Sunday December 31st 2023

Happy New Year

It was a Florida chilly morning. The overnight temperature was in the low forties. The bright sun brought the temperature up slowly. By afternoon it was in the mid sixties.

I spent the morning slowly preparing for travel. I prepared the bedroom as soon as I got out of bed then had breakfast before working on other parts of the RV. Around noon I moved my car over to the day use area. It provides space for connecting it up for towing without blocking traffic. Once I walked back to my campsite I brought in the slides, lifted the leveling jacks and drove the motorhome to the dump station. After that I met up with my car and mated it with the coach. I pulled out of Lake Manatee State Park a few minutes after 1PM.

I chose to avoid Interstate 75 and drive north on US 301 since my destination is on 301 just south of Zepherhills Florida. It may or may not have been the right choice. The road was a lot more developed than I remember. Along with the development came traffic lights. The traffic lights support all the traffic I encountered. Interstate 75 would have allowed me to avoid most of the traffic lights, but it often turns into a parking lot near the intersection with Interstate 4.

It didn’t matter in the long run. I arrived at Hillsborough River State Park at two thirty. This is an older state park that I have stated at twice before. The campsites have been updated with 50amp electric and good water pressure, but the roads are still gravel and the sites are far from uniform. Some sites are big rig friendly and others are a challenge. My actual site is ok. It is close to a neighbor on one side and backing in from the narrow road was a little challenging. Once I was situated and setup it turned into a fine site.

The nice thing about this park are the trails. There are hiking trails on both sides of the Hillsborough River. There aren’t as many alligators as other rivers like the Myakka River, but I recall seeing a few on past visits. Over the next two weeks I will check out a few of them.

Saturday December 30th 2023

The weather this morning was cloudy and gloomy, but by noon the low clouds burnt off to a nice blue sky. The afternoon was a clone of yesterday with a few more degrees of heat added. The high temperature was in the mid sixties today after an overnight low in the forties.

Once the weather cleared I set out for a little exploring in the area with the idea of making it out to the gulf beaches. The traffic had a very different idea. I ran into stop and go traffic requiring multiple cycles to get through most every traffic light. It was so bad that I assumed it was caused by an accident or breakdown. Unfortunately, it was just traffic volume. Getting anywhere was a very slow task. Traffic didn’t improve after I crossed under Interstate 75 as it often does, so I crossed south from state RT 64 to state RT 70 hoping for better traffic conditions. It was just as bad maybe worst.

The volume of cars with out of state plates has increased dramatically. Looking around while stopped in traffic there were times that I didn’t see any Florida plates. It is probably a combination of vacationers and snowbirds. Only some of the cars with out of state plates seem to know where they are going and a few of the others don’t know how to get out of their own way. Being out on the roads without a specific destination or mission was a bad idea. I returned to my RV home after a brief stop at Bennett Park. This time I was able to say hello to the pair of sandhill cranes I’ve seen before.

This is my last full day at Lake Manatee state park. Tomorrow I’m moving north to the Tampa area for a couple of weeks. Checkout here is at 1PM so I will take my time getting everything packed up in the morning. It is less than seventy miles to my destination, so I should be able to be off the road before the New Years Eve traffic gets on the road. Having to move on New Years Eve was bad planning on my part.

Friday December 29th 2023

It was a beautiful day. The temperature was in the low sixties with plenty of wind out of the north, but the humidity was low and the sun shined bright. As long as you had a few layers on, it was a good outdoors day.

I did a lot of walking around the state park today, but not much else. It was a very lazy day that didn’t generate any good blog worth adventures or pictures. My only significant observation for the day was that the campground is full and many of the occupants are now from well out of state. Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri and California were among the license plates I observed. I guess that means snowbird season is in full swing.

Thursday December 28th 2023

The rain that had been forecast all week arrived last night. Around 10PM it started to rain lightly. It continued overnight, through the morning and into the early afternoon today. Around 2PM the rain dried up and the sky started to lighten. For a few hours this afternoon outdoor activities were possible, but another line of rain arrived as the sunset.

With the clearing sky, I got out of the campground for a drive to Bennett park. I wanted to take a few pictures of the big wading birds. They had other ideas. After walking all of the paved trails, I only saw one Anhinga. The birds might have been visible from some of the grass trails, but they were a little wet for my tastes. The sixteen hours of light rain filled many of the low lying areas.

Traffic this afternoon was heavy. The backup to get on Intestate 75 northbound was about a mile long. Thankfully, I wasn’t getting on the intestate. From Bennett park the northbound lanes on I-75 are visible. They were filled with stop and go traffic. There is construction on the road north of the congestion and there is a large regional outlet mall at the next exit. Both of those are known to cause backups. Traffic on the the visible area of the southbound lanes was also very heavy, but it was moving at highway speeds.

There was a big turnover in the campground today. The people that came in for a few midweek nights started to give way to the weekenders. I suspect that the couple of sites that seem to be empty tonight will fill up tomorrow.

Wednesday December 27th 2023

The weather didn’t want me to do the things I planned today. The nearby gulf coast was fogged in last night. I’m about twenty miles inland. The fog didn’t extend this far, but by morning there were thick clouds and occasional light rain. The forecast called for a partly cloudy afternoon.

Once the light rain let up and it looked like it was clearing in late morning, I headed out for the beach. I’ve been here for more than a week and I haven’t visited the Gulf of Mexico yet. Mother Nature didn’t think that was a great idea. As I was on my way the clouds darkened and it started to rain harder than it had all day. Rain at the beach isn’t my idea of fun, so I moved on to my second plan element of the day. I stopped for groceries at Walmart.

The shopping went fine, but I was puzzled by all the new shopping carts. They are different and I don’t like them. The child seat is a built in cage above the original cart height. This raises the height of the handle six to ten inches. It doesn’t feel natural and it makes reaching into the cart from that direction impossible. The number of times I had to check my action and walk to the side of the cart to put something in the cart was excessive. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable the height is for shorter people. It is unlikely these new carts are cheaper than the originals, but they may be “safer” for kids in the seat.

By the time I got out of Walmart the rain had stopped. The clouds were starting to clear. Unfortunately, with a load of groceries including a few frozen items, I couldn’t continue my trip to the beach. It was necessary to return to my RV home with the supplies. A trip to the beach will have to happen on another day.

Lake Manatee attracted a lot of men in boats today. There were nine empty boat trailers in the parking lot this afternoon. All of the boats I could see on the lake were on the far side. The fishing must be good. On my second walk of the day just before sunset there was only one empty trailer remaining, but there were six people fishing from the docks.

Tuesday December 26th 2023

The overnight rain lingered into the day as mist and fog under a cloudy sky. It was about 2PM when patches of blue sky started to appear. By sunset it was clear enough for the sun to shine in the western sky. It was a humid day with a high temperature in the mid seventies.

The week between Christmas and New Years is filled with strange days. Lots of people are in Holiday mode, some are in Vacation mode and a few are in Work mode. For me the days are very similar to all the others during the year. I need a calendar to know what day of the week it is. It took until early afternoon for me to get motivated and leave my RV home.

I drove by Walmart on my way to Bennett park. If the parking lot looked reasonable, I would have stopped for some groceries, but it was very congested. Bennett park was also very busy. There were lots of walkers. Both the human kind and the K-9 kind filled the trails. I walked around several of the paved trails, before attempting to take one of the less developed trails around one of the ponds. The last couple of days of rain have made that trail impassable if you want to keep your feet dry. It wasn’t deep water, just very spongy grass. I retreated in another direction. Similar to conditions during the weekend the high activity at the park seems to have caused all of the interesting birds to hide elsewhere. The turtles were still taking the sun on the logs in the ponds.

In stark contrast to Bennett park the day use part of my home at Lake Manatee State Park was very quiet. There was only one car in the parking lot. The occupants must have been on one of the trails, because the day use area and the boat launch were completely empty of people. The campground remains full or very close to it. The activity level is consistent with weekend crowds. The winter school break has also brought a lot of campers with kids to the park.

Monday December 25th 2023

Merry Christmas

Light rain moved in with the rising sun this morning. It got stronger as the morning progressed, but never really became heavy. The rain gave way to a cloudy gloom shortly after noon. As the afternoon went by the weather transitioned to just cloudy with a few peaks at a blue sky.

I had considered a drive to one of the gulf beaches today. There is something satisfying being able to say you went to the beach on Christmas even though I wouldn’t have gone in the water. The weather just didn’t make the trip appealing. Instead I watched TV most of the day. Football and Basketball games kept me well entertained.

I took two walks today. The first one included the added precaution of a raincoat. A very large group was using the big pavilion in the day use area. There were more than twenty cars worth of people attending the gathering. It was probably a Christmas party, but I didn’t see any of the usual trappings of such a party. Later in the day I heard Christmas music coming from that area, so it probably became livelier event as time went by.

My second walk was around the campground. It finally seems to be full. I saw two or three new arrivals this afternoon. On my walk just before sunset I only saw one empty site that very much could be occupied by a van camper or something similar. It looks like the park will be full during the vacation week between Christmas and New Years.

Sunday December 24th 2023

It is hard to believe that this is Christmas Eve. I’ve been immersed in Christmas decorations, Christmas music and sappy movies since the beginning of November. Theme park visits, Sirus/XM radio and the Hallmark Channel are to blame. Christmas was just something in the distant future. Now it is less than a day away. Merry Christmas everyone.

Today was a warm day. The temperature climbed into the mid seventies. It would have been even warmer if the thick clouds gave way to the sun or if the consistent moderate breeze died down. Overall it was a gloomy day. Rain is in the forecast overnight into the first part of the holiday tomorrow.

Rather than my first walk of the day around the campground, I drove the eight plus miles to Bennett park for my walk. The wildlife is much better there. Today I actually saw two sets of people using the extensive Disc Golf course that is scattered through the park. It is a well constructed and maintained course, but today is the first day I’ve seen anyone using it. The trails were also getting a little more use today. There were lots of dog walkers and family groups in addition to the usual joggers on the trails today.

Probably because there were more people around, the birds weren’t as plentiful. I think many of the birds were on the backside of one of the bigger ponds, but I didn’t walk out that way. In the ponds, the ducks and turtles were doing their thing.

I didn’t push my luck with Christmas Eve traffic. I returned back to my RV home after about an hour and a half at the park. Lunch and a little TV followed before taking my second walk of the day. This one was the usual walk around the campground and out to the day use area. I observed an activity I hadn’t seen before. At the boat launch area a woman was sitting on the dock playing the violin while her companions fished. I think she was trying to learn something new. She would play a few bars of music then stop and repeat the lines and continue a little further into the piece. The playing sounded good to my untrained ear, but I have no idea what it was. I was still trying to get over the novelty of what I was seeing and hearing.

Merry Christmas!

Saturday December 23rd 2023

It was a nice day to rest at home. The temperature climbed to the mid seventies under a bright sky and a moderate east wind. The state park trails were a good place to enjoy the day and I didn’t see anyone else on them. Activity in the park was very low today. I didn’t see anyone using the day use area, but there were a few empty boat trailers in the boat launch parking lot.

Lake Manatee is a reservoir made from damming the Manatee River. It is popular area lake for fishing. The dam maintains the height of the water level in the lake. The current level is lower than it was on my March or September visits to this park and it may be as low as I’ve ever seen it. This region of Florida is currently under a severe to extreme drought condition. This area of the west coast of Florida didn’t get as much rain during the summer as inland areas.

The occupancy of this campground continues to puzzle me. The online reservation site shows no vacancies, but there are empty sites each night. When I walked around my camping loop just before sunset there were eight empty sites. I don’t know how many empty sites are in the other half of the campground or how many of the eight will be occupied later in the evening. When you book a site, you pay in full. To get a reservation in this park you have to book at the start of the reservation window 11 months out and plans do change in close to a year. They send a reminder about your reservation a few days before it starts. If people cancel then, the change may not get reflected on the booking site. Is the state getting revenue from the empty sites? Either way, there is something goofy about the issue.

Friday December 22nd 2023

The day began cloudy and dull. As the day progressed toward sunset, the sky got progressively brighter only to be replaced by darkness as the sun set. The temperature peaked in the mid seventies.

I made another enjoyable visit to Bennett park this morning. It wasn’t as busy today. Everyone seemed to be on the roads. I made the mistake of not going straight home after the park visit. Traffic was very heavy on all the roads. I thought it would be busy near shopping areas so I avoided those areas, but all the roads were busy. Today was the first day of winter break for most of the schools in the area. Some kids had all week off and return to school on the second. Those that started their break today seem to be out until January 8th.

Gas prices are also way up for the holiday weekend. When I departed the Orlando area last Sunday, the most common low price was $2.549 a gallon. Arriving in the Bradenton area the low prices were $2.699 a gallon. Different distribution methods and higher county taxes probably account for the difference. On Monday prices in this area had already gone up to $2.759 a gallon. As the week went by I watch the price go up to $2.959 a gallon. Today the average low price seemed to be $3.159 a gallon. Is it supply and demand or just gouging?

The reservation web site says this park is full tonight, but as I completed by second walk of the day as darkness arrived there were still empty sites. That has been my general observation all week. The sites seem to be booked and thus most likely paid for, but unoccupied. I don’t really understand. Something is broken in the process.