Sunday September 28th 2025

This afternoon it occurred to me that I didn’t have any pictures or content ideas for this blog entry. I took my camera outside to grab a few pictures of the flowers in my yard. I’ve done this before when I was missing pictures. Today I found the picture and an indicator of my procrastination.

As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, my bougainvillea bush grows very fast. It really needs to be trimmed at least every two weeks or it gets very shaggy looking. I think it has been more than four weeks now. The plant is on the west side of my property in the hot afternoon sun. That gives me my first excuse to procrastinate. “I’ll do it in the morning” becomes my mantra. Of course I don’t get started early in the morning so it is usually afternoon before I see the plant and remember my good intentions. Today was an example of the other popular excuse. When I saw the bush today, I was really motivated to get it trimmed even in the afternoon. Unfortunately for action, but good for procrastination, the afternoon thunderstorm was moving in. Hopefully, by writing this quasi confession, I’ll be motivated to get it trimmed and keeping it trimmed.

I haven’t been very active this weekend. Other than filling the car’s gas tank and its tire with a slow leak (It needs air every few months) I have only done a little driving around the area. Most of my time has been spent listening to an audio book I discovered on my hard drive. It’s a book I’ve listened to before. Audio books are the most laid back and passive form of books. They go right along with the inactive weekend.

Thursday September 25th 2025

Once again I seem to be out of sync. Both the weather and my sleep cycle seem to be at odds with daily activity. My natural wake up time has gradually crept later into the morning. Today it was well after 9AM before I dragged my sleepy self from my bed. The fact that I was up until nearly 2AM probably had a lot to do with my wake up time. Fixing my sleep cycle is an easy fix. Go to bed earlier and get out of bed earlier. Even if it means setting an alarm. Now, that’s a scary thing for a retired person. Getting in sync with the weather is much harder.

Either the weather forecasters are getting it wrong or I’m just not listening attentively enough. It is probably a combination of both. Each TV weather forecast this week has dedicated time to the two tropical systems making their way across the Atlantic. Tracking them is important to our safety. I am certainly paying attention, but it takes time out of the forecast time slot. Either the weather talkers don’t give a thorough description of the days probability of rain or I’ve tuned it out after I am comfortable that a hurricane isn’t in my immediate future. It is probably both.

Today, for example, the forecast called for partly cloudy conditions until late in the day. Thunderstorms storms were called for after 8PM. The sky darkened around 2PM followed by lots of wind and a little rain. an occasional gentle rain continued the rest of the day. It just didn’t align with any forecast I heard.

Tuesday was another instance where the weather was out of sync with me. Around 4PM, I checked the online hourly forecast and no rain was in the forecast. I also checked the weather radar and found no rain on the scope. It looked like a very good opportunity to visit EPCOT for some exercise, people watching and a little entertainment. When I arrived in the park the western horizon was filled with dark clouds. An hour or so later the it was raining lightly and black clouds were on the west and northern horizons. I called a halt to my visit and headed back to my base camp. I was treated to a very impressive lightening show all the way home. Craggy streaks of light crossed the sky from air to ground and cloud to cloud. A few even made almost circular streaks through the sky. Despite all the electricity in the air I made it home fine.

Sunday September 21st 2025

Today turned into a day for a Sunday drive. It wasn’t in the original plan, but I ended up driving up the center of the Florida peninsula to Ocala and back. The original plan was to take a hike along the Van Fleet rail trail. It seems like a lot of other people had a similar plan. The parking lot and nearby road shoulders at the trail head were filled with cars. With no place to park, I continued north to another trail head that had a similar pattern. There must have been some sort of event going on.

Instead of hiking my day turned into a driving day. I continued north on county roads I hadn’t been on before. Traffic on the county roads was typical Sunday afternoon stereotype; slow and meandering. The occasional main routes I used were filled with traffic. Eventually I decided on a plan to visit the Ocala Wetland Recharge Park. I visited the park several times in 2021 and 2022.

The park had changed significantly since my last visit. A large section of the park was fenced off. It was clear why. I didn’t see any sign of damage or construction. In other areas of the park many large trees had been removed. The area was much more open to the new apartments that the construction of had now been completed. On the upside there were plenty of birds and water foliage.

After my visit to the park I decided to take the highways home. Interstate 75 was filled with traffic heading south. Only a couple of miles after getting on the interstate traffic slowed to a crawl. For the next fifteen miles traffic was stop and go. The cause seemed to be an accident between a car and a semi truck. It had been over for a long time when I passed. The only emergency vehicle left was a DOT truck with a big arrow light. Who knows what actually happened.

I got home after a Sunday drive and walk in a park of about 6 hours. It was a fun excursion.

Thursday September 18th 2025

It has been about two months since I visited Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I going to use my favorite excuse and blame the weather. The animals hide during the hot part of the day so you need to go early or late. Animal Kingdom isn’t open at night and it rains a lot in the late afternoon. That leaves the morning as the only real time to visit and I sleep in too much.

I’ve been trying to get my act in gear early all week, but it has been approaching noon before I was ready to leave the base camp. Today was only a little bit different timing wise. I was ready to go before 10:30. The real difference was the temperature. It was only in the low eighties and the animals seem to like that temperature. I made to the park entrance by 11AM.

The crowd level in the park seemed to be on the low side even though I had to park a long way away. My first order of business was picking up my free annual pass holder magnet. They distribute the magnets a few times a year. This one is of Crush from Finding Nemo.

Then it was on to the Safari ride. Today was a big Giraffe viewing day. It was hard to take pictures today. There were two very big guys in the row in front of me. It seemed like every time I lined up a shot one or the other big guy would lean into my sight path to take his own picture. There is nothing you can do about it except taking another safari ride right after the first, but the wait time discouraged that idea. It had almost doubled from 45 to 80 minutes.

I wandered around the park checking out other animals and a few oddities of the human kind. My visit didn’t last long. I was on my way home for lunch around 2PM.

Sunday September 14th 2025

This weekend has been filled with a lot of driving, but not a lot of blog worthy content. On the positive side, gas prices are at the bottom side of their oscillation. Regular gas is less than $2.90 right now in this area, but every county is a little different because of different tax structures.

Traffic seems to be gradually increasing as the number of seasonal residents increases. The out of state plates in the Walmart parking lot continues to increase. This week the number of residents in the park that hosts my home base has also increased. As people return the number of cars parked in front of homes increase. I have also seen a couple of U-Haul trucks pulling car dollies in the park. The official start of winter activities in the park is November 1st, but life seems to be getting busier.

We are now entering the peak Hurricane season. Late September into early October seems to be the time of year that storms threaten or impact Central Florida. As long as I pay attention to the forecast, there should be plenty of time to react. Running from threatening storms still seems to be the best approach.

Thursday September 11th 2025

On Tuesday evening I went to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. This is a separate admission after hours event at the theme park. The party is held on select evenings from the middle of August to the end of October. It has special entertainment including two runs of a special parade, special fireworks, stage shows, rare character meet and greats and spooky enhancements to some rides. Guests are also encouraged to collect candy at designated trick or treat sites throughout the park.

I bought my ticket in August for the Tuesday night event. It turned out to be a sold out night. The only problem was I couldn’t predict the weather. When I arrived at the Magic Kingdom shortly before 5PM there was a downpour in progress, but I came prepared. I had a rain coat packed in my backpack. I needed it just to get from the parking lot to the theme park. The theme for the night was set.

A light to medium rain fell most of the night. Disney did its best to work around the weather, but the weather had an impact. The live entertainment became less live by using recordings, fewer performers and no dancing. The real problems started when it came time for the first running of the parade. I lined up fifteen minutes before show time, but should have lined up earlier for a good viewing area. Starting at show time they announce that the weather was delaying the parade every five minutes until 9PM. By then, I’d been waiting for an hour before they canceled the first running of the parade. The next showing was scheduled for 11:15PM. A full hour of park time was wasted waiting for a parade that didn’t happen.

The 10PM fireworks went off on time. The weather was only a very light drizzle. There was no wind and the air was very thick. The weather kept all of the smoke from the fireworks near the ground. Many of the shells were obscured by the smoke. It also didn’t help that I was a little too far down main street from the castle in a less than ideal viewing spot.

Shortly after the fireworks Disney announced the 11:15PM parade was going to start early during a window in the rain. I found a good viewing location along the parade route along with everyone else and waited. My viewing location was in Town Square near the exit to the park. As soon as the parade was over I headed for home. I successfully beat the crowd back to the parking lot. It was around 11:30 when I reached my car and started home.

In between all the waiting for parades and such I went through six or seven trick or treat sites. Disney uses the theaters for shows and restaurants that aren’t open during the party as candy distribution sites. According to the map there were another four or five that I didn’t stop at. Still, I came home with a haul.

I had an Okay time. The rain was a big negative, but even without the rain I probably wont do it again unless I have company. I don’t do waiting around alone well. I need to keep moving.

Sunday September 7th 2025

This is only a short blog update tonight. It hasn’t been a very blog worthy weekend.

I experienced another indicator that this area of central Florida is returning to “winter” mode. While I was having breakfast this morning a car door slammed outside. It was a familiar sound. Either my neighbors don’t know their own strength or the car doors are made of tin. The doors are very loud and somewhat unique sounding. The bottom line is I was startled. The neighbors had been gone since the beginning of June. When I left an hour or so later, they already had their trailer slide room out, their awning down and their patio furniture uncovered.

Today was a west to east kind of weather day. The sun was out overhead this morning, but as I drove west toward Tampa dark clouds, lightening and a little rain was falling. It was a very overcast day with a lot of interesting cloud formations. When I returned home this evening there were plenty of puddles to provide evidence of significant rain. I dodged the rain today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Thursday September 4th 2025

Don’t prune a tree when your having an uncoordinated klutzy day. I decided to cut a few branches from the avocado tree in my front yard. The tree is going to get replaced when I find something appropriate like a hibiscus teased into a tree. Until then, I needed to cut back some of the creep that was starting to cause visibility problems when I backed out. With a small pruning saw, I successfully cut two branches. Karma and or the tree decided to strike on the third branch.

After cutting the third branch I stepped back into the pile of previously cut limbs. In surprise, I recoiled forward into the tree branches. Either a tree branch or the freshly trimmed branch took the opportunity to knock my glasses off my face. In trying to catch the glasses before disaster struck I dropped the branch and managed to prick my thumb on the saw blade. As the futile juggling ended, the glasses were nowhere to be found. After a few minutes of careful searching through the pile of branches, I found my glasses further away than I expected. All of my fears of finding broken glass or bent rims proved unfounded. Everything was intact and I could see clearly again. No one saw this little show, but I think it was probably a slapstick comedy gem.

The pictures in this blog entry came from my Wednesday stop at Disney’s EPCOT. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as the previous Friday. I was able to ride “Living with the Land” and “Soarin” with only a minimal wait. The rest of my visit was taken up by walking around the World Showcase an having an expensive soft serve vanilla ice cream cone. It is very good real vanilla, but $6.50 for a quantity less than a Dairy Queen small is a mental challenge to my wallet. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again, but …