Sunday October 1st 2023

Where did September go? I keep hearing that this thing called Fall is happening in the northern part of the country. With the exception of a couple of days it is still pretty summer like around here. It doesn’t help that I keep moving south in Florida. The northern band of the state near Interstate 10 from the panhandle to Jacksonville is experiencing some cooler temperatures, but I keep getting deeper into the Florida peninsular. My next move on Friday takes me deeper still.

Today’s weather continued the pattern set over the last few days. It was overcast near foggy in the morning. During the middle of the day there was some sun and lots of clouds. It looked like a storm could form at any minute. While I was out of the park today I stopped at Siesta Key beach. This is a beautiful beach with lots of very white fine sand. The beach is often named the best in the country. Looking out over the Gulf of Mexico there were several heavy dark cloud formations. If they moved on shore we would be subject to heavy rain and wind. I didn’t hang around to see that come to pass. Inland at the state park it didn’t rain all day.

The thunderstorm with accompanying downpour that passed through here yesterday afternoon into evening made hiking difficult again. The puddles that had dried up enough to get around were once again blocking the trails today. I didn’t have any luck getting back away from the park roads. With all the traffic and weekend visitors, there weren’t a lot of wildlife viewing opportunities today. I got lucky late in the afternoon along the river near the front of the park. A couple of deer, probably the same ones I saw a few days ago, were blocking my path as I attempted to return to my RV home. I was able to stand less than fifty feet away taking pictures and waiting for them to move along. After about five minutes of watching them I decided to go around them via the picnic area between the deer and the road. My goal was not to spook them into bolting toward the road. If I walked straight toward them, that was their only real escape route. It sort of worked. I didn’t spook them, but something else did. Just after I got out of the empty picnic area the deer bolted out of the wooded area separating their original location from the picnic area. Luckily they decided the open ground of the picnic area was safe for a little grazing rather than continuing on into the road.

The weekend is over and there are many empty sites in the campground. I am used to the winter months that are booked solid every night. All of the empty sites are hard to adjust to seeing. Even so, getting a long stay is difficult. Every site seems to be booked at least one night over the weekend. If you only want to stay Sunday to Friday, it is possible this time of year. The fact that I was able to book a Monday to Friday of the next week including the weekend in the middle was obviously the result of a lucky (for me) cancellation.