Sunday November 30th 2025

With Thanksgiving over and Christmas looming, we are in that weird time between the holidays. I don’t have all the shopping and holiday preparations to do that some people have, but I want to cram in all the enjoyment of the season before the off switch gets pulled around the new year.

My pass to Disney World has been in blackout for the last week. As of Monday I have eighteen days to get my fill of Disney’s holiday experience before the next blackout period begins. I don’t mind the blackouts. The parks are way too busy during those periods. My pass to Sea World doesn’t get blacked out over the holidays. I may visit more than once with the second visit after my Disney blackout begins.

In addition to the theme parks I want to checkout the campsite decorations at Disney’s Fort Wilderness. The blackout only impacts where I park so I might wait until nearer Christmas to go. In the same general area of Central Florida is the community of Celebration. Many of he homes are well decorated. In past years they have had representation in national competitions. The only challenge surrounding viewing the lights in Celebration is getting lost in the maze of narrow side streets.

Based on last years experience the residents of the park I live in do not go overboard with decorations. There were a few outside lights and a tree or two visible in the living rooms. I also didn’t find any well decorated homes in the nearby areas, but I’ll look again this year.

Thursday November 27th 2025

It has been a different kind of week. I had the roof of my base camp pressure washed on Tuesday and the rest of the building pressure washed on Wednesday. The roof really needed it, but the sides probably would have survived with a simple garden hose wash down. Either way it looks nice, but the washing may have brought the classic response. It rained today.

I shopped for my Thanksgiving “feast” last week. The main course was a Turkey breast. It comes with a packet of gravy concentrate, which it needs to moisten it up after cooking. I’ve cooked it before with success and this time was just as good when combined with mashed potatoes, stove top turkey stuffing and a can of corn.

My real meal prep undertaking was an apple pie. Before I set out on the Rambling Road Trip living in a motorhome with a limited kitchen, I occasionally baked an Apple Pie. I wanted to bake one last year, but didn’t get around to it. On my grocery shopping trip I bought a Pillsbury 2 crust pie prepared dough. I don’t have a rolling pin or anything similar, so it would have to do. The real shopping challenge was buying the apples. I found more brands that I’ve never heard of before or knew were not suitable for pies. With the help of the internet, I found a brand I knew that I thought would be OK for a pie, Gala.

The pie baking saga continued when I got started Wednesday afternoon. The pie crust wasn’t warm enough to be pliable and broke as I attempted to unroll it into the pie plate. It was still workable except for one big thing. My pie plate was too big. The dough didn’t make it to the top of the pie plate. This sent me back to the grocery store for another Pillsbury 2 crust prepared dough. About an hour later and thirty five dollars poorer (of course I couldn’t buy just one thing) I made it through the lines of last minute shoppers.

Back at my base camp between the two packages of dough and a little flour and water I managed to paste together a top and bottom crust. The bigger pie plate also meant I didn’t have as many apples as I needed to really fill the pie, but it was enough. The rest of my issues were purely because I was out of practice. It was almost over cooked and could have used a little more sugar. The apple choice wasn’t the best. They didn’t taste very Applee. I need to get the right size pie plate from my motorhome and find better apples before my next try.

Sunday November 23rd 2025

The mission I gave myself for the weekend was to visit Disney Springs. The shopping and entertainment complex is always decorated well for the holidays. The last few years I waited too long. The crowds grow as tourists and locals doing Christmas shopping flood in as the holiday approaches.

My first attempt to visit the Springs was late Saturday afternoon. My goal was to see the decorations before and after dark. Too many other people had similar ideas. As soon as I got off the highway I found a solid line of traffic. There was about a mile to the parking structures, so I tried a detour to the north side of the shopping district. I found a similar traffic situation on that side as well. It seemed easier to try again on another day.

Today I drove to Disney Springs with a lot less drama shortly after the noon hour. The backup started at the entrance to the nearest parking garage. The first four floors were full and all the traffic was getting directed to the top floor. I didn’t have any issues finding a place to park,but I would guess it was only a few minutes before the entire garage would be declared full.

Clearing security was quick and easy. Once I exited the parking structure into Disney Spring the density of the crowd was obvious. Navigation among the paths and shops was a challenge. Individuals and groups of individuals seemed to be wandering aimlessly or posing for pictures in front of the various Christmas trees.

The Christmas trees are the primary decorations at the park. Disney themes each tree to one of its intellectual properties. For example, there are trees for Star Wars, Marvel, Disney+ and many other things. They make a game out of finding all of the trees by providing a map with stickers. I didn’t play the game, but wandered around taking pictures of the trees. For some reason I didn’t find the trees as entertaining as previous years. Perhaps, because it was bright daylight they didn’t pop as well as at night.

I gave up my wandering after a couple of hours. It was still a long time until dusk and the start of the entertainment. All I was seeing were crowds that were unpredictable. I retreated to the relative safety of my car on the busy roads.

Thursday November 20th 2025

This has been a lazy week. Other than a few short drives to a store or two, I stayed home at my base camp all week. I blame the rediscovery of my ebook supply for this behavior. Unlike TV shows which are short and usually contain commercials, reading a book becomes very immersive for me. Once I start reading, I keep reading. Meal times get changed, sleep time change and motivation to do other things is lost. All this for books I’ve read before. This week has been old Tom Clancy and W.E.B Griffin books.

Today I had to take my nose out of a book long enough to restock the kitchen. Earlier in the week I ran out of supplies for simple lunches, but I went without rather than going shopping. This morning I ran out of breakfast foods and was getting dangerously close to running out of coffee. It was clearly time to visit the grocery section of Walmart. Hopefully for the last time until after Thanksgiving.

Mid afternoon today the store was very busy. I assume that some of the shopping was for the holiday, but there seemed to be a lot of regular weekly shopping going on too. There were several kids having very loud meltdowns along with parents that had reached their limits. As usual for this Walmart the aisles were filled with shopping carts, blue Walmart online shopping pickers carts and far too many pallets of new stock waiting to be moved to the shelves. It is very congested.

I was in the store for more than an hour. I’m usually in and out in about a half an hour. In addition to the crowds, I took enough time to stock up with enough stuff that I don’t have to return before the end of the month. By then the Thanksgiving food shopper and the Black Friday crowds should be gone.

Sunday November 16th 2025

It has been a very routine weekend. I did a few chores around the base camp and made a few store visits looking for obscure things. A small pair of needle nose pliers that I used to use routinely are among the missing. They are probably somewhere in the motorhome, but so far they haven’t made an appearance. Unfortunately, a suitable replacement hasn’t been found either.

Traffic on the road in the area has been increasing steadily since the middle of October. I tend to watch license plates for entertainment and a clue about how familiar with the roads the driver might be. Most of the cars still seem to be Florida registered. I think most of the northerners that can be in Florida for more than six months a year have declared Florida as their domicile for tax reasons. A few more northern plates are starting to appear, but the majority will arrive later in the winter. They only stay for a few months.

In this park I’ve been part of a couple of conversations about people that haven’t returned yet. It is kind of funny since I don’t know who any of the people are. I just get dragged into random conversations while dumping my trash in the dumpsters. People are wondering about possible illness keeping people away and/or if Canadians are staying away. I guess people are just concerned and will ask anyone or maybe I look like I am all knowing…

Thursday November 13th 2025

My cold weather tolerance seems to have adopted to a southern condition. This week has had daily highs in the sixties and overnight lows in the thirties. When I lived in the north that represented a nice fall day. Here in Florida I used it as an excuse to stay in and hibernate. I even had to turn the heat on to keep the inside temperature comfortable for sitting around. As the weekend approaches conditions are getting back to normal. The daily highs will be back in the low eighties.

Today was all about water in the park. First came a call for volunteers to read all of the water meters on Saturday. The property owners association pays the county bill monthly. Once a year in November they read the individual unit meters and bill the owner. It seems to work. However, that wasn’t the only thing to do with water today. Around noon we got a notification that there was a water leak on one of the roads in the park. Water on that road was getting turned off for maintenance. About an hour later we were notified that the water in the entire park was getting turned off. The next notification at about 5:30 or so announced the return of water service.

I have a few observations about “the great water outage”. On the positive side volunteers in the park did most if not all of the work. If they called a plumber, I didn’t see one. This probably represents a significant savings. Th other observation relates to the system used for notification. Residents receive a voice telephone call via an automated system. For most of the times they use the system, I would prefer a text message, but today’s “great water outage” explains why a lot of people like it. The argument has always been that many residents are of an age that don’t do text. The tone and content of today’s messages also demonstrate a desired value. The announcement calls carefully described the problem without too many details then described what a resident should and shouldn’t do. I know that you shouldn’t expect any water from the tap if the water is off, but maybe sufficient numbers of residents need the reminder. I am continually reminded that many things here are structured for older residents. There is at least one resident that is north of a century.

Sunday November 9th 2026

Today was a weather transition day. The last couple of days have been sunny with highs in the upper eighties. The next couple of days have forecast highs in the sixties. Today had periods of torrential downpours separated by full sunshine, but the temperature remained in the low eighties. Not a bad day, but the weather did manage to throw a monkey wrench into the overall enjoyment.

After today’s first downpour in the late morning, I got on the road for the Atlantic Ocean. I have been wanting to checkout the activity on the coast and the cruise ships at Port Canaveral for a while. Somehow I keep letting things get in the way, but today was the day. The drive east using the toll roads was uneventful with ominous black clouds hovering to the north. Using the toll roads for the east bound leg was a new experience. I usually go east on smaller local roads, but today I was in a hurry. Daylight is short when you get started after noon.

When I got to the coastal area something was different. There were lots of cars parked along the causeways with people sitting around in groups. They weren’t fishing, swimming or kite surfing. They were just sitting around. It took a few minutes of thinking before I realized they were waiting for a rocket launch. I hadn’t checked the launch schedule before I started my journey, but got lucky. I joined the people sitting around waiting at the Cove area in Port Canaveral. The Blue Origin rocket launch was in a weather hold when I arrived, but it wasn’t raining. Interestingly, it came out of hold when it started to rain where I was a mile or two from the launch pad. It went back to a hold and then a delay until Wednesday about ten minutes later. So I didn’t get to see a launch, but watched a couple of cruise ships leave port.

The drive home was filled with traffic, heavy rain and the glare of a setting sun. Overall a fun day with a lot of driving and listening to the NFL games on satellite radio.

Thursday November 6th 2025

After Halloween was over, most Americans get ready for Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Only a minority jump fully into Christmas celebration and preparation. In this area the theme parks jump full force into Christmas with the flip of a switch.

Paying attention to the daily blogs and vlogs about Disney World, Universal and Sea World it was easy to track the transition between Holidays. At Disney World’s Magic Kingdom all of the Halloween decorations were reported down by Saturday morning November 1st. Some people remarked on the absence of decorations in the park on Saturday. By Sunday wreathes and bunting were up along Main street. The town square Christmas tree didn’t arrive until Monday morning. I’m sure they had finishing touches after that to be ready for the first Christmas party on Friday November 7th.

I chose to visit Magic Kingdom on Wednesday afternoon and evening to see the change in decorations. I also got in my daily exercise and an evening meal of Fried Shrimp at Columbia Harbor House. Riding attractions and general navigation in the park was not easy. It was very busy. Maybe other people came to see the decorations too.

Overall the decorations were nice. I didn’t see anything particularly different from past years. The one thing that stood out was all of the background music. Instead of all the Disney specific pieces Christmas songs were playing in their place. The sons were so addicting that I tuned in one of the Christmas music channels on my satellite radio on the ride home.

Sunday November 2nd 2025

It is hard to believe that November has arrived, but the return to standard time is trying hard to convince me. The early arrival of sunshine this morning coupled with the early return of darkness at the end of the day is having the expected disruption to circadian rhythms. It will probably be the end of the week before it feels like normal again. On top of all that, in the stores Christmas is giving the boot to Halloween in a big way. So much change.

As I have done most Sunday’s this fall I took a drive during the afternoon. My motive for this excursion is not travel, but audio entertainment. I enjoy listening to the NFL Sunday Drive on satellite radio. The program provides the radio play by play of the scoring drives in each of the NFL games. It is fast paced football without the boredom of three and outs.

On today’s drive I noted once again all the development going on in the area. Lots along the main roads that were filled with trees or even swamps a year or two ago were now cleared to flat sand filled areas or construction sites filled with concrete and steel. Most of the build up is dedicated to apartments or commercial strip malls to service the apartments or the housing developments that fill the area behind the main roads. This build up started about 5 years ago when people learned they could live in a Florida home and work for companies based almost anywhere. Now, that ability is becoming more difficult and the cost of housing (interest rates and insurance costs) has gone up resulting in slowed overall growth, but they are still building. Is the bottom going to fall out?

I stopped into Walmart today. That was a mistake. Not only was it crowded, but they were changing from Halloween to Christmas. Either this Walmart has no warehouse space or they don’t believe in using it. The aisles in all parts of the store were filled with pallets of stock that needed to be moved to shelves. There weren’t any staff around to complete that task, but they were bring more pallets out from the back. Narrow one way aisles filled with stopped shopping carts and shoppers almost standing on their heads to find stuff around the pallets was the norm this afternoon. I got my groceries and got out of there as fast as possible.