Thursday February 13th 2025

Mother Nature is trying to make up for the colder than normal January. The last few days have been well above the low seventies normal high for the season. Today the temperature even reached ninety degrees. With the high temperature came a summer like pattern. A couple of random downpours interrupted the day. Thank you to the people in the states north of here that have endured the cold, wet and severe weather that has allowed Florida to experience nicer weather.

The traffic in the area is frustrating me again. The volume let up a little after the end of year holidays, but it has picked up again. I imagine the February and March snowbirds and spring breakers will keep the volume up. The bigger complication seem to be the section of Interstate 4 between this area and the resort corridor. It is considered by some surveys to be the most congested section of Interstate in the country. At the beginning of the month the state started an emergency construction project to add one lane in each direction and a couple of wider intersection ramps. They are planning to complete what is generally three years of construction in one year. Most of the actual work will be done at night, but the obstacles in the road associated with construction will be there during the day. In the past the traffic wasn’t bad between about ten and two during the day. The construction on the interstate seems to have eliminated that period. Once the interstate is full, the local roads fill up with people trying to dodge the interstate traffic. I got caught in the interstate traffic on Tuesday and the local road traffic on Wednesday. It took an hour and a half to get from my base camp to Disney World on Wednesday. It usually takes 45 minutes with traffic and 20 minutes without.

My visit to Disney on Wednesday was another visit to the International Festival of the Arts at EPCOT. While I went to tour the art exhibits again, my real reason was to have a interesting place to get my walking exercise in. I enjoy people watching and all of the possible activities around the area as I walk. On this visit I visited the aquarium at the Living Seas pavilion and enjoyed the Voices of Liberty a capella singing group at the American Adventure. It was a hot day in the sun so I only made one lap of the World Showcase. When combined with the walk in from the parking lot and some walking in the front area of the park it adds up to about 3.5 miles. You really need to add another lap around the World Showcase or out to the Boardwalk Resort loop to get in a good walk.

I had another hour plus trip in traffic to get back to my base camp from EPCOT. The roads inside Disney are also showing signs of congestion caused by Interstate 4 delays. I am sure there are a lot of commuters that are cutting through Disney attempting to find a faster way home. Rush hour traffic leaving Disney property toward the west doesn’t seem to be consistent with any Disney based timing.