Today’s big activity was a late day visit to Disney’s EPCOT. I got there a little after 4PM and stayed until the Luminous Fireworks, Laser and Fountain show was over around 9:30PM. The International Flower and Garden Festival is still in full swing. I took lots of pictures of Flowers, Topiaries, Butterflies and the Fireworks. It is late in the evening as I’m writing this blog entry, so I’m going to just present the pictures in this blog entry. Tomorrow, I may write more about my visit to Epcot.
I got a slow start to the day. It was after 3PM when I departed the RV park which turns out to at the heart of the school release time. I had to stop for several school buses and got caught in the traffic around two different schools.
The whole getting to and from school in this area is so different from what I’m used to. Granted that there are many many years since I was in school and I grew up in an urban environment, but I just don’t get it. Every school bus stop seems to have multiple cars waiting for the kids to get off the bus. Maybe it makes sense for the lower elementary school grades particularly in the fall, but today I even saw the behavior with a couple of kids that looked like high school age. Can’t these kids walk a few hundred yards to their homes?
The other phenomena regards picking up the kids from school. Today I encountered two very long line of cars at the schools I passed by. The lines were so long they blocked traffic on the road for several hundred yards in both directions. Once the cars made it into the school yard they had to snake their way up to the doors to load their precious cargo. Meanwhile those of us just trying to drive by the school had to dodge the waiting cars and the arriving and departing school buses. Once again, in my day, getting picked up was the exception not the norm. I can only recall a handful of waiting cars on any given day. I must really be turning into an old fuddy duddy.
Walking around the RV resort today I saw more indications of departures. It is really starting to look empty in some areas. Clearly, I can’t figure out how who is going to leave and when. Some of the ones I observe have departed were on my list of probable full time residents. They go from fully setup with fancy patio structures and plants all around to an empty site in no time. At the same time new RVs arrive at the sites around me. Clearly this part of the massive campground is getting used for new arrivals right now.
Today’s weather was pretty much a clone of yesterday’s. What was different was my activity level. After a leisurely morning, I headed to Sea World in the afternoon.
Getting to Sea World from here, well southwest of Orlando is a bit of a challenge. Sea World is directly south of Orlando and a little northeast of Disney World. To get there from here you need to go around Disney or through it. If you chose to go around Disney you encounter the traffic on Interstate 4 which is usually filled with stop and go traffic. Consequently, I decided to go through Walt Disney World. The traffic was heavy going through Disney and north on International Drive, but it kept moving. When I passed Interstate 4, it was indeed a traffic nightmare.
Sea World was busy when I arrived at 1:30PM. The main parking lot was close to full and it looked like they were working on opening the maxillary parking lot. When parking at Sea World, you are pretty much on your own. There are not lots of people directing you where to park in a systematic basis. Instead you follow the car in front of you until you find a place you like. When I departed later, there were cars running up and down the rows looking for empty spaces.
Once I got through security and into the park, the crowds were heavy, but not unmanageable. There were empty seats at the shows. The bigger problem was the narrow walkways near the construction walls that surround the area of the new Penguin roller coaster. There were also a couple of walkways that were closed off because of this construction. In these areas the crowds slowed down and thickened making for slow going.
My arrival time didn’t match up well with the park show schedule. I only saw the Dolphin show. The times for the Sea Lion and the Orca shows just didn’t line up with my wanderings. The dolphin show was a little different from my last visit in February. I think in the warmer weather the trainers interact in the water to a higher degree. Today three trainers dived into the tank to dance and interact with the dolphins. The dolphin show is always great and today was no exception.
After making a couple of loops around the park and checking out the various attractions and exhibits the crowds started to increase. The Seven Seas Food Festival is still going on during the weekends at Sea World. Saturdays and Sundays end with a concert. Tonight’s artist was Ludacris. I suspect people were arriving to see the rapper, but it was my time to leave. I was back at my RV home by 6PM.
I woke up this morning to the wind. It was noisily blowing the blinds in the open windows and the slide toppers outside. The wind was the dominant element of the day. The east wind was blowing in the mid teens all day. There were a few periods of gusts that rocked my RV home. Along with the wind came clouds. As the day went by the sky transitioned from a few clouds to a thick layer of white and gray. The high temperature for the day was in the low eighties.
This campground has a small area of frontage at the northern end of Lake Davenport. It is a long walk through the campground from my site to the clubhouse at the lake shore. There is a nice area to sit and watch the activity on the lake behind the clubhouse. Whenever I watch the activity on the lake, I see of personal water crafts with their water jet based propulsion systems racing up and down the lake. The source of these crafts is at the southern end of the lake at the boat launch in the Polk County Northeast Regional Park.
Today I visited the Northeast Regional Park. Most of what I saw today were athletic fields. A baseball game was in progress on one of them. The soccer pitch and other fields weren’t in use. Another area that had a lot of activity was around the boat launch onto Lake Davenport. There were picnic tables with charcoal grills that were very popular in this area also. The big draw was a Jet Ski rental concession at the boat launch ramp. A huge trailer that held ten Jet Skis was parked beside the ramp. Three Jet Skis were on the trailer. The rest were in the water churning up wakes on the lake. It appeared to be a popular activity.
One thing that I wanted to find at the Northeast Regional Park was walking trails. There didn’t seem to be anything that met my needs. The area was extensive and there were plenty of sidewalks, but I wouldn’t call them trails. There also was a foliage and water features that would attract birds and other critters.
There were a few more clouds in the sky today. It wasn’t completely overcast, but there was more white than blue in the sky most of the day. An east wind also made its presence known. Consequently the temperature was a couple of degrees cooler than Thursday.
Camoflage bunny
This was another day filled with chores around the RV and a few errands in the area. It didn’t result in any real blog worthy content. The primary errand was a grocery run. I suspect I’m going to the grocery store a little more frequently than during the winter months, because I’m spending about twenty dollars less a visit. The items I purchase haven’t changed and the prices certainly haven’t gone down.
Walking around the RV resort this evening didn’t show any obvious weekend guests. The last couple of weekends there were weekend residents. With all the vacant sites it is getting hard to identify new arrivals if you don’t see them coming in.
The drop in temperature at the beginning of the week has gone away with a few degrees increase every day. Today’s high was back in the upper eighties with increasing humidity. The current forecast calls for mid nineties by the middle of next week.
A visitor along the lake front.
This was a quick day. I did lots of little things around my RV home without paying much attention to the clock. It was around 5PM before I was ready for my walk around the campground. Today was the first day since Tuesday that I walked to the lower part of the campground near the lake. There were a lot more empty sites today. I think the approaching end of the month has a lot to do with it. Many of campgrounds up north begin there summer season on May 1st. Some folks that winter in Florida move their RVs to seasonal sites up north for the summer.
I observed one departure near me today. An Oregon registered motorhome pulled in its slides, unplugged from the utilities and departed mid afternoon today. The couple that belong with the motorhome are slow moving folks that don’t strike me as returning to Oregon. They have a truck registered in Florida that isn’t pulled behind the motorhome, so that departure will remain a mystery. They didn’t take the motorhome to the storage yard.
While driving around over the last week I’ve seen a number of Magnolia trees in bloom. They have all been located on private property or another place that I can’t easily access. Today I set out on a search to find some Magnolias to photograph.
Insect of the day
I decided to check out the parks in Clermont along Lake Minneola. I drove along about half the lake front before stopping at Lake Hiawatha Preserve. I didn’t see any Magnolia trees along my way. The preserve was new territory. I have never been there before. It is across the street from Lake Minneola and backs up to Lake Hiawatha. I explored the preserve looking for my target trees, but I didn’t find any. It is an interesting park with a dog park, a playground and a Disc Golf course. The dog park and the Disc golf course were getting some use, but the playground was empty.
View across Lake Minneola
By far the most interesting part of the park to me was across the street on the shore of Lake Minneola. There were piers that stretched through the shore grasses out into the lake. The view across the lake was great. It would be a great place to watch the organized boating activities that the lake frequently hosts.
I didn’t find any Magnolia trees today. In fact, I didn’t even see any while driving. I’ll keep watch over the next few days and probably try a couple of other excursions in search of Magnolia trees suitable for photography.
It was a gorgeous sunny day with a high temperature in the upper seventies. With the low humidity it was a great day for outdoor activity. I decided to hike a section of the Van Fleet trail. The trail is a thirty mile section of converted train right of way from Polk City to Groveland.
The Van Fleet trail is straight, flat and paved.
The section of trail I like to hike is right in the middle. The whole trail is straight and flat as would be expected of a converted train track. The walk I took today was from the parking area on Green Pond Road north about two and half miles to an area know as the bridges. Basically it is two bridges about a quarter mile apart that cross over a swampy area. Most of the other ground along the trail is pasture land.
The swamp at the bridges contains turtles and alligators. Today I saw one turtle and three or four alligators. The vegetation is very thick. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was looking right at other gators or turtles that were well camouflaged. There were also a couple of white birds back in the woods that were hard to see well enough to identify. I suspect they were egrets or ibises.
The trail wasn’t busy today. I was passed by a few bicyclists, but I didn’t see any other walkers. Overall it was a very relaxed walk. I stopped several times to take pictures of wildflowers and watch gopher tortoises scurry into the brush. The five mile walk took about two hours.
The saying that goes “What a difference a day makes” applied to today’s weather. Yesterday high was near ninety. Today it took until noon to clear the seventy degree mark on the way to an upper seventies high temperature for the day.
Would you care to sit with Walt Disney and look out at EPCOT?
This afternoon included an unplanned trip to Disney. Last night I tried to renew my annual pass online, but all I got was a mysterious error message. My current pass expires tomorrow, so a visit to a guest services location became today’s mission. I don’t have to renew it before the expiration date to get a discount, but I might have to pay for parking if I arrive with an expired pass. Either way, I made an interesting afternoon and evening out of my renewal mission.
Chip and Dale and a picnic basket
I parked at the Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC) near the Magic Kingdom. My first stop was at EPCOT after a monorail ride. The construction in the middle of the former Future World section of EPCOT is almost finished. The new Communicore Hall and Plaza is scheduled to open on June 10th. The view from the monorail shows a pretty complete project. Once in EPCOT I got my annual pass renewed at guest services so I can continue to enjoy the Disney World theme parks most week days throughout the year.
With my primary mission complete, I wandered around the front part of EPCOT enjoying the topiaries and gardens again. The park was very busy. After about an hour I returned via monorail to the TTC and transferred to the express monorail to the Magic Kingdom. I was in time to watch the flag retreat ceremony in town square. They lower the flag with class and honor a veteran at the same time.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the re-imagined Splash Mountain was getting tested this evening. It is supposed to open “This Summer”.
The Magic Kingdom was also busy and getting busier with each passing evening hour. The park had a separate admission after hours event from 10PM to 1AM. Guest of the after hours event could start arriving at 7PM. I wander around the park riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover, the riverboat and Pirates of the Caribbean. As the sun went down so did the temperature. I was dressed for warm weather not the sixty plus degrees the temperature dropped into. I headed home before the fireworks to avoid buying yet another sweatshirt.
A relatively uncommon Rosetta Spoonbill was also visiting the Magic Kingdom this evening.
Today began cloudy and a little drab. It kept the temperature from skyrocketing from the low seventies into the nineties like it did the last couple of days. During the after noon the clouds gave way to sunshine. Before the sun set the temperature had climbed into the high eighties. A strong breeze gave a hint at the approaching cold front expected overnight.
Heading downhill on the fence post. Wildflower of the day
It was a very lazy Sunday. Breakfast was a two coffee morning while I caught up with my internet reading. Before I knew it the afternoon had arrived. Instead of taking my first walk of the day I decided on some area touring. That task required a full tank of gas in my car. Gas prices continue to jump all over the place. Today they were lower than yesterday, but higher than last Sunday. Prices seem to change every couple of days, but the trend seems to be moving gas prices higher.
Two things stood out on my touring today. Housing construction in the area continues at a rapid pace. There seemes to be a lot of appartments being put up in addition to the single family homes. The road construction to handle the traffic from the new construction continues to lag the development. Sunday afternoon traffic wasn’t bad, but it is still heavier than you would see in less developed areas. Today I seemed to find Walmart delivery trucks to get stuck behind. After following one for about a mile it turned off the road I was on. Two minutes later I was following another one. I remember the day when deliveries didn’t happen on Sundays.
Once I got back from my touring I took my daily walk around the RV resort to Lake Davenport. Today seemed to be a golf cart strolling day for many of the remaining residents. I was passed by ten or more carts while I walked along. Most of the folks waved as they passed by, but a few were in a hurry to get somewhere. Usually I only see one or two carts on my walks.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 