Saturday January 6th 2024

The low pressure system that is impacting the northeast as snow tonight, passed through here this morning as heavy rain. Sometime around sunrise it started to rain hard. There was even a chance of severe weather. The sound of hard rain on the roof of my RV home continued until about ten. The sun came out quickly after the rain departed. The high temperature this afternoon was around eighty.

I made a bad decision thankfully with low consequences today. Saturday is not the day to go grocery shopping at Walmart, but I convinced myself that it would be OK. The store was mobbed with shoppers. Many of whom needed lots of space and time to complete their shopping. The number of very senior citizens using electric wheel chairs or other mobility aids was excessive. Walmart mobile order pickup carts also filled the aisles adding to the congestion. On top of all that the store staff decided it was a good idea to leave pallets of goods in the main aisles making for one way traffic. It was a very busy Walmart, but I got a bad opinion about the quality of the management.

Traffic was the other reason not to go shopping today. Getting to and from the store was a solid line of traffic north and south on US 301. There was also construction to deal with, but it wasn’t active today. The cherry on top of the traffic issue was returning to the state park. I waited close to twenty minutes behind a line of cars at the rangers station coming into the park. It seemed most of the people in front of me were buying day use entries. They would prefer you buy them online ahead of time.

Once back in the park with my groceries stored away, I went for my daily walk along the river. There was a lot of standing water to dodge walking through the campground. Once I was on the trails it was a little easier walking. The warm day encouraged at least one alligator to enjoy some time out of the water on the river bank. There also weren’t as many people on the trail. This made the hike a little less challenging.