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!