Monday December 18th 2023

I expected a cool morning after the weekend storm, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. Tomorrow will be the cooler morning. It was a bright sunny morning with a strong wind out of the northwest. The air temperature climbed to the mid sixties, but it felt much cooler.

My plan for the day was to make my last grocery run to Walmart before Christmas. It will only get worse as the final week before the holiday goes by. If I need something specific I’ll stop at a dedicated grocery store like Publix. It might cost more, but will likely be a lot less hassle. Walmart wasn’t over busy today while I was there.

I entered the grocery store with a dangerous mindset. The plan was to acquire more than a weeks worth of groceries. I was also hungry and the cooler temperatures encouraged me to stock up on cold weather supplies. A box of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate mix seems to have come home with me. Overall I probably over bought. Leftovers and a new stock in the freezer may soon follow.

The Walmart Supercenter I went to is near Tom Bennett Park. This is a county park with trail, ponds and other recreational opportunities that I discovered on previous visits. I took the opportunity of being the area to make my first visit of this trip. Things were a little damp from the weekend storm. This area got several inches of rain. Some of the fields had huge puddles and some of the ponds were out of their banks. The walking trails were dry and the big wading birds were plentiful.

Walking around the campground later today was interesting. I have stayed at this park at this time of year several times. It is usually full ever night, but not this year. Last night there were many empty sites near mine. Most of those filled up today, but there are still empty sites. Last week and particularly this past weekend there were sites available at my previous location as well. I was trying to justify it with thoughts about the weekend storm, but I’m not so sure anymore. There may have been a drop in casual camping that climbed during the pandemic. Time will tell.