Sunday August 13th 2023

Today was yet another hot day. Outside activity had to be done carefully or for short periods of time. The temperature climbed just short of 100 degrees. The humidity wasn’t too bad, but there wasn’t any wind until late in the day. The chance of rain goes up over the next few days. Toward the middle of the week the high temperatures return to the normal level.

Traffic on the roads today was heavy. I was out looking for places to enjoy nature without having to venture too far from the air conditioned comfort of my car. It wasn’t a very successful outing. I managed to watch one Great Egret forage for food for a few minutes and a bunch of Canadian Geese peck around. The geese at my RV park are easier to watch and more entertaining in my opinion.

My travels also found me in the middle of downtown Jacksonville at the intersection of Interstate 95 and Interstate 10. That is one confusing intersection. It seems to be possible to go south on Interstate 95 by taking either the left lanes or the right lanes, just not the middle ones. Trying to go south on Interstate 95 from Interstate 10 you need to exit to the left or the right just not the middle. The middle is for north bound Interstate 95. I got where I wanted to go, but don’t ask me how or why.

The intersection of I95 and I10 also gives you an idea about the size of the state of Florida. Intestate 10 arrives in the state from Alabama and ends in Jacksonville. The mile markers in Jacksonville are in the low 360s indicating the Alabama boarder is three hundred and sixty plus miles away. The Intestate 95 mile markers are in the 350s. The road entered the state from Georgia about thirty miles north and ends just south of Miami in the south. That all adds up to more then three hundred and eighty plus miles. The state is around 400 miles wide and 400 miles long not including the keys when using driving distance as your measure.

Saturday August 12th 2023

I haven’t heard the official reports, but today seemed to be the warmest of the summer. At one point this afternoon my phone weather app was reporting the temperature as 99 for this area. My car thought it was 102. Let’s just say it was hot. Contributing to the warm conditions was a lack of wind. Until late in the day there was next to no wind away from the coast. These conditions and the duration are not normal for this area.

I drove out to Cedar Point Preserve today. There were about twelve empty boat trailers at the boat launch. A combination of fishing and recreational boats get launched from the location. The only boat I saw was a personal watercraft (i.e. a jet ski). Hiking wasn’t a real option because of the heat and the sights were rather static. There weren’t any birds around and once the boat motored away there weren’t any people to watch either. The wind along the open marsh area leading to the sea was just strong enough to keep conditions tolerable as long as I remained in the shade. I hung around looking for something interesting for about half an hour.

The second and main thing on today’s agenda was a stop at Walmart for groceries. Saturday afternoon isn’t the best time to go, but I’d been putting it off long enough that it really had to be today. It was very busy. There were a lot of families in the store. The main characteristic of a shopping family is one person focused on shopping and many other disinterested people hanging around them clogging up the aisles. Another indicator of how busy it was could be seen at the checkouts. In addition to all the self serve checkouts they also had most of the staffed checkouts open.

I took my time completing my shopping. For some reason I wasn’t very organized today. There were several times that I had to back track to aisles that I had already been down. I also ventured into the non grocery part of the store. Walmart usually puts the pharmacy and associated products on the other side of the store from the groceries. To get a tube of toothpaste it is necessary to venture across the whole store. Crossing through the clothes, electronics and hardware departments slowed me down with looking, but not with purchasing.

Friday August 11th 2023

Despite a slightly more optimistic weather forecast, today seemed to be the worst day heat wise this week. There was less wind and more sun which made conditions outside less comfortable. The actual temperature peaked at 98 degrees, but the real feel was much higher. It is also taking longer to cool off in the evening.

I generally keep the water heater in my RV home turned off. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is turn the water heater on. It is a simple button push on the panel in the kitchen area of my RV home. When I get up for real, assuming I went back to bed, or after breakfast I can take a nice hot shower. This morning when I went to take a shower after breakfast, the water wouldn’t get hot. It usually takes about thirty seconds for the hot water to reach the shower head. After waiting about a minute with cold water still coming out, I started to think about all the major problems I was facing. Had the electric element in the water heater burnt out? Was the almost eight year old water heater completely broken? Luckily when I checked the control panel, I found the problem right away. I pushed the wrong button. The button below the water heater switch is for the water pump. It was turned on unnecessarily. I am connected to city water. Half an hour later the water was hot and I could take my shower. Unfortunately for an active day, it was well afternoon when I remembered to take my morning shower.

My whole plan for the day got diverted by pushing the wrong button. I ended up staying home and working on chores inside my RV home most of the day. After I finally got cleaned up and dressed for outside activity, I took my daily walk around the RV park. The geese were doing fine in the retention pond and along the bank when I walked by. A couple of minutes later I heard many squawking geese behind me. A dog from a near by RV had gotten loose. It didn’t appreciate the presence of the geese and decided to charge and bark. The noisy racket was followed shortly by an even noisier guy yelling at the dog to obey. Talk about disturbing the peace.

Thursday August 10th 2023

There was still an excessive heat warning issued for today, but I don’t think the weather lived up to its level of concern. There were clouds blocking the sun most of the day and we got a quick shower just before noon that cooled things off a bit as well. In the mid afternoon a thunderstorm passed by to the north. This area was spared of the rain, but got plenty of wind. As night approached the clouds gave way to blue sky.

This was a day for utility issues. The water in the RV park was turned off for maintenance from 9AM until near noon. This was a planned outage, so I made sure I had enough water in my fresh water tank to cover my needs. The second utility issue wasn’t planned. The power went out just before 3:30PM. It was an area issue that was probably associated with the nearby thunderstorm. Power was out for about an hour.

During the power outage I took one of my walks around the RV park. Without AC many people were outside their RVs sitting in the shade and letting the breeze keep them cool. Others had started generators to keep power going to the air conditioners. The generators are noisier than the AC units, but in the few minutes before people started the generators everything was nice and quiet.

Between all the utility issues I got a few more tasks accomplished, but the big outdoor tasks remain on the list. Inside I’ve been on the computer trying to plan out the next three months. After two months in an RV park, I’m looking forward to getting back into a state park like setting. As expected the weekends are difficult to find at non commercial parks.

Wednesday August 9th 2023

The excessive heat warnings continued today. I think it was actually a little cooler, but once you reach a certain point a degree or two isn’t noticeable. It really isn’t bad if you don’t try to do a lot of physical activity in the bright sunshine. My only real problem is going from air conditioned space to non conditioned space repeatedly. Staying in either space is not a problem, but going in and out results in more discomfort. The wind direction today was different from yesterday giving me hope that the weather pattern was changing, but the TV weather forecast calls for the current heat to continue through the weekend. The chance of afternoon thunderstorms increases as the days go by.

I got a few things accomplished outside this morning before it got real hot, but the long duration tasks still remain. The orientation of my RV home gets full sun most of the day. I need a very cloudy day so I can work on the tow bar hook up to tow my new car. I need to adjust the height of the connection and thoroughly test the electric hook up and auxiliary brake.

During the afternoon I drove around looking for a relaxing place to enjoy the day. I stopped at the park and boat launch on the Trout River. It is basically beside and under the Interstate 95 bridge over the river. Today the water level was high. This is an area of tidal water that is more interesting at low tide. Today I sat in the air conditioned comfort of my car and watched the activity in the area. The high water level covered up the area that the water birds use to feed. On the other hand the high water level made it easier to launch boats. A couple were put in the water while I was there.

The RV park feels busier today. As I walked around the park this evening the sense of emptiness I experienced yesterday wasn’t there today. There are more travelers occupying sites at the front of the park and I saw several big RVs heading for the back of the park where the cheaper long term sites are located. There are still plenty of empty sites around my RV home in the middle of the park.

Tuesday August 8th 2023

The excessive heat warning continued today. There was a little more wind than yesterday. This made outside activity a little more tolerable if you stayed out of the direct sunshine. I didn’t hear the official high temperature for the day, but it was probably similar to yesterday’s 98 degrees.

I got a late start the day which is unfortunate. The outside chores that I need to get accomplished can really only be done in the morning before it gets hot. I got a couple of the simple ones like dumping the tanks accomplished, but anything that is going to take an extended period of time is still on the to do list. Let’s see if I can get up early tomorrow. I refuse to set an alarm.

My activities today were scrambled by Amazon. I had a delivery scheduled for today and I don’t like to have the boxes sitting outside for a long period of time. I am a little suspicious about the security around here right now. While there are lots of cameras, there isn’t any access control preventing people from just driving in and wandering around. The other problem with leaving packages outside is the probability that they would get very wet with and unexpected storm or two.

Monday August 7th 2023

Last week the temperature was back around normal in the low nineties and it was often overcast making it more comfortable outside. Over the weekend the weather started a transition toward hot. Excessive heat warnings have been issued each day since Saturday. The high temperature today was 98 with a heat index of 117. The display on my car dashboard said it was 102 at one point this afternoon. Basically, it was hot.

The day began with the sound of lawn mowers. It has been two weeks since this part of the park got mowed. They had a lot of work to do and it was messy. I listened to the sound of the mowers getting closer as I laid in bed this morning. I was up working on breakfast when they arrived at my site. They were back later with the trimmers to get a little closer to all the obstacles. The grass looks better when they finish, but today the roads and some of the RV pads were covered in cut grass because of the volume of grass they cut. I still think they should pass out noise protection to all the residents before they mow. It is not practical, but those machines are noisy.

I was surprised to find a lot of empty sites when I took my walk around the campground today. This is probably the emptiest it has been since I arrived at the end of June. My guess is it relates to the beginning of the school year this week. The folks that have been using the RV park for temporary housing may have managed to be in more permanent housing for the school year.

Sunday August 6th 2023

I finally made it to the Reddie Point Preserve Park in Jacksonville today. Last weeks attempt got rained out. The park is located on the south or east bank of the St. Johns River. My interest in the park started with a simple map search. A rather large green area on the map got my attention followed by a little googling.

With a lot of help from my GPS I found the park after driving south on the I295 beltway followed by a winding path through a business district, a university area and finally lots of residential streets. Without the mapping software assistance I’d never of found the right combination of roads and turns. The preserve park was a forested area on the bank of the river with a small pond near the entrance. At the river there was a long pier for fishing and temporary boat tie ups. The view up and down the river was impressive. There were several family groups using the picnic area and even more people fishing from the pier. It was much busier than I thought it would be.

At the preserve park I walked the trails. They weren’t all that exciting. I found several groups of wildflowers worthy of pictures and startled or perhaps more accurately woke up a great blue heron roosting in a tree near a small pond. It took off with more screeching than normal for the species. After my heart rate slowed down I continued my walk. Overall it took less than an hour to check out all of the park. It was interesting, but I don’t think it warrants another visit.

I expected to get caught in an afternoon thunderstorm on my return to the RV park, but it remained dry. The temperature peaked in the low nineties.

Saturday August 5th 2023

It was very still this morning. Very little breeze was blowing. The temperature got down into the mid seventies overnight, but rapidly climbed to ninety this morning. The clouds started to thicken during the afternoon. The typical Florida summer afternoon thunderstorm arrived just before 4PM. After a heavy wave of rain and wind, light rain lingered for about two hours. The weather was much more comfortable after the showers.

This wasn’t a very active or productive day. I spent most of the day watching TV and internet videos with some reading thrown in for good measure. The afternoon rain was originally forecast to be coming earlier, so I didn’t venture out the RV park for any extended outdoor activities. I settled for two walks around the park today. One was before the storms and one was after. There weren’t a lot of good picture taking opportunities either.

Friday August 4th 2023

The rain managed to change my plans again today. It was cloudy and humid most of the day, but in the early afternoon a real deluge of a thunderstorm hit this area. It was part of a line of storms that moved through northwest to southeast. Overall the temperature remained comfortable never getting above the eighties.

I planned to drive around Jacksonville to the southwest suburbs this afternoon. My mission was to pick up my mail from the mail service. Just as I was preparing to leave the thunderstorm moved in. I waited for it to pass through before departing, but mother nature had other plans. As soon as I got onto the Interstate the sky opened up again. People don’t know what to do in heavy rain on an interstate. Some put on their four way flashers and slow way down, but keep moving. Other people seem to just pull over into the breakdown lane and stop. I believe the correct thing to do is slow down, maintain your spacing with the tail lights in front and continue on as best you can. It certainly isn’t accelerate and pass everybody at eighty miles an hour. Every option and then some was happening today.

This was a real white knuckle, intense alert mode period of driving. There was a lot of standing water on the road in some construction areas. Visibility was down to about 100 feet assuming the car in front had its tail lights on. I found an exit off the interstate and looped back to my RV home on back roads. The rain was over as I got back closer to home. It wasn’t worth the risk to continue with the uncertain path of the storms. My mail will wait until Monday.

Later in the afternoon it was dry and cooler, but still very humid. I took an extended walk around the RV park. Once again it doesn’t look like there are many new arrivals for the weekend, but a few of the RVs that are empty during the week had people around in the evening. This isn’t really a weekend kind of RV park. It is primarily used by people staying an extended period of time or by travelers going north or south on Interstate 95 stopping for a night or two.