traffic. Both directions on US 17 were moving at a crawl, but it seemed the south bound traffic was moving a little faster than I was. Half an hour later I had moved about a mile north to an intersection that allowed me to loop back to the east and south. I gave up on exploring to the north and decided to return home.

My return loop brought me back to Interstate 95 at the access road to the International Airport. The interstate appeared to be backed up in both directions. A message board indicated that Interstate was slowed one exit to the south by construction and was totally blocked two exits to the north for an undisclosed reason. I continued by loop to the west toward the airport before returning to my RV home via back roads. Two seemingly unrelated issues on the intestate made getting anywhere from my RV home this afternoon a real challenge. I was driving for over an hour but didn’t get anywhere I wanted to be. At least the car AC was comfortable.

The RV park has thinned out and quieted down from the weekend. It is remarkable how few people you see during the day. People are all at work or hibernating inside their AC cooled RVs. This evening it has cooled down enough that people are sitting outside their rigs and walking their dogs.