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.