The day started cloudy and drab. It caused me to linger over breakfast before transitioning to indoor chores. The outdoor tasks were put on hold until conditions improved. By noon the sun was out and a wind from the south was bringing in warm weather, but my outdoor tasks were still not on the agenda. The indoor chores were keeping me busy.
Once the clouds allowed the sun to break through, it was a very pretty day.
Eventually I got out for a hike around the campground and some of the associated state park trails. Today’s walk was a long a path with a lot more interesting wild flowers than Wednesday’s path. The animal and bird life around here is sparse. I have only seen one Egret around the lakes.
This afternoons sunset transitioning from day to night was very reflective. The wind died down and the surface of the lake was glassy smooth. The sun and clouds both reflected off the surface very well. It produced a different kind of sunset.
The weather today was perfect for a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was a sunny day and the temperature climbed from the low fifties into the mid seventies.
Animal Kingdom is the perfect park to get some exercise and see some animals without a lot of hassle. The walk from where you park your car to where you start seeing animals and interesting vegetation is usually straight forward. If I get parked in the far side of the parking lot, I might use the tram, but that didn’t happen today. I was in the park after a five minute walk.
To enjoy Animal Kingdom, it is not necessary to wait in a lot of long lines. Walking the trails and observing the various animal exhibits provides exercise, education and entertainment. Today I only waited in one line. The wait for the safari ride was listed at 25 minutes, but was probably less. The 25 minute mark was down from 65 minutes when I arrived at the park. It is all a question of timing.
The highlight of my visit today was on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. One of the big tigers was taking the sun in clear sight from one of the viewing areas. The Komodo Dragon was similarly taking the sun. On the other end of the expectation spectrum was the absence of all the gorillas. They were all behind the scenes in their enclosures.
Lunch on the Galapagos Islands?
Today’s safari driver needed driving lessons. He had a very heavy foot on the accelerator. This made for a very jerky ride as he transitioned from stopped to moving and vise versa. Taking pictures from the moving safari truck is always a challenge. The jerky uncomfortable ride made it even more challenging. I still got a few good pictures.
Today’s weather was a small improvement on Tuesday. There was a little less wind and a little more warmth. The temperature peaked just north of seventy degrees under a bright sunny sky.
Fruit on a “wild” citrus tree.
My exercise for the day was a hike in the park around Hammond Lake. This is a small body of water that I would call a pond, but that doesn’t seem to be a term in common usage in Florida. The entire hike around the “Lake” was about 2 miles as reported by my Fitbit. The area on the back side of Hammond Lake has changed a lot since I started staying here in 2016. The area has been subject to a number of prescribed burns and was also been hit by a major wind event along the way. The number of trees is much thinner than it once was. Parts of the area were also Orange groves in the past. A few, now wild, citrus trees remain.
It was a nice day for a walk. I met several other hikers and a couple of bicyclists on the trail. The network of trails is also designed for horses, but I didn’t meet any today. The horse rental area will probably be busy this weekend. The same probably applies to the kayak and canoe rental. I haven’t seen any rented in the last couple of days, but they have done a big business on weekends in the past.
Hammond Lake
The sunset this afternoon was spectacular. I think there may have been smoke or dust in the air to the west. There was a brown tint to the wisp clouds to the west. The reflection created a very deep red sky.
The sunshine was back today. It was a windy day, but the temperature managed to climb into the mid sixties. Out of the wind and in the sun it seemed much warmer.
This was a transition day. I need to transition from a week plus in a resort campground surrounded by theme parks and other things to do back to a daily living scenario. First on the list was sleeping in. I got more than eight hours of sleep instead of the five or six I got while staying at Fort Wilderness. It wasn’t that I couldn’t sleep while staying there, rather that I wanted to do things early and late in the day. Here there is no real schedule.
Walking around the campground at the time of checkout I found only a few empty sites. That is different from my December visit. At that time there was a lot of daily turnover. The majority of license plates in December were from Florida. Today, I saw a much higher number of out of state plates. Other than that subtlety, not a lot has changed in a month and a half.
My other major activity today was replenishing my food supply. A trip to Walmart solved that problem. It was a typical shopping experience with the usual level of minor frustrations. The store was moderately busy and the staff was busy restocking shelves. It made navigating the aisles problematic, but I got everything I needed.
Today’s forecast called for light rain all day. Thankfully, it only rained briefly around 8:30 followed by a few random two or three minute wet spells. The sun even came out briefly during the afternoon.
I got the inside travel preparation tasks accomplished while it was raining this morning. Once it stopped, I completed the outside tasks. Shortly before 10AM I drove my car up to the parking lot at the campground entrance about a mile away and took the bus back to my campsite. I’ll rendezvous with the car in the motorhome to mate them for travel after I leave the site. There just isn’t enough room anywhere else in the park that fits my needs.
I pulled in my slides, raised my jacks and headed for the parking lot at 10:30AM. The only catch is that the chances of getting in to my destination before 1PM were poor and it’s only 18 miles away. My solution is one I’ve used before. I sat in the Fort Wilderness Outpost parking lot until 1PM. It is interesting watching the new RVs arrive and offload there golf carts from trailers that wont fit on their sites. Having your own Golf Cart at Fort Wilderness seems to be one step up the status ladder from renting one from Disney. People seem to think having a golf cart to avoid using the buses is a good thing. The way people personalize the carts to find them in the masses of similar carts is also very entertaining. Putting big inflatable pool toys like swans on the roof seems to be a common decorating choice.
Site 41 at Lake Louisa State Park
I arrived at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont Florida a little after 1:30PM. Traffic wasn’t bad. I was on the road for about half an hour. At night when the theme parks empty out, I have spent much longer making the same drive. I was last at Lake Louisa State Park in December. It is a nice park in a good location. I’ll be here for a couple of weeks.
The TV weather talkers oversold today’s rain. All of last week they were talking about heavy rain on Sunday. Accumulations of one to three inches were discussed. It started to rain about when they forecast, but it was very light. By noon the sun was trying to break through. The afternoon was warm and dry. This evening a few light showers have passed through the area. Unfortunately, more rain is forecast for tomorrow and it is my moving day.
During the dry part of the day I wandered around Fort Wilderness again. I repeated my visit to the Tri-Circle-D ranch barn. It wasn’t quite as busy today, but the horses were still in their stalls watching all of their visitors walk by. Most of my walk today was along the beach and back into the woods along one of the canals. There were a couple of pair of ducks and other water birds along my path. It is nice to find less visited areas of the campground that are also less developed.
There was a lot of turnover in the park today. Several sites near me were empty by the 11AM checkout time. I walked through the 300 loop on my wandering. It had even more empty sites. Tomorrow my site will be one of the open one. I will be moving on, but will still be in the greater Orlando area for the next couple of weeks. A return visit to the theme parks is not out of the realm of possibility.
As usual I enjoyed my stay at Fort Wilderness. It is a very nice camping resort even without the theme parks. I probably would have enjoyed my stay even more if I had not decided to maximize my visits to the theme parks, by going every weekday. Dealing with the lines and crowds can be exhausting.
Today was the last day in the current weather pattern. The cool mornings and evenings bracketing a warm afternoon will give way to rain tomorrow morning with warmer temperature later in the day. I took advantage of the nice weather this afternoon to explore Fort Wilderness.
My first stop was the barn at the Tri Circle D ranch. The horses in the public area were on their best behavior. Most of them had their heads over the stable doors watching the world around them and posing for pictures. I obliged and took a few horse portraits. A visit to the barn is always an adventure. This area houses the animals that pull carriages and wagons all around Disney World. They also offer pony rides for kids. An area at the entrance to Fort Wilderness houses horses for trail rides that are conducted from that location.
After my visit with the horses I walked around some of the camping loops. I even found one that was closed for maintenance. Something is always getting worked on around the campground. There are flags and painted lines all over the grass, roads and concrete providing markers for future excavation. I have no idea what they are doing, but it will be interesting to try and figure it out on a future visit.
The last time I walked around the campground loops was at Christmas time. At that time most of the sites had Christmas decorations. This time all of the Christmas stuff was gone, but there were a few sites with Valentines decorations. I think some campers will use any excuse to decorate their sites.
This evening I returned to the beach area on Bay Lake to watch the Happily Ever After Fireworks from the magic kingdom. I chose the wrong side of the boathouse this time. There were more people in this area and the music is not piped into this area anymore. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow night I’ll return to the other side of the boathouse to watch the fireworks.
Weather wise, today was a repeat of the pattern for everyday this week. The cold morning and cold nights bracket a nice afternoon. Today’s high was similar to Wednesday in the low seventies without a lot of wind.
My energy after four straight days of theme park visits was down today. I got up early to take advantage of the early entry for resort guests at the Magic Kingdom. It is only a half an hour from 8:30 to 9:00, but in theory it gives you a head start. This morning it didn’t help. Most of the popular rides that everyone heads for were not working at park opening. The result was longer lines at the rides that were open. Everything I wanted to ride had well over an hour wait.
Blossom of the day.
After the official park opening at 9AM, I got lucky. I managed to get on the Haunted Mansion ride with a minimum wait. By the time I got off the ride, all of the other open rides I thought about riding were over an hour wait. The worst part is the crowds were growing by the minute. A steady stream of people were entering the park. I decided to push upstream against the flow and head back to my RV home. I was home by 11:30. It was a very unproductive trip across Bay Lake to the theme park.
Miss Piggy Fountain
I had a similar experience in the evening. My plan was to go to Hollywood Studios and watch Fantasmic, the nighttime show. Spending the evening at Hollywood Studios seemed to be a popular idea. There were a lot of people arriving when I did. The only problem is all of the daytime show attractions stop performances around 5PM. That means everybody gets in line for the few remaining rides. Most of the rides had more than an hour wait.
Slinky Dog Dash Roller Coaster had a 120 minute wait
The week of theme park hopping was catching up with me as I wandered around Hollywood Studios. Trying to kill the three hours until the nighttime show, I was running out of energy fast. I sat on a bench for a few minutes and almost fell asleep. Trying to kill time is one of the downsides of solo visits. With no one to keep you going or even to talk to, you get board fast. What all this leads to is a trip back to my RV home. I gave up on waiting for the nighttime show.
Alien Swirling Saucers had a 45 minute wait. It is usually about 15 minutes.
Today’s weather was a few degrees cooler and a lot less windy than Wednesday. Basically, it was a clone of Tuesday. It was a great sunny day that peaked in the mid sixties. During the peak in the afternoon it was a very comfortable day.
I read on the internet that a new baby Okapi was now accepting visitors at the Animal Kingdom. He was born in October and had been back stage bonding with mom for the last few months. This week Elijah and his mom were onstage on the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail. Today I went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom with the hope of seeing the new addition. He and his mom were being shy. They were way at the back of the enclosure partially hidden by a bush. Maybe they will pose for pictures in a week or two.
I didn’t spend a lot of time at the Animal Kingdom today. I am tired after three straight days of park visiting. The Animal Kingdom is also a park that it is just as easy, maybe even easier, to visit when staying off site. There are ways to get to and from the park that avoid a lot of the traffic jam areas and the park doesn’t have a massive night time show that everyone hangs around to see. I will be in this area for another two weeks after I leave Fort Wilderness, so I am likely to make a return visit to see the animals.
By four in the afternoon I was back at my RV home. I got to cook my own evening meal today. After having theme park food the last two nights, I am happy to cook something that I could take my time eating. Tomorrow will be my last day at the theme parks for this visit. My low tier Disney annual pass is blacked out on the weekends. There is plenty to do around the campground.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 