Monday December 11th 2023

Florida winter weather was back today. The overnight temperature was in the forties and the peak temperature in the afternoon was only in the low sixties. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but you needed to be bundled up.

My mission for the day was a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in the late afternoon and evening. I have not seen the park after dark in several years. In addition to the normal lighting in areas like Pandora, there were Christmas lights and a projection show on the Tree of Life to see. Most of the animals are put to bed or otherwise hidden back stage by nightfall, so I got there early enough to see a few animals before nightfall.

I arrived at the Animal Kingdom around 3:30 and was directed to a parking space near the front of the parking lot. My late arrival coincided with the parking attendants filling in empty areas in the area reserved for preferred parking as general parking. It was nice to only have a short walk to the entrance. Neither security or the entrance scan points were busy.

The birds and other critters along the entrance path and around the Tree of Life were entertaining as I slowly made my way to the back of the park. The Kilimanjaro Safari was scheduled to close at 4:45 and it only had short wait time. There were plenty of animals to see, but some were waiting to go to their backstage homes. In particular, the giraffes and zebras were clustered up near the paths to their barns. The hyenas, wart hogs, and elephants to name a few were already backstage. Still it was a very nice safari.

After the safari I managed to get in a quick walk along the Gorilla Falls Exploration trail before it closed at 4:30. I was surprised to see the gorillas were still out and about. They seem to go in early, particularly when it is cold like today. My understanding is the gorillas determine when it is time to go in side within reason I expect.

I wandered around the whole park waiting for night fall. Eventually I was able to see the “bio luminescent forest” in Pandora, the Avatar land. Seeing the eerie glowing rocks and artificial vegetation again was impressive.

On my way out of the park I stopped to watch the projection show on the Tree of Life. The detail in the Christmas themed projection is terrific. I was getting cold so I didn’t hang around to see all three shows. I was back at my RV home before the park closed at 7PM.

Sunday December 10th 2023

Today began as a bright sunny day. However, a cold front was approaching from the northwest. The forecasts had the storm front arriving anywhere from 5PM to 8PM in the evening. I tried to plan my day accordingly.

The first part of my day was focused on getting chores completed. I needed to get the laundry done. The hamper was becoming full. This park has one washer and dryer at each of the restroom buildings. One load at a time makes for a slow process. As I was finishing the wash in the early afternoon the sunny weather was transitioning to cloudy and dull.

Hoping the 8PM forecast for rain was correct, I drove to Disney Springs. I wanted to see all of the Christmas decorations lite at night. One of the things they have is a Christmas Tree stroll. The intent is to collect stickers related to each tree on a game card to get an ornimant. I chose to wander the Springs taking pictures of each tree I located. The increasing cloud cover limited the light making most of the pictures appear washed out. Early on I was going to wait for dark before taking pictures, but the very dark clouds to west made it clear that the rain wasn’t even going to wait for 5PM. I got all of my pictures and roamed through a couple of the stores in a couple of hours. I got into the parking garage and my car just before it started to rain. When I emerged from the garage in my car the heavens had opened up and a deluge was falling. The heavy rain came with the arrival of darkness. The drive home was a challenge lite by occasional bright flashes of cloud to ground lightening.

Saturday December 9th 2023

It rain a little off and on last night. Today was just the opposite. It was bright and sunny with very few clouds. The temperature climbed above the norm to around 80 degrees. Generally, it was a beautiful day.

I was planning to go to Sea World today, but I seemed to lack the motivation. Everything was delayed today. I slept in longer than usual. Breakfast lasted into the early afternoon as I chased information on the internet while drinking coffee. It was then approaching the time I was planning to leave for Sea World and I just wasn’t ready. Instead I set off on my first walk around the state park today. My options were a bit limited. The state was doing prescribed burns yesterday. There are warning sounds about the activity and possible smoke fog all along the main park road. I didn’t know where the burn area was located, so I restricted my walk to other areas. It wasn’t a particularly exciting walk. Most everything is dull and brown as befits this time of year.

My second walk of the day was just before sunset. The turnover that occurred in the park today was all filled by new arrivals. The weekenders continued to enjoy their weekend outing and the general activity level in the park remained high. Tonight’s sunset was very pretty once again.

Friday December 8th 2023

Today was a cloudy day, but the temperature was about normal for the area at this time of year. The temperature peaked in the mid seventies. This evening a few light rain drops fell. It was just enough to make you worry about impending downpours that didn’t happen.

My goal for the day was checking out the Christmas decorations at some of the Disney World resorts. I drove to the Magic Kingdom parking lot in the early afternoon and made my way via monorail to the Magic Kingdom. I made a brief visit to the very busy park. The afternoon parade was just reaching town square as I arrived. It was a great parade as usual complete with fire breathing dragon.

I only stayed at the Magic Kingdom long enough to ride the People Mover and walk through most of the park. All of the wait times for rides were very long. From the Magic Kingdom I took the launch to the Wilderness Lodge. They always have a very tall and beautiful tree. It lived up to my memories. While I was at the Wilderness lodge I grabbed an early supper at Roaring Forks the quick service restaurant.

The next stop was Disney’s Contemporary hotel. The hotel is the next resort north of the Wilderness Lodge on Bay Lake. There are two boat route around the lake. One goes clockwise and the other Counter Clockwise. The counter clockwise boat arrived first taking me the long way around the lake. The first stop was Fort Wilderness and the second was my stop at the Contemporary. I didn’t get off at Fort Wilderness. I plan to make a separate visit to the Fort next Friday to check out all the campers decorations.

At the Contemporary Resort I found my first Gingerbread house of the circuit. It is more of a picture of Cinderella’s castle made out of gingerbread than a house. It is in the same style as much of the art created by Mary Blair that decorates the hotel. The Contemporary doesn’t have a big inside Christmas Tree. It’s main tree is outside on the lawn. The lobby has several well decorated smaller trees in the lobby.

My monorail crawl began at the Contemporary. It really was a crawl. They were apparently short one monorail causing a lot of lines to form waiting for the monorail. After a few minutes wait I boarded the monorail for the Polynesian resort. It has a nice tree in the lobby and a few decorations outside along the main entrance, but overall the Polynesian theme dominates any holiday add on.

The big Christmas themed resort on the monorail loop is the Grand Floridian. The tree inside is huge and the Gingerbread house in the lobby seems to get bigger every year. The Gingerbread house is a shop that sells all things gingerbread. It had a line around half of the lobby to make purchases. The green areas outside of the Grand Floridian resort have also been heavily decorated with wire frame animals like reindeer and snowmen. I think the Grand Floridian is the decorating leader of the Disney World resorts.

From the Grand Floridian I completed my monorail loop back to the Ticket and Transportation Center for my walk out into the parking lot and my car. Traffic returning to my RV home was heavy. I made it back home shortly after 8PM.

Thursday December 7th 2023

The temperature was reported to be in the forties this morning. After a long day at EPCOT and a late night while I tried to capture my thoughts about the day in my blog entry, I slept through the low temperature period. The temperature was in the low sixties by the time I got up around ten. It was a mostly sunny day that allowed the temperature to climb to around seventy with a lot less wind than Wednesday.

I got in a couple of walks around the campground today, but I was feeling yesterday’s long walk on concrete at the theme park. There was just enough throb in my legs to remind me that I had a little more activity yesterday than normal. The campground had about the same level of departures this morning as it has all week. I don’t think it will tomorrow. The people that arrived this afternoon have the appearance of weekenders. It is not what the people look like, but what their site looks like after they get setup. Very few people stopping for a night put down rugs, setup outside kitchens and get out all the creature comforts.

All I took for pictures today was the sunset over the lake. I didn’t see any wildlife, not even a squirrel. Probably because of the cooler temperatures, the wildflower are not in bloom. I am including the flowers and bird pictures from yesterday’s visit to visit to EPCOT in addition to tonight’s sunset.

Wednesday December 6th 2023

Disney’s EPCOT got my attention today. Big changes began yesterday, so I have been planning to visit today for a few weeks now. The weather didn’t really cooperate. The high temperature today was in the low sixties and as soon as the sun went down it dropped another ten degrees. I planned ahead for the temperature by wearing two warm layers and bringing a third in a backpack to put on after dark. It all worked out. I was comfortable for the entire ten plus hours I was at the theme park.

Monday night Disney took down most of the construction walls that had been a fixture in the center of the old Future World section of the park for close to half a decade. Yesterday, Tuesday, the new World Celebration area opened. I watched some of it on YouTube videos giving me a little bit of an idea what to expect. It met and exceeded many of my expectations, but I really don’t understand what took so long. The area behind Space Ship Earth has been turned into a park like area with lots of trees, plants and seating. The Communicore Hall building is still under construction, so a few construction walls remain. One of the focal points of the new area is a statue of Walt Disney sitting on a bench looking out at his vision called EPCOT. That was a very popular area. Everyone, except me, had to get their picture taken on the bench with the Walt Statue.

The new area is also filled with fiber optics and LEDs. The area color matches with the various nigh time shows on Space Ship Earth. As the colors change on the globe matching or complementary colors light up in the World Celebration area. This makes the seating and walkways in the area very popular after dark.

The other big new thing at EPCOT as of Tuesday was the first showing of the new nighttime fireworks show, Luminous. This is the long term replacement for the Harmonious night time show that ended last spring. An interim show, EPCOT Forever was performed during the wait for this new show. The big thing about this show is the absence of permanent barges in the lagoon. The six big barges and a bunch of little ones are brought out from “back stage” late in the afternoon and are gone by the next morning. I liked the show it was very fireworks intensive and could be watched from anywhere around the lagoon. Harmonious used lots of projections on water screens which required you to be in certain locations to really see the show.

I thought the cold might keep the crowd down today. It didn’t. The place was mobbed. Probably because of all the new stuff the park was very crowded. It also didn’t help that one of the most popular narrators for the Candle Light Processional, Neal Patrick Harris, was in place for the three nightly shows. People were lining up for the 5:30 show at 2PM. I walked by during two of the shows and the overflow of standing room viewing was ten deep along the walkway at the back of the theater.

It was a long day. I got there a little after noon and departed after the fireworks show. I got back to my RV home shortly before 11PM. In between I did a lot of walking, so a few shows and road a few attractions.

Tuesday December 5th 2023

I spent today the way I should have spent yesterday. For the most part it was a relaxing day around camp. I got over my travel day angst a day late because I choose to go to Disney’s Animal Kingdom yesterday. The only thing that got in the way of total relaxation was a trip out for groceries.

The weather roller coaster is on the way down toward lower temperatures. It was a cloudy morning that slowed the heating of the air. The temperature peaked just over seventy. By evening the clouds were breaking up allowing the overnight temperatures to drop. The forecast has the temperature dropping into the forties tonight with highs only in the sixties tomorrow.

Walking around the campground today I didn’t see anything of substance different from my last visit in the spring. There was evidence of a few maintenance items getting completed. In particular those using paint. It is good to see things getting done. The campground is in mid week mode. It is full every night, but there is a lot of turnover each day. A few sites are decorated for Christmas, but everyone here will leave long before the holiday. The two week stay limit means that my next stop will intersect with the holiday. I’ll decorate a little for that stay.

I was disappointed to see that the cold weather has eliminated all of the wildflowers and the lily pads were not in bloom. Yesterday at the Animal Kingdom all of the nice blossoms spoiled me. They must do some things to prevent the cooler temperatures from impacting the vegetation.

My afternoon was spent on a couple of errands. I needed food for my car and food for my stomach. The price of gas has gone down since Sunday. I spent thirty cents a gallon less today. Some of that is the location, but most of it seems to be the weird oscillation in gas prices. The groceries were the same inflation impacted prices as I have been experiencing recently. The price of a gallon of OJ hasn’t gone up since the last time I got sticker shock a few weeks ago. I’m back to buying it at the inflated price without thinking about it (well not much).

Tonight’s sunset wasn’t as great as some of the recent ones, but it was still nice to see. I’ll try to catch a few more while I’m here if mother nature cooperates.

Monday December 4th 2023

This two week stay at Lake Louisa State Park was supposed to be my only stay in the Orlando area during the Christmas season, but my plans were augmented with the one month stay in the area ending in the middle of November. I was able to get a head start and saw some of the decorations and shows in the theme parks near the end of that stay. Still, the primary focus of this visit will be Christmas in some of the theme parks.

Today I had a reservation at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I should have learned from past experience and relaxed today. I didn’t really have the energy for a full blown theme park day. I got to Animal Kingdom about 12:30. Wait times at all of the things I like were very long. I walked the various trails looking at animals and taking lots of pictures. As the day went on I got lucky with show times and wait times as well.

The Lion King Show queue was just starting to fill up as I was walking by. I only had to wait in line about five minutes before seating began. For some reason the previous show was canceled, so they had plenty of time to fill the theater. I waited on the not so comfortable bench seat for about twenty minutes before the show began. My view for this theater in the round was different. I don’t think I have ever sat in the Wart Hog section. The show was great as usual, but the camera I was using doesn’t capture very good low light pictures.

After the Lion King Show and a little more wandering I found the Kilimanjaro Safari wait time was down to thirty minutes. It turned out to be accurate, but that was probably the best thing about the ride. I was sitting in the middle between other people that wanted to take pictures. It is very hard to take your own pictures through someones head. I was ready for another safari right away and the wait time was down to fifteen minutes. It was probably more like five minutes. I had a much better seat for picture taking on my second ride. The animals I was able to see on the second ride were different than the first. It is amazing how much movement took place in the half hour or so between safaris.

I took over one hundred and fifty pictures today. Here are some of the animal, flower and general ambiance pictures.

Flowers

Animals

Ambiance

Sunday December 3rd 2023

The day started out foggy and progressed to a cloudy but bright day before heading down hill again. The common element was high humidity. The temperature was in the low eighties during the best part of the day.

This was a travel day. I didn’t get as much of the travel preparations completed yesterday as I typically try to accomplish. As a result this was a busy morning. I worked steadily to complete all the tasks to depart Jetty Park around the noon checkout. As it turns out I was off my site by checkout, but departed the campground fifteen to twenty minutes later. There was a wait at the dump station.

The drive into the center of the peninsular started with a stop for gas. Once again I guessed wrong when I arrived two weeks ago. Gas prices at that time were under three dollars a gallon. I thought they would be even lower by today. I was wrong. The gas price roller coaster was at a high point of $3.15 a gallon. One hundred and sixty dollars and fifteen to twenty more minutes later I was on my way.

Traffic was light on the back country roads between Cocoa and St. Cloud. I made good time on that part of the drive, but the middle section of the drive through St. Cloud and Kissimmee was slow. Once again I became familiar with every traffic light along the twenty mile stretch of road. I only had one hard stop along the way. Considering that I left a half full tumbler of water on my kitchen counter that’s a good thing. My luck held and it didn’t spill.

I arrived at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont Florida around 3PM just in time for the rain shower. It was dry all the way across the state. As I approached the state park black clouds were in the sky over the area. The ten minute shower managed to get me nice and wet set up. A second and third brief showers followed about every hour.

I’ll be at Lake Louisa State Park for the next two weeks. This is my second stop on my winter of two week stays in Florida State Parks.

Saturday December 2nd 2023

Today was filled with a lot of little activities that I wanted to do before I move on tomorrow. My two week stay at Jetty Park concludes tomorrow. As usual I really enjoyed my stay. There is always activity along the entrance to the port, at the beach or on the fishing pier to keep me entertained. Watching the cruise ships departing in the afternoon and evening is just the icing on the cake.

The temperature today was around eighty with lots of humidity. Early in the day the sun was out most of the time. As the day progressed the cloud cover increased. This evening, as I write this blog entry, I have heard a few sounds of light rain on the roof. There is another SpaceX rocket launch tonight around 11PM. I hope the conditions don’t deteriorate to the point that the launch doesn’t happen. As it is now, the rocket will be above the cloud layer quickly.

I have about one hundred miles to travel tomorrow. I’ll be returning to the greater Orlando area. The route I take avoids the toll road and the downtown Orlando area. I choose to suffer with all the traffic light in the Kissimmee St. Cloud area on US 192. There really isn’t a good way to get between the two points, but I seem to make this journey a lot. I plan to leave here just before the noon checkout. That should allow me to arrive at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont well after checkout there.