Thursday August 8th 2024

The rain has a new idea. Today it rained for a few minutes at random times throughout the day. The rest of the time it was sunny to almost sunny. The showers were so brief that the sun often stayed out the whole time. The good news is the rain kept the feels like temperature under control. Before it started raining the reported feels like temperature was 109 degrees. With the rain showers the actual temperature was in the low nineties.

My activity today was mostly filled with chores around my RV home. The clutter has been building up again. I spent time putting things away and tidying up a bit. Even my dish towel made it into the hamper so it will get cleaned when I do the laundry. Somehow it always seems to miss laundry day. The clean one that came out of the cabinet most of enjoyed seeing the light of day after an extended rest.

I didn’t see any rabbits on my daily walk around the RV park. There are usually two or three, but not tonight. Maybe the off and on rain was keeping them in hiding. The retention ponds continue to have a high level of water. The birds sure appreciate it. I think the availability of water also encouraged the sand hill cranes to visit the park. They weren’t around when the ponds were empty, but I’ve seen them a few times since. This morning they even visited my campsite.

Wednesday August 7th 2024

There was high thin layer of clouds today, but enough sun passed through to allow the temperature to climb to the mid nineties. The wind strength has come down a little from the last couple of days.

Even though I got a decent sleep last night, I seemed to doze off every time I sat down for more than a couple of minutes. Perhaps yesterday’s visit to Disney’s Magic Kingdom in the late day heat zapped me more than I knew. This turned into a day of recovery.

I made one errand run to Walmart. Today wasn’t for grocery shopping. I was on a singular mission to buy holding tank treatment for my black holding tank. It supposed to help break down the contents of the tank, but more important to me in the hot weather, it has an element of deodorant. To keep the tank from retaining too much crud, I don’t dump the tank until it is at least half full. Right now, I’m on a weekly schedule for dumping the tanks.

Of course, I couldn’t go to Walmart without picking up some groceries. The good news is they were stocking the bottled water shelves. I was able to restock my supplies. On the bad news side of the equation, the price of Walmart brand orange juice from concentrate in gallon containers has gone up again. It is now $8.28 a gallon. When I switch to this “generic” brand about 8 years ago it was because the name brand had gone up over $5 a gallon. Walmart’s brand at that time was in the four dollar range. Orange juice is clearly not one of the things that Walmart has a “roll back” sticker on the price tag.

Tuesday August 6th 2024

The weather has rebounded to nice conditions. Yesterday’s tropical weather is gone. Today was sunny, dry and very windy. The high temperature was in the mid nineties. It was a nice hot day.

Late in the afternoon I ventured out. My destination was Disney’s Magic Kingdom. They have started to decorate the park for Halloween. The first after hours Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party is Friday night. I think the almost three months that Magic Kingdom celebrates Halloween is the longest period of decorated park. The Christmas decorations are only up for a little over two months.

They haven’t finished putting up the decorations. The lamp post decorations the length of Main Street aren’t up yet. They have put up the scarecrow figures and pumpkin people in town square. The orange bunting on the buildings along Main Street has also been complete. It is beginning to look a lot like fall even if it is 95 degrees in the shade.

Crowds were heavy in the park. I suspect that many people that stayed away in yesterday’s storm were i the park today. It also didn’t help that several popular attractions were down for mechanical issues or refurbishment. I road a few rides and had dinner at the Columbia Harbor House. The lobster roll with french fries was very good.

I departed the park before the fireworks. The park isn’t open long after fireworks and I wasn’t looking forward to the mass of humanity leaving the park. The monorails and ferry boats back to the parking area are examples of how to pack more people into small spaces than is physically sensible. I was back at my RV home before the fireworks started.

Monday August 5th 2024

I didn’t sleep well last night. The outer bands of tropical storm or hurricane Debby were moving into the area. It wasn’t heavy rain or prolonged wind, but it had its loud and violent moments. Basically, it was just enough noise and uncertainty to keep me awake until the early morning hours.

Soon after I got to sleep I woke up to the sound of a weather alert from my phone. It was about 6AM. There was a tornado warning within the county. I turned on the TV and pulled up the weather radar on my phone. The warned area was on the west side of the county and heading north. I’m located in the very northeast corner of the county. I was clearly not in the path of the alerted area and the TV was downplaying the likely hood of the radar indicated tornado of lasting more than a very brief time. In fact the National Weather Service dropped the alert before it was scheduled to end.

That wasn’t the last of the alert “fun”. I didn’t go back to sleep. About 8AM another tornado warning was issued. This one didn’t alert on my phone, but it was more of a concern. The track of another radar indicated tornado was straight at me. The only positive element was the distance. Apparently, tornadoes associated with tropical systems are very short track before they disappear.

The tornado, if there ever was one, didn’t make it to my area. Both of the tornado warnings were associated with new bands of storms passing through this area. They were more intense than the overnight storms. The wind blowing in my slide out room toppers and the sound of rain on the roof were terrible. The angle of the wind seemed do be just right for maximum noise. The heavy storm activity continued until about noon before there started to be gaps between rain showers. The sun almost came out in the afternoon.

I had enough time between showers to take a short walk around the campground. It looks like one plastic shed didn’t make it through the storm, but for the most part I didn’t see much damage. The retention ponds were a foot or two higher than they were on Saturday. A couple of ducks had even taken up residence. The storm seems to be far enough away now to have much less frequent band of rain impacting this area.

Sunday August 4th 2024

Tropical Storm Debby kept me inside all day. There was light rain off and on all night, but nothing strong enough to really hear on the roof. The rain that fell on the skylight dome in the shower or on the roof vents was the only drops that reached my ears. At mid day today, 12:45 to be exact, the first real heavy rain with accompanying wind arrived. As I write this blog entry shortly after 8PM, there have been several five to ten minute periods of heavy rain and wind. For the most part the worst of the storm is still forecast to be in the overnight period. Reading between the lines of the various forecasters, I think from this area to the east is just going to be lots of rain and a little wind. On the side of caution they aren’t going to say that, but their focus seems to be on the area west of here.

I’ve been watching coverage of the storm on local TV, the weather channel and on various online resources. Since they all use the same models, you really don’t get different information. There is some variation in the way they present the material. Some focus on the possibility of tornadoes and others on the likely hood of flooding. Take your pick both will spin up the fear level in some people.

Saturday August 3rd 2024

The daily thunderstorm threat came earlier today than usual. Around noon areas of black cloud passed through the area. I was on the road at the time, and had to run the wipers at full blast for a little while. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to drive out of the storm. However, on the horizon ahead was another black cloud that looked worse than the last one. I turned and ram. Driving in torrential downpours isn’t fun. The afternoon was cloudy with a few light showers. The temperature even dropped into the seventies.

The thunderstorms were part of the normal heat cycle during the Florida summer, but the afternoon cloud cover was the result of the approaching tropical system. Tropical storm Debby is coming. Yesterday’s forecast had it arriving sooner and getting closer to the Orlando area. Now it is moving slower and further away out in the gulf. The current forecast has the rain and some wind arriving around noon tomorrow and hanging around until mid day Monday. Up to eight inches of rain is possible.

I got in one walk around the RV resort this afternoon. I was interested in seeing what kinds of preparations were done for the approaching storm. The park staff has closed and secured both pools. The umbrellas are down and the chairs are all stacked and tied down. That seems like a reasonable precaution. The office staff has also sent out a couple of text messages asking everyone to secure any loose objects at their sites. My site is fine, but I didn’t saw a lot of loose stuff at other sites. The one thing I didn’t see was any early departures. If anything, I think a lot of new arrivals happened today.

Friday August 2nd 2024

Today was a rinse and repeat kind of day. The early part of the day was sunny. As the afternoon progressed the cloud cover increased until a storm arrived. The only difference today was the storm was a little earlier arriving just before 4PM. It was also a little weaker than the last couple of days.

The fact that today’s storm didn’t bring as much rain is probably a good thing. After yesterday’s storm the drainage ponds in the RV park had a foot or two more of water collected. They need a chance to drain a little before Sunday’s tropical system arrives. The developing tropical storm or even possibly a hurricane is forecast to bring from six to twelve inches of rain to some areas of the Florida peninsular. It sounds like wind will not be a big issue unless your in the path of a random tornado that might develop. I’m not overly concerned, but Sunday afternoon and evening may get interesting.

Midday found me at Walmart for grocery shopping. The shelves were a little empty today. I couldn’t find a few thing that I wanted to buy. It is not a big deal, since I can easily survive on other stuff. I wonder if the empty shelves were a normal occurrence, or the result of minor panic associated with the approaching weather system. The store didn’t seem to be busier than normal.

I hurried to get my walk around the RV park in before the rain. The clouds to the southeast were building as I cut the walk short. The sound of the approaching storm caused me to rush home. I still made it back to my RV home long before the rain started.

Thursday August 1st 2024

I didn’t get the earliest start to the day, but I managed to get to Disney’s Animal Kingdom around 10:30AM. The temperature was still in the low nineties, but there was a heat warning for the area. Still, the animals had already retreated to the bushes and shady areas to hid from the heat.

My first stop was the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. The wait was only thirty five minutes and the line kept moving most of the time. The only down side of the wait was the heat in the queue area. The fans along the way were not turned on. Eventually we were all loaded into the ride trucks for the safari. There were a lot of slow downs along the way which would be great most of the time. Today it seemed like all the slow downs and stops were out in the sun and there weren’t many animals in view. It was a very hot ride in the sun. I needed a nice cold drink in the shade after the safari.

Most of the animals along the Gorilla trail were also hiding in the shade and in the corners of the attraction. Most of the gorilla family were all sleeping in the sun along the side of the enclosure, but the silver back was hiding somewhere else. In the bachelor gorilla area one great ape was sitting near the entrance to the back stage area. One of the cast members confirmed my opinion that the air conditioning from the inside area was influencing his choice of sitting areas.

The heat was starting to get to me after I wandered around more of the park. It wasn’t worth battling the heat to continue exploring the park. I made my way to the parking lot and returned to my RV home. The heat finally broke around 4PM when a very slow moving thunderstorm with very heavy rain hovered overhead for about an hour. Light rain continued after that. It is still raining as I write this blog entry.

Wednesday July 31st 2024

My plan for the day was to get up early and visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom today. The goal was to get there before the heat peaked and the animals retreated to the shade. Well I woke up just before 7AM which is better than I’ve been doing for the last few days. I turned on the TV to watch the last few minutes of the morning news before I got out of bed. The next thing I knew it was 9:30AM. Is this living my retirement or just being lazy? Animal Kingdom will happen another day.

Today was another day of dealing with the expectation of rain. The weather forecast I heard before returning to sleep this morning called for an ever increasing chance of rain from 2PM until about 9PM. As the day went by that forecast changed. In the end we only got a few sprinkles. There weren’t even any black clouds on the horizon or the sound of thunder in the distance.

I had much better luck with traffic today. All of the roads I was on kept to what I have come to expect to be normal level. Basically, that means getting stuck at every traffic light, but only for one cycle. You can’t go anywhere down here and not see new development of some sort. Traffic will only increase.

My walk around the park was along a shorter route today. The occasional sprinkle of rain kept me in my half of the RV resort. My longer route takes me through my half of the park all the way to the other side of the lower half of the park to get to Lake Davenport. That is close to a mile distant along the circuitous route through the park. If it started to really rain, I’d be very wet by the time I got back to my RV home.

Tuesday July 30th 2024

The weather surprised me again today. Leading up to mid morning every forecast I saw or heard called for no rain to only a very small chance. Then everything started to change. The online forecasts and the noon TV forecasts suddenly had a 40% chance of rain from 5PM to 10PM. That wasn’t the end of the surprises. Thunder storms in this area of Florida can come from any direction. In most areas of the country, severe weather usually comes from one or two directions, mostly west and south. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen storms here come from the all points of the compass except the northwest. Tonight around 6PM a very heavy storm arrived from the northwest. The sound of rain on my roof along with the lightening and thunder were very dramatic.

Today’s issue was a multitude of traffic jams. While out touring this afternoon I ran into heavy traffic that was probably the result of an accident ahead. I decided to take a much longer detour, but that didn’t work. A few miles along my new route I found more stop and go traffic. This time it looked more like “get out of work” traffic. Soon the “time to leave the theme park” traffic got added into the mix. Just getting home was a challenge. This area has so much new development going on that the roads just aren’t keeping up. The philosophy seems to be build housing in phase 1, build retail om phase 2 , build office buildings next and then add lanes to the access roads one at a time until traffic is tolerable. With the added lanes comes more traffic lights and awkward turning situations. Shouldn’t the roads and other infrastructure come first?

The rain kept me from getting in my usual walk around the RV park. Since the heavy storm arrived around six, it has been raining lightly most of the time. The only thing that is gone is the thunder and lightening. I managed to catch a little bit of the setting sun from the door of my RV home. It looks like it was raining off in the direction of the sunset.