Sunday December 28th 2025

The let up in traffic density on Christmas day was as expected short lived. Over the weekend the stop and go traffic returned. I spent most of the weekend doing chores around the base camp with only a few ventures out into the traffic.

Today I made a stop a Walmart for a quick fun food update. In this case the plan was to buy some bakery items, some oranges and maybe other nice to have items. It doesn’t matter since I never got out of my car. The parking lot was busier than any day leading up to Christmas. I went up and down several parking aisles without finding anything within reasonable and safe walking distance. The only spots I found were at the far end of the lot where people don’t park according to logical rules and other vehicles weave in and out of the parked cars at high speed.

Here at my base camp there is a bit of an increase in arrivals for the winter season. Two motorhomes that have sites on my road arrived over the weekend. Their arrival reminds me of the RV traffic southbound on Interstate 95 through the Carolinas and Georgia this time of year. People tend to wait until Christmas is over and then head south as fast as they can. In previous years the almost continuous flow of southbound RVs has been impressive. I think all of the roadside RV parks fill up every night the week or two after Christmas. I suspect Interstate 75 is the same.

Thursday December 25th 2025

Merry Christmas

It has been a slow week. I have stayed home at my base camp whenever possible. Road traffic was terrible. Route 27 traffic in front of the park was intermittently filled with three lanes of stopped north bound traffic followed by three lanes of stopped southbound traffic. The traffic light system was clearly overwhelmed.

On Monday I had to force my way through the traffic to get groceries at Walmart. It took close to an hour to travel the approximate mile and a half that usually takes about ten minutes. Inside Walmart was busy, but the chaos was controlled. Walmart had a full complement of staff on duty and all the checkouts were open. I was able to complete my shopping and get back into the road traffic without waiting too long. My refrigerator is still overstocked four days later.

Today was another slow day by choice. I didn’t do anything special, but did leave the base camp. As expected traffic was very light. It was easy to drive to the nearby nature preserve for a leisurely walk around a pond. It has been about a month since I used the preserve for my daily exercise. Places with sparkling decorations have been getting preference. Today there were a few nice wildflower blossoms to catch my attention.

Sunday December 21st 2025

Today may have been the first day of winter, but the temperature peaked around 80 again today. The normal high is in the low to mid seventies. The above normal trend is forecast to continue most of the week.

This evening I took a drive to check out some of the decorations in the area. My specific destination was the community of Celebration. It is planned community that Disney developed a few decades ago. They no longer have any involvement, but the community is still very active when it comes to celebrating seasons and holidays. Many houses decorate over the top and there is a Christmas village in the center of town.

Touring Celebration seems to be more popular than I expected. Traffic throughout the residential areas was stop and go. It never got above 10mph and all of the four way stops kept it even slower. Finding a parking space near the Christmas market in the downtown area proved impossible. I wandered around several blocks lined with filled parallel parking spots without success.

I spent about an hour making my way through the community. The decorations were nice, but the traffic made it difficult to enjoy them. I couldn’t really take my focus off the traffic. I made a couple of futile attempts at pictures, but motion ruined each attempt. I am not sure if I saw all the community had to offer for decorations. There were plenty of side roads I didn’t turn onto.

Maybe I’ll try some of the housing development closer to my base camp over the next few night.

Thursday December 18th 2025

Today was the last day I could visit Disney World this year. My annual pass goes into a blackout period until January fifth. That isn’t a problem. The crowds during the blackout period are so bad I don’t want to be there. They were bad enough this week that I didn’t get to do everything I wanted.

This afternoon I set out to checkout the Christmas decorations at Fort Wilderness. It was a challenge. I arrived at the Magic Kingdom when all the guests for the after hours Christmas Party event. The line for security was long and the next line for the monorail was even longer. I chose to turn left and take the ferry across the Seven Seas Lagoon. The ferry departed when I was still 100 feet away. I caught the next one ten minutes later.

Once I arrived at the Magic Kingdom entrance, I boarded the launch to Fort Wilderness after a ten minute wait. The ride to the campground was uneventful on a full boat. The regular Magic Kingdom day guests were returning to their RVs. It looked like the worst of my journey to the fort was over, but I got one more surprise. It was raining lightly when I got off the boat.

The Christmas decorations were as over the top as usual. I think I am a little early since the holiday falls near the end of the week. Many people may be arriving with their decorations this weekend. There didn’t seem to be as many decorated sites. I wandered around a few loops before I gave in to the drizzle and made my way back to the parking lot.

Sunday December 14th 2025

On Friday afternoon I made my Christmas visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Most of the decorations are more subtle and very natural, but the Christmas tree at the entrance is very impressive.

My favorite Christmas element at Animal Kingdom is the Merry Menagerie Puppet show that runs pretty much continuously during the daytime hours in the area in front of the Tree of Life. The life size puppets of winter animals interact with each other and the guests. They are particularly good with little kids in strollers. Musicians with steel drums and violins keep the spirit of the season alive with seasonal music. I saw polar bears, penguins, reindeer, a fox and arctic turns. The little kids really liked the baby penguins.

I spent over an hour wandering around the Merry Menagerie show area. The toured the animal areas around the tree of life. I never made it out to the Safari. It had a long wait time so it will wait until my next visit. It is a rare visit that I don’t ride the Safari.

Thursday December 11th 2025

On Tuesday I made my first visit to Disney’s EPCOT since the Christmas decorations went up this year. Lines were long at the attractions so I mostly walked around looking at the decorations. I need to return to see the decorated gardens in the Living with the Land ride to be fully satisfied with my EPCOT Christmas experience. There is no way I’d wait 50 plus minutes for a ride that is usually a walk on when it isn’t decorated.

Here are some pictures from my visit.

Sunday December 7th 2025

The winter cold and wet weather that most of the country is experienced has arrived in Florida. Over the last few days very little blue appeared in the sky. Rain started as an occasional event and progressed to heavy prolonged rain. This evening lightening with immediate ground shacking thunder claps became the focus. Additional rain with lower temperatures are in the forecast for the next few days. It is just enough to discourage outdoor activity.

I committed to a couple of poinsettia plants for my inside Christmas decoration. They are pretty and will not take up storage space after the season. I looked for a bigger plant for outside at Lowes today, but didn’t find anything I was happy with. Over the next couple of days I’ll check out other stores. A couple of blowup Santa Clauses have shown up elsewhere in the park.

Today was also grocery shopping day. I’ve been putting off the chore all of last week, but finally ran out of a couple of vital items. Oatmeal without milk to help it go down isn’t the same. Sunday afternoon at Walmart isn’t a place you should really consider, but I was in need. Today the inside of the store wasn’t that out of control. They had plenty of staff working and weren’t trying to refill shelves at the same time as shoppers were unstocking them. The real issue today was in the parking lot. With the rain everyone wanted to park near the building. If it looked like a car was about to depart the next three car all stopped and waited. The resulting log jams lasted more than a few minutes. The backups allowed me to get a good parking place even though I was heading for a distant spot at the time.

Thursday December 4th 2025

It has been a slow week activity wise, but a quick week time wise. I found myself back in reading and YouTube binge watching mode. It causes a level of inertia that is hard to overcome. I haven’t visited the holiday events at the theme parks yet.

Some holiday decorating has been accomplished here at the resort. Wreaths have been added to the entry gates by the association. Many of the units have added garland, lights or ribbon to their lamp posts. There are only a few blowup figures. There just isn’t a lot of room. Instead there are a few lots that have been well decorated by poinsettias and other seasonal flowers.

I haven’t done any decorating yet. Lowes still has plenty of poinsettias, but is running out of traditional decorations. Anything I buy needs to be disposable. I just don’t have room to store anything bigger than a bread box. That’s what makes the poinsettia idea attractive. My only concern is tripping over it if I put it on my small porch or steps. I need to do something quickly if at all. There are only three weeks left.

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.