Sunday July 21st 2024

Today’s weather forecast called for rain anywhere from 10AM on. The clouds were around all day. The first actual rain was a little after noon, but it wasn’t only enough to wet the ground. Heavier rain with thunder and lightening were in the distance. Similar flirtations with rain happened throughout the afternoon. Around 7PM the real thing arrived. Heavy rain, dangerous winds along with lightening with immediate thunder. It was a clear case of the storm being right overhead. The storm was one of the heaviest I’ve been in for a long time.

Between the minor weather events early in the afternoon, I went out to get in a little shopping (looking). Traffic was heavy today and the emergency vehicles were busy. One accident was particularly interesting. There didn’t appear to be any injuries. Somehow the back end of a sedan had ended up under a tractor trailer. It looks like the truck was making a wide right turn and the car decided to make a narrower turn inside the truck without success. When I arrived the truck was blocking two and a half lanes of the main three lane road.

I wasn’t able to get in my daily walk around the RV park. The threat of rain and the actual rain got in the way. I do have new neighbors. One is two sites down and the other is across the street. If I got two new neighbors, does that mean there are new residents in other areas of the park? Is the end of July a buy period?

Saturday July 20th 2024

For the third day in a row this area dodged the big storms. Today the closest approach was to the southeast. Thunder and lightening with very dark clouds were on that horizon for about an hour. The wind was very heavy here during that time as well, but the rain didn’t fall on the roof of my RV home. To a certain extent I want it to rain between 3PM and sunset. During that time, if the sun isn’t blocked by clouds the sun bakes in on the side of my RV home and the AC has a hard time keeping up.

Note: The flower pictures in this blog entry are from yesterday’s visit to Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort.

The state of my refrigerator dictated that today was a grocery day. Saturday afternoon is not the right time for grocery shopping at Walmart. The parking lot didn’t look full, but inside the building I found an excessive number of impatient shoppers. Navigating the aisles filled with shoppers littered with unattended pallets of new stock was a challenge. There seemed to be many shoppers with single minded agendas represented by pushing their shopping carts at high speed with tunnel vision. If they drove their cars that way they wouldn’t make it home in one piece. I only saw two collisions of shopping carts inside the store, but I know I had to slam on my theoretical brakes more than once.

The good news is I was able to buy water by the gallon today. They didn’t have a lot of stock, but more than I’ve seen during my last few visits to various Walmarts. Today the water shortage seemed to be in the half liter bottles selection. The packages with larger amounts of bottles were in short supply. It would be cheaper to filter my own water, but nowhere as easy.

Friday July 19th 2024

Today’s temperature peaked in the mid nineties with a good amount of humidity. At the start of the day thunderstorms were forecast to arrive around 3PM, but in this area they never arrived. Most of the rain stayed north and east of Orlando.

I spent the evening exploring Disney Worlds monorail resort hotels. It is easy to park at the Ticket and Transport Center and use the resort monorail to visit the Polynesian Village Resort, the Grand Floridian Resort and the Contemporary Resort.

I started my evening exploration with a mediocre cheeseburger at the Polynesian Village Resort followed by a cup of Dole Whip for dessert. After filling my stomach I wandered the grounds checking out all the views and recreation activities. Lots of people were using the pool to cool off and kids were cooking s’mores at a fire along the beach.

It is usually the holiday season when I explore the monorail resorts. On this mid summer visit I missed seeing all the decorations. The resorts are still fun to visit, but they aren’t as over the top as they are with Christmas decorations. That sentiment held for all three resorts.

At the Grand Floridian, in addition to wandering the grounds, I sat in the lobby and listened to the sounds of the Grand Piano. The pianist played lots of Disney tunes and other arrangement. I found it interesting that he had his sheet music on an Ipad.

I timed my visit the the Contemporary Resort to coincide with the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. There is a perfect viewing spot on top of the building. Unfortunately, if you aren’t dining at the restaurant up there, you have to walk up eleven floors to the fifteenth floor landing to be on the top of the building. I managed to get up there in time to see the Happily Ever After Fireworks over the Magic Kingdom. You can really see how far away the aerial blasts are from the ground effects at Cinderella’s castle.

I jumped on the Resort Monorail as soon as the show ended and headed back to the parking lot staying ahead of the crowd leaving the Magic Kingdom. I was able to get to my car and get on my way home without getting caught in traffic.

Thursday July 18th 2024

After yesterday’s adventure at the Magic Kingdom theme park, today was a lazy day focused on sleep. The weather was pretty much a clone of yesterday as well. Any rain was widely scattered and managed to miss this area. When the sun had a clear shot through the clouds the temperature was in the low nineties. If it was blocked by clouds the temperature was in the high eighties. The humidity wasn’t an issue and a breeze help keep things a little cooler as well.

My laziness started with sleeping in. The clock was closing in on ten before I woke up. Then, I didn’t get up right away. Breakfast dragged on until afternoon as I used the internet to catch up on the news, blogs and vlogs. My walk around the park was earlier than usual as I feared the weather would bring the storms. It also followed one of my shorter routes to be able to return home quickly if the rain started. By the time I got back it was looking a lot less threatening. The rumbling of thunder got strong around the supper hour, but it was well off to the west.

On my walk I noticed a few predicted changes. Two relatively long term RVs that disappear at the end of June returned to occupy their sites still loaded with their outdoor furniture. I hope they enjoyed wherever they went on their “vacations’. On the flip side a couple of RVs in the same area departed this morning. Watching these turnovers is interesting, frustrating and amusing all at the same time.

Wednesday July 17th 2024

Today the afternoon thunderstorms were much more scattered in this area. However, the usual thickening of the cloud cover did occur. The result was a drop in the overall temperture from the low nineties into the mid to upper eighties. It seemed to be perfect weather for a visit to Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

This was the official opening day of the new version of the Country Bears Jamboree, now called the Country Bear Musical Jamboree. The last version closed earlier this year to allow Disney to update the music and the animatronics. This version has much more contemporary music from Disney’s songbook. The musical style is still country, blue grass and other Nashville style variants. The animated bears have more coordinated movements and seem more lifelike. Even the three trophy heads on the wall are more into the overall production. They heckle, sing along and cheer the country bears throughout the show. The costumes are also much brighter and more colorful. Overall it is a nice show that I’ll probably get used to, but right now I’m remembering parts of the old show that are no longer around.

Tuesday July 16th 2024

The rain arrived at 4PM today. That is about the only part of the day’s weather that was different from the last few. The temperature peaked in the low to mid nineties before the rain. The nice thing about a 4PM rain is it turns down the heat right at the peak of the day. It allows the AC to keep up better.

While I was out doing errands today I had to consult the calendar. The Fourth of July is over and the stores have started to put the Halloween merchandise out. The inflatable ghosts, ghouls and other Halloween haunts have started to make their appearance in the stores. Decorating for Halloween has really become a big business over the last few years. I guess the only other event the stores need to focus on between now and the end of October is Back to School. They’re doing pretty well with that as well. School starts in the first or second week of August around here this year.

I wonder what was special about today. A good number of RVs departed the park this morning. In the afternoon several new occupants arrived. I don’t think of a Tuesday as a turnover day. Overall there are fewer occupied sites tonight than last night. It will probably settle down again as the weekend approaches.

Monday July 15th 2024

The rain came around 6PM, but it was building towards it all day. It started with an intense thunderstorm and has continued as off and on as light rain. For most of the day the temperature was in the low nineties with medium humidity and a nice breeze. Outside activities were a little more comfortable today.

My walk around the RV resort was the full length today. The weather wasn’t threatening and the temperature was cooperating. Once I got Lake Davenport I sat in the one of the Adirondack chairs along the lake shore. After the last few days of heavy storms the water level is high. The lake shows signs of having been out of its bank on the lawn in the recent past. Today it was lapping at the edge of the grass. On the walk to the lake I noted that all of the drainage areas had a little bit of standing water remaining after the last storm about twenty hours prior. I suspect that today’s storms brought them back up to a higher level.

Most of my day was spent on chores and relaxing. I got the things I wanted to get done completed combined with a good amount of relaxing.

Sunday July 14th 2024

Today was another variation on the standard Florida summer weather theme. The day started bright and sunny allowing the temperature to climb into the mid nineties quickly. Around mid day the clouds started to arrive. Today the sound of thunder began early in the afternoon. It was coming from all directions of the compass, but none of it seemed to be very close. Then, as evening arrived, so did the rain. Heavy rain fell for more than an hour, but there didn’t seem to be any thunder and lightening. From there the weather transitioned into a lightening show on the southern horizon, followed by more rain here on the roof of my RV home. It has been a wet second half of the day.

This wasn’t a very active day. I got up around 8AM and turned on the air conditioner and the TV. Then I went back to bed watching the overnight developments in the shooting at the Trump rally. It didn’t take long before I fell asleep again. All of the news coverage was over by the time I woke up again.

The highlight of my day was an abbreviated walk around the RV park before the rain moved in. The number of empty sites increased today. This is the end of the two week period around the holiday. The park still has a good number of occupants, but with close to 900 sites it looks empty in some areas. I think a couple of areas are intentionally left empty for normal use, but may be assigned upon request.

Saturday July 13th 2024

The weather was typical for a Florida summer day. It was sunny in the morning and gradually got cloudier as the afternoon progressed. From about 4PM on there were thunderstorms in the area. So far this immediate area has only gotten a few very brief light rain showers. Off in the distance to the south we were provided with a very dramatic display of dark clouds filled with lots of sky to ground lightening.

I was back on the search for gallon jugs of water this afternoon. The 2.5 gallon container of water I bought earlier in the week will run out soon. I could switch to using my Brita filter pitcher, but that doesn’t keep up in the high heat. My first stop on my search was the Publix grocery store across the highway from the RV resort. I really thought they would have plenty, but at a few cents higher per gallon than Walmart. Their shelves for water were also bare and the price would have been about fifty cents higher per gallon.

My second stop was the Walmart south of the RV resort about fifteen miles in Haines City. They had plenty of cases of half liter bottles, but the only gallon jugs were of distilled water. I still have a few half liter bottles and distilled water isn’t really for drinking. My quest continued.

On my way home from Haines City I looped to the east. This brought me to the Walmart near Disney World. The store was packed with Disney tourists getting stuff for their vacation homes or to make their park experience better. How do I know, you might ask. Many of the shoppers were wearing Disney T-shirts or other park theme park fashion statements. Even more telling I saw several people with Disney Magic Bands on their wrists used for theme park and room entrance.

The good news is this Walmart had a few gallon plastic jugs of water. There were about eight or so jugs at the back of the top shelf. I am tall enough and persistent that I got three of them into my shopping cart. The next thing I knew, I was helping other people get the rest of the jugs down into their carts. When I departed one more Walmart was without any gallon containers of water on their shelves.

I didn’t get a chance to take my usual walk around the RV resort. The late afternoon and evening rain showers kept me inside. I did step outside once long enough to scare a visiting rabbit from along the side of the cement pad at my site. The grass was long and lush in that area. I hope he came back after I went back inside. The grass could use a little rabbit mowing.

Friday July 12th 2024

With the exception of a ten minute rain shower around four in the afternoon, it was a sunny day with manageable humidity. The temperature peaked in the normal low to mid nineties range.

Today was another chores around the RV day. Most of them were simple tasks, but there were enough to fill the day particularly when I took a break between most of them. After an outside task, it was particularly helpful to spend a few minutes in the air conditioning.

I took my walk around the RV resort just before sunset. Once again it was abbreviated because of an threatening sky. It looked like another storm was moving in from the east, but it ultimately missed to the south. Another RV that I thought of as a landmark departed the park today. I had my head down as I walked into that area and was disoriented for a moment by the absence of the RV. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

The sunset to the west was interesting. The dust clouds from the Sahara are filtering the sunlight in colorful ways.