Sunday February 23rd 2025

Friday night I finally got to enjoy some fireworks at Disney World. Lately I’ve been leaving the park before the fireworks shows start. When lines for attractions are long, it becomes very boring to wait around for the fireworks, so I go home with the thought that there will be another opportunity.

Friday night at the Magic Kingdom was my night for fireworks and I have the weather to thank. It was a very cold day and an even colder night. Once the sun set the temperature rapidly drop to fifty or a little below. When combined with a strong northwest wind, it felt even colder. I came prepared with two sweatshirt layers over a long sleeve shirt. Other people weren’t as prepared and the crowd thinned out rapidly as the temperature dropped.

I rode several rides that I don’t usually get a chance to ride because of the long lines. Being able to ride the attractions made the wait for the fireworks and the ability to kill time after the fireworks while the crowds for the transportation back to the parking lot to thin out a much more doable thing. I got to ride the Haunted Mansion and the Jungle Cruise for the first time in a long time.

My viewing location for the fireworks was in frontier land at the back of the park. I didn’t have time to get to main street after I got off the Haunted Mansion ride. The view from the back is great for the high exploding shells. The crowds are also much thinner, but you don’t get to see the shells framed the castle or the projections on the castle and main street shops. Here are some pictures.

Thursday February 20th 2025

Well it finally happened. Ever since I went from daily blog posts to twice weekly, I knew eventually I would forget to post on schedule. As I was about to go to bed tonight, I remembered it was Thursday and a blog post was due. It is now shortly after midnight on Friday morning and I’m writing this quick post. I will back date the post so the online sequencing comes out correct.

My big event over the last few days was a stop at Disney’s EPCOT for my last visit during this years Festival of the Arts. It was really a stop to get some exercise walking around the World Showcase and some Fish and Chips at the UK Pavilion. I also watched the Broadway artists performing songs from the Disney on Broadway playbook.

The pictures attached to this blog post are some of the blossoms around EPCOT on Tuesday afternoon.\

Sunday February 16th 2025

The last three days included two “iffy” weather days surrounding a very nice weather day on Saturday. On Friday and Sunday cold fronts approached the area from the northwest. On Friday black clouds accompanied by brief showers were the primary weather feature of the day. Today (Sunday) strong winds dominated the day. A bigger cold front approached from the northwest. It did a good job interrupting the Daytona 500 NASCAR race for about three hours, but by the time the front arrived here it was nothing much. Still, it kept me from outdoor activities.

Luckily, I took advantage of Saturday’s good weather for a trip to the Atlantic coast. Specifically, I went to the Port Canaveral area. I stopped at Kelly Park on Merritt Island to watch the sailboards, sailboats and other contraptions taking advantage of the wind over the waters of the Banana River. The area was quite active and some of the water craft were moving at amazingly fast speeds.

As late afternoon approached, I moved on to the “Cove” area in Port Canaveral to watch the cruise ships depart. There were six in port. Four departed starting at 4PM and the others were scheduled to leave starting at 5PM. When I got tired of watching the brown pelicans, I departed for home before the last two cruise ships set sail. The port seemed to be very active. In addition to the cruise ships there were several freighters, tugs and a Space X barge with and expended Falcon 9 rocket onboard in port.

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.

Sunday February 9th 2025

The weather has been great this weekend. While each day started with some fog, the sky cleared by mid morning and the temperature climbed to the mid eighties. Unfortunately, I didn’t take advantage of the weather.

This was the weekend of the annual yard sale at the park. It is apparently a big deal to many of the residents here. Friday afternoon the sale is exclusive for park residents and Saturday from 8AM to 1PM the sale is open to the general public. The Friday crowd was in golf carts and a few, like me, on foot. There were enough golf carts going up and down the streets that I didn’t feel particularly comfortable walking, so I only walked three nearby roads. I have done all of my planned buying for my base camp and don’t have any excess “stuff” to sell. From what I saw, there wasn’t anything I was interested in anyway.

On Saturday the external crowd for the sale was extensive. A traffic flow team was directing traffic in a one way path through the neighborhood. A steady line of cars was coming up my road in a direction opposite my normal way of travel. Drivers were instructed not to block the road when they stopped, but didn’t mean through traffic didn’t have to weave in and out of stopped cars. I saw a lot of traffic, but I didn’t see anyone buying anything from the four neighbors I saw trying to sell stuff.

Today was a grocery run day. Walmart was very busy with people trying to get their purchases completed before the Super Bowl game. I saw lots of people buying snack foods and even a couple of big TV purchases. The check outs were jammed and I got stuck behind a couple that knew they didn’t have enough funds to cover everything in their carts. They took forever prioritizing what they put on the checkout counter and the order it got scanned by the cashier. As they got closer to their limit the process got slower and more contentious between the man and women. Overall it was sad, but also a little entertaining to watch. Both of them were not lacking in prior caloric intake. They bought over $250 worth of high sugar and fat content food. After they finished checking out there was about half a cart full of stuff to be returned to the shelves.

Thursday February 6th 2025

Late last year Disney announced the birth of a tiger cub at the Animal Kingdom. Last week the cub and its mother made their first appearance in the tiger compound along the Maharajah Jungle Trek. Today I got my first look at the new resident.

I actually got lucky. According to the cast member stationed near the viewing area the tigers were scheduled to return back stage for the day at 2PM, but the cub had other ideas. It was still playing a good distance from the back stage entrance at 2:30 despite several attempts by its mother to encourage it in. Mom clearly knew the drill and wanted its offspring to follow her. She would leave the cub and head for the hidden door only to sprint back to the cub a minute or two later when it didn’t follow. A little bit of nudging and prodding followed before mom would try again. Eventually the cub followed.

People were lined up four and five deep at the tiger viewing area. I could see the tigers by looking over and around people, but it was difficult to take pictures. The added distance from the fence resulted in the cell phone camera auto focusing on the fence instead of the animals. When I was done, I had more out of focus than in focus shots. At least digital pictures are cheaper than film pictures and can be cleaned up a bit later.

Of course I had to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari while at Animal Kingdom. It was a fun experience as usual, but there didn’t seem to be as many animals out in the open as there were last week. In particular, the elephants weren’t hiding at the back of their area, making them hard to see.

Earlier in the week I made another stop at EPCOT. My specific purpose was to get some Fish and Chips at the Yorkshire County Fish Shop for dinner, but another viewing of all the art displays was a great experience as well. The absence of rain for a few days allowed the chalk art artists to fill the designated walkways with drawings. I was beginning to wonder if they were going to complete the displays this year.

Sunday February 2nd 2025

If that silly little ground hog from Pennsylvania lived in central Florida it wouldn’t of seen its shadow this morning. Both of the last couple of days have begun with a thick fog cover. The sun never made an appearance. The cloud layer never climbed very far above the ground. On the positive side it was warm both days.

Friday I continued my New Year return to Disney World. This time it was a visit to Hollywood Studios. This is my least favorite park out of the four main parks. Most of the attractions have very long waits and I’m not a fan of many of them. The potential for motion sickness is too high for my tastes.

It was moderately busy on Friday. I managed to see a couple of shows and ride one ride. It took forty five minutes to get a ride on Toy Story Mania and then the laser cannon in front of my seat was malfunctioning. Since I was alone in the car I used the one for the other seat, but it was awkward. My score at the end of the ride was the lowest in the vehicle. Eventually the wait times drove me out of the park and home for supper. Even the food service locations had long lines.

Today my exercise was at the nearby wildlife preserve. It was a nice walk around the ponds. A few wildflowers have blossoms after the cold days of January. Hopefully more will start to blossom as the warm weather continues.

Thursday January 30th 2025

The weather is back to seasonal normal conditions. Last weeks cold and rain has been replaced by sunny days with high temperatures at to well above the seventy two degree normal high temperature. My activities got back to a more normal behavior. The furniture project that I started before Christmas got some renewed attention and I made a couple of visits to Walt Disney World.

On Monday afternoon I made a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I arrived just in time to see the Macaws entertaining in front of the tree of life. Periodically during the day there is a show featuring a flock of the Animal Kingdom’s resident parrots. They are free flying from elsewhere in the park and arrive in dramatic fashion. After they do a little preening for the audience and get feed they fly back to their hidden roost. It is a fun little show.

From there I made my way to the Kilimanjaro Safari to see the selection of African animals. The wait was a short thirty minutes for the truck ride out into the savanna. The animals were active during the afternoon. The zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, white rhinos, lions and elephants were all out to be seen. The baby elephant born about a year ago was out eating and playing with her aunts. The safari truck stopped in that area for several minutes while we waited for the white rhinos around the corner of the road to move so the trucks could continue along. It was a great place to sit and watch the elephants.

On Wednesday I spent the afternoon and evening at the Magic Kingdom. It was busy, but appropriate for the time of year. I arrived in time to watch the parade from the train station at the end of Main Street. The festival of fantasy parade has been around for a long time, but it still has a lot of good elements including a fire breathing dragon.

Sunday January 26th 2025

Friday’s weather improved enough for another visit to EPCOT’s International Festival of the Arts. It was still a cold day, but the sun was back allowing the temperature to reach the mid to upper fifties. The crowd was lighter than the previous week, but parking was still a challenge. For some reason they are not using one of the bigger lots close to the entrance. I had to park in the “Eve” lot on the far eastern end of all the parking areas. It was a new experience.

I had plenty of daylight time to walk around the whole World Showcase checking out all the Art kiosks. There were some spectacular canvases and prints. Even the ones that were not to my liking, but represented plenty of talent so had to be admired. The items that were on other media like glass and wood were also very impressive. The art will change before the festival ends at the end of February so future visits will be different.

In addition to the Art kiosks there are the usual food kiosks around the park. There aren’t as many food options during the Art Festival as the longer festivals. These are mostly focused on presenting a pretty plate with something fairly exotic. Checking the menus for something good for dinner didn’t pan out. Pasta with squid ink was just one of the items that failed to interest. During the other festivals I usually find one or two good choices. It didn’t happen on this visit.

Today, and most of the next week or more, the weather is starting to be above average. I got back to working on my furniture project. An end table to hold a lamp beside my couch is my current project. I spent most of my time today remembering where I was at in the task. It has been since before the holidays that I really put any effort into the task. Hopefully, the good weather will allow me to make more progress.

Thursday January 23rd 2025

The high temperature in this area of central Florida has been generally below normal since the middle of December. In the last week, the sun has also been absent from the sky most days. This week has been even worse. We didn’t get the snow and ice that fell in northern Florida, but the high temperatures were in the forties with lots of rain. The average high temperature is in the low seventies about thirty degrees higher than what we have been experiencing.

Experiencing the Florida winter weather at my base camp instead of my RV home is different. I am comfortable in both, but the differences are notable. First my base camp is better insulated or at least it has less glass area to allow heat transfer. It is not as cool in the morning after having the heat off overnight. Perhaps the biggest difference, also related to insulation is the sound deadening. It has to be very severe outside before I become aware of the weather. Normal levels of rain and wind go unnoticed. It takes thunderstorm like rain before I can hear the rain on the roof or awnings. Wind I don’t hear at all unless it is a severe gust that hits from the right angle. In general, I can be oblivious to the weather. That can be annoying when I start to go out and find the weather unsuitable for my plans.

Other than shopping for life’s essentials I don’t have many indoor places that I need or want to go. My outdoor activities like theme park visits or hiking various parks need better weather for comfort. If I didn’t know Florida winter would be over as soon as next week according to the forecast, I would push the envelop for outdoor activity. I have still walked around the park when it hasn’t been raining, but the temperature with wind chill hasn’t made it comfortable. Without pockets for my hands it would have been worse.

All this “talk” about the weather is just an explanation (excuse) for not having done much the last few days. Other than a trip for groceries at Walmart and a visit to Lowes, I have stayed indoors at my base camp. I’ve rearranged the cabinet contents a bit and installed a couple of puck lights for under cabinet lighting. I have a couple more simple maintenance tasks on my list if the indoor weather continues and of course there is always TV and the internet.