Tuesday August 15th 2023

After a sunny start the sky rapidly became overcast today. The humidity was also higher. I was able to work outside for a while once the sun was blocked by the clouds, but the threat of thunderstorms complete with visible lightening and a few raindrops drove me inside. The thunderstorms have all passed by to the south, but the night is not over yet. The high temperature was much closer the low nineties normal.

Once I got driven inside by the threatening weather, I made some progress on planning my fall reservations. I’ve have been here in Jacksonville since the end of June. The long duration stay was planned to allow me to buy an new car and get it setup to be towed. That task is pretty much complete now. A week from tomorrow I will connect my new Chevy Equinox to my motorhome and continue the rambling road trip. The question up until this afternoon was where.

My thought when I decided to stay in Florida for the summer was I’d get out of the state for the peak of hurricane season. I was considering going to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee for September and October. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been looking for good places to stay in those areas and wasn’t getting a good feeling about any of the options. Just the opposite was happening. I was getting excited about the possibility of staying at places in Florida I’d been before.

During the winter I like to stay at Myakka River State Park outside Sarasota and at one of the Army Corp of Engineers campgrounds along the Caloosahatchee River east of Fort Myers. The wildlife and scenery is a real attraction. This year I wasn’t successful getting reservations. More or less on a whim, I checked for reservations during the fall and found vacancies during September and October. The question then became will mother nature keep the hurricanes away. I’ll just pay attention to the forecasts and run if necessary.

I have booked six different reservations with durations ranging from 2 nights to 14 nights for the next two months at various places in Florida and just north of the line in Georgia. The last month before my set of winter reservations kicks in remains to be booked, but I have a pretty solid idea for that period as well. I’ll let that idea marinate in my head for a few days before committing to it.