Sunday January 5th 2025

Today was a beautiful day in central Florida. The temperature was right at the seasonal normal in the low to mid seventies under a nice sunny sky without any real wind. The previous couple of days were colder than normal with lots of wind. Tomorrow is forecast to be rainy and warmer. The middle of the week is forecast to be dry, but the temperature may not reach the sixty degree mark.

As the holiday period comes to an end, my activity level is returning to normal. I spent a lot of days recently at my base camp doing odd tasks. Outdoor activities were very limited. Today I went for a walk in the nearby Wildlife Preserve. It wasn’t a real hike just a walk along the side of a pond. It was a great day for it.

On my way home I stopped at Walmart for a grocery run. It was busy, but seemed to be more relaxed than during recent visits. People didn’t seem to be speeding up and down the aisles and there seemed to be less congestion in the popular areas. The store showed signs of having been busy all day Many of the shelves were in disarray; a sure sign of having been picked over.

Walking around the park this evening there wasn’t a lot of activity. People seem to still be away for the holidays and others haven’t arrived for the winter. I bet Interstates 75 and 95 are packed with travelers. Years ago when I came to Florida from the northeast for the holiday season, I used to see a continuous stream of southbound RVs this time of year. A couple of years ago I was in an commercial RV park in Ocala for the two weeks after New Years and ten to twenty RVs arrived everyday. Snowbird season really begins now.