Sunday January 19th 2025

Disney’s International Festival of the Arts at EPCOT began on Friday. This is my second favorite EPCOT festival. Only the Flower and Garden Festival that starts in March is higher on my list. Not being willing to wait I headed for the park Friday afternoon. I should have waited. Note to self, Don’t go to EPCOT on the first day of a festival. Lots of other people had the same idea.

The International Festival of the Arts is a giant art show and sale. Kiosks around the park show paintings and sculptures that can be purchased or just admired. Most of the art is Disney focused, but there are some pieces with a broader appeal. Along with the art you can watch artists developing new items or even get your hands dirty painting a giant size paint by number mural.

I only had a little more than two hours of daylight left once I got into the park. Getting the car parked and walking in from what seemed like the next county took longer than expected. I was parked much further away than I usually have to park. Once inside the crowds were heavy. To look at most of the artwork you had to stand four or five people deep. Once it got dark you had to be closer to be in the lights than many of the crowds allowed. I really enjoyed what I could see, but will return a time or two before it ends in late February. Getting there earlier with more daylight and smaller crowds is necessary for better viewing.

As usual the chalk drawings on the walkways were one of my favorites. The artists were still working on the drawings. Only one side of the walkway had any completed. The other side was waiting for another day. Today (Sunday) it rained very hard so the artists will need to start over tomorrow.

Thursday January 16th 2025

The stretch of Florida cold weather continued this week. It has been cloudy with high temperatures in the low sixties, but I’ve pushed through the cool temperatures.

I finally made it back to Disney World after the holidays. On Tuesday afternoon I went to the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. I was bundled up in several layers to ward off the cold, but there were a few crazy people in tee shirts and shorts. Were they Floridians in denial or northerners that didn’t bring the right clothes?

The Magic Kingdom was in transition. The Christmas decorations were still up, but the background music was no longer Christmas songs. I think they are late taking the decorations down. Disney usually takes them down quickly after the New Year starts. The maintenance staff may have been too busy setting up temporary walls for all of the maintenance tasks that started right after the holidays. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Astro Orbiter are both closed for extensive maintenance. Each has a crane in place for the work. The huge crane at Big Thunder Mountain was already busy lifting big sections of track away from the attraction. It is scheduled to be under repair for over a year.

Wednesday I drove to Tampa for the Florida RV Super Show. I didn’t do as well dealing with the weather. My assumption that the temperature would climb after my 10AM arrival was wrong. I missed the sweatshirt left in my car for the duration of my visit. My Fitbit says I walked over six miles as I wandered in and out of RV exhibits. I think this 40th anniversary show may have been a little bigger than previous years, but they already claim to be the biggest show.

It is interesting to see the changes in RV trends and individual RV changes. I didn’t see anything radically different. In the last couple of years there seems to be a focus on smaller units. There are still plenty of big fifth wheel trailers and Class A motorhomes, but the number of Class B motorhomes and small towables seems to be up.

The one thing that hasn’t changed at the RV show is the number of dogs in attendance. Why so many pet parents brought their four legged kids along is a mystery to me. Most of the dogs don’t look happy. There just isn’t enough room for them to stay out of the way of errant feet or the strollers carrying their fellow four legged friends. To me, just because can bring your dog, doesn’t mean you should.

Sunday January 12th 2025

The cold start to the new year continues. Friday into the first half of Saturday attempted to warm up a little. Unfortunately, it came with some rain. Most of it was overnight, but the lite showers late Friday afternoon managed to keep me away from Disney World once again. By Saturday afternoon the thick cloud cover gave way to sunshine with dropping temperatures.

Today the cool weather was back in force. The high was briefly sixties, but most of the day was in the fifties. The temperature had a different impact on my activities today. It was laundry day. My washer and dryer are in my shed exposing them to the outside temperature. The temperature sensors in the dryer seem to be impacted by the cool temperatures. The drying cycles seem to be taking extra long even though I think it was dry long before the dial indicated so. I was in laundry mode all afternoon into the evening.

Other than moving my tools off of the washer and dryer so I could use them for their intended purpose, I haven’t worked on my furniture projects. Part of the problem is I have reached the comfortable stage with respect to living conditions. The last couple of furniture pieces are needed, but not vital for my comfort.

Thursday January 9th 2025

It has been Florida cold the last few days. The highs have been around sixty degrees and the lows have been below forty. Last night the low even flirted with the freezing mark. While these temperature are warm by northern standards, they are about fifteen degrees lower than the normal temperatures in the area.

Knowing that it in a few days the temperature will be warmer causes me to put things off for warmer times. My furniture projects sit waiting in the shed for warmer weather. The morning temps are around fifty so I choose to wait for it to warm up, but once it is warm the remaining daylight is short.

Last week I was waiting for my Disney Pass blackout to end. I anticipated going to a park on Monday, but I still haven’t gotten there. The wind chill after dark requires several layers of clothes. I remind myself that the weather will improve and I can go to the park another day

Here at the base camp there are still more empty units than I thought there would be. I anticipated people to arrive shortly after the new year. There are still many units with closed shutters, reflective insulation in the windows and/or covered golf carts in the yard. Will people be showing up later, or are they staying away this winter? I certainly don’t know. Based on a perusal of license plates as I walk around the resort, Michigan and Ohio seem to be a very popular origin for many of the snowbirds. I have also seen plates from most of the eastern states and Canadian provinces.

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.

Thursday January 2nd 2025

Happy New Year

It is hard to believe that 2025 has arrived. A year ago at this time, I only had a whisper of an idea about the changes that were in store during the year. The purchase of my base camp in Florida, brought a lot of changes into my life. So far they have all been good ones. I am looking forward to resuming the Rambling Road Trip on a part time bases this year.

This two week period bracketing the Christmas and New Years holidays has been very confusing. I really haven’t known what day of the week it was without looking up the date. For most of this week I’ve been staying at home. Traffic, along with the potential of under the influence drivers are my excuse. Really, I’ve just been lazy. Outside working conditions haven’t favored getting back to my furniture projects. We got a couple of big thunderstorms with lots of heavy rain during the middle of the week. Now we are into a cold snap that is forecast to be the beginning of period of cold weather.

Sunday December 29th 2024

This period between Christmas and New Years is very confusing. Nothing about the days are normal. Traffic on the roads is fierce and unpredictable. Driving in the tourist areas is even more problematic. In addition to the people that are down here for the winter all of their northern guests are on the roads. Then you add in the people that are here just for Disney, Universal and Sea World, you have a real mess.

On Friday I had the bright idea to stop at Disney Springs. My thought process was that early in the afternoon it wouldn’t be extremely busy. I got there later than I wanted and it was busier than I ever would have thought. I had to park in the overflow area usually dedicated to employee parking. It was a long walk in a long line of people into the entertainment and shopping district. The crowd didn’t get any better once inside. It was wall to wall people and got worse as evening approached.

It was an interesting visit, but it didn’t get to do many of the things I wanted. Lunch at Cooks of Dublin was great, but touring the stores was filled with crowds. I had considered taking a bus to one of the Disney resort hotels to do a little more decoration viewing, but my late arrival largely because of the traffic on the roads made that idea impossible. I think that idea will have to wait for another year.

Everything is quiet here at the park. I think a lot of people are traveling for the holidays. The number of golf carts going by my base camp has decreased. My guess is by next weekend the travelers will be back along with many of the residents that haven’t arrived for the season yet. It will be interesting to see if this place gets as active as it is advertised to be.

Thursday December 26th 2024

I spent Christmas day in Sarasota with friends. We had a nice dinner with good conversation and nice rich desert cake. It was an overall good day.

Today I was on a mission to finish the installation of my new refrigerator. I adjusted the shelves to allow a little more room for tall items and made a run to Walmart to restock the items that probably spoiled in the old frig and the time between appliances.

Walmart was worse today than any of the days leading up to Christmas. In addition to the line of people returning purchases the food aisles were jammed with shopping carts and people. Did people run out of food on the holiday or did they neglect food shopping during the days before Christmas? The lines at the checkouts were also long. At least they had all of the registers open. I think my relatively small shopping event took longer than most of my bigger shopping days.

I didn’t get a chance to return to my furniture building projects in the last few days. I have all the pieces cut for my end table, but need to do a lot of assembly, gluing and sanding. Then it is time for the hard part of staining and applying a few coats of polyurethane that looks good. The weekend is forecast to be rainy, so it may be a few days.

Tuesday December 24th 2024

Merry Christmas

This blog entry is an extra to my current two a week schedule. I thought I’d reflect on all the “gifts” I have been buying for myself this year, as well as wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

The transition from a full time traveler to a periodic traveler with a base camp has resulted in a lot of purchases this year. In addition to the base camp itself, I have been buying lots of things to fill up the interior. I am pretty close to finished. Some of those things like the canvas prints of some of my road trip photos are fun, others like pots and pans are just necessary. The latest purchase was another necessary one, but not an expected one. My refrigerator gave up its valiant fight over the weekend.

The twenty plus year old appliance wasn’t one of my favorites. The small side by side forced me to stack stuff and push stuff deep into the box. It was very hard to know what you had. I knew it was going to be my first replacement, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. The last couple of weeks it has been getting noisier. Over the weekend it stopped cooling. Luckily my dislike of the old one caused me to do some early refrigerator shopping. I knew what I wanted when the old one gave up the ghost. On Sunday I bought an LG French Door with bottom freezer from Lowes for delivery on Christmas Eve.

Today was filled with emptying the old one, followed by waiting for the delivery guys. They arrived in the expected window shortly after the noon hour. Unfortunately, the type of water connection I have was not to their liking. It is apparently one that Lowes doesn’t allow them to connect up. While they were calling their dispatcher to figure out what to do I got out my tools and did what they couldn’t. By the time they put me on the phone with the dispatcher to “explain” the issue I had eliminated the problem. They brought the new one in and took the old one out. All they could do for installation was plug it in to power. I connected the water after they departed with the old unit. Getting all the food loaded up was the hard part of the whole exercise. I still need to weed out the stuff that probably spoiled and rearrange the shelves for more optimal use.

Over the last few days the park got into Christmas decorating. I thought it was going to remain rather dark, but there are quite a few decorations up now. Some sites are still dark, because the residents haven’t returned yet. Many snowbirds wait until after Christmas to head south. Some of the ones that arrived earlier have also returned north for the holidays. My neighbors across the street from Michigan were only back from a trip north over Thanksgiving for about a week and a half before heading out again. I don’t think they are going to the same place, but it is still a long road trip for the holiday.