My RV home was shrouded in fog this morning. It was dense enough to obscure the other side of the pond in the center of the campground. Shortly before 10AM the sun started to break through. By mid afternoon the temperature climbed into the upper eighties under a partly cloudy sky. There is enough humidity in the air that tomorrow will probably begin the same way. This weather is about two months early. I could use the cooler winter temperatures a little longer.
The bird picture of the day.There were of puffy clouds today.
This area is behind in rainfall for the year. Some of the swampy areas are drier than I remember them from previous years. Other areas of deeper water, such as the campground pond, seem to be higher. Walking through the Kirby Storter roadside stop area this afternoon the swamp was mostly mud and some of the grass areas that are in water during the rainy season was very brown. The main channel area still had plenty of water, but I only say one turtle rather than several I saw last year. Overall there seems to be a lot of differences in the wildlife this year.
Today’s turtle picture.
The campground had about a fifty percent turnover today. Most of the visitors stop for only a night or two. Very few come for a long time. There just isn’t enough to do in the area and services are forty to fifty miles away. Those that do stay longer seem to pick up available sites by moving every couple of days.
After the light rain ended near midnight the temperature stayed warm overnight. The morning was sunny and very still. The full sunshine and the lack of breeze allowed the temperature to climb rapidly into the upper half of the eighties. Along with the unseasonably warm temperature there was a lot of humidity. It combination was approaching the uncomfortable level.
View across the pond to my RV home this morning under a bright blue sky.
The first thing after breakfast, I finished my day after arrival setup tasks and set out on a walk around the campground pond. My mission was to see am alligator or two. There are one or two alligators that claim the pond as their home. The campground hosts give out warnings and alligator instructions to every visitor. In past visits to this campground I’ve seen the gators sunning on the bank and even coming ashore to threaten little dogs that are getting walked a little to close to the edge. Today I didn’t see any gators in the pond, although one of my neighbors claimed there was big one out yesterday. I suspect I’ll see a gator or two in the pond before I leave on Thursday, but I was in a hurry.
Later in the day I drove a couple of miles back west on US 41 to the Oasis Visitors center. The drainage canal between the center and the road is always filled with gators. Today was no exception. There were many gators along with plenty of tourists watching them. The parking lot wasn’t quite as full today as it was yesterday, but the available parking spaces were in short supply. The alligators seemed to be more active today than other times I’ve visited. One big one was even very snappy with a smaller one that had the audacity to approach its location. My quest for alligators was satisfied.
The day began bright and sunny. The cool overnight temperature climbed rapidly as I prepared for travel. The temperature was in the seventies by 10:20 when I departed Davenport Florida heading south. It was in the mid to upper eighties when I arrived at my destination 200 miles to the south, but it was a more overcast day. As evening arrived so did a light shower.
My travel day involved dealing with a couple of tight spots. First I needed to go back and forth a couple of times just to get out of my campsite. The way my neighbors parked their cars just made it too narrow to make the turn in without some maneuvering. The net result was that I had to hook up my car after I got out of the site. Luckily nobody needed to drive down the road while I was hooking up. I blocked the entire road.
The second tight spot was at the gas station, but was more of my own making. After giving the station close to two hundred dollars in exchange for more than sixty gallons of gas, the exit from the pump area was blocked by a truck. I thought I could exit through the truck area to the back and headed for a wide aisle in the parking area headed for the back of the station. It soon became clear that my selected route was not a through path. A line of bushes blocked the way. Moving on to plan C, I tried to make a tight turn before entering the dead end aisle. I really didn’t want to unhook the car so I could back up the motorhome. If I made the decision to turn about a foot sooner, I would have been home free. As it is my front wheels climbed the curb and followed it for a few feet while the branches from a low hanging tree scraped the roof. There wasn’t any damage to my RV home or the tree, but it wasn’t one of my better choices.
The remainder of the trip was uneventful and a bit monotonous. I kept looking for hurricane damage as I got closer to the path of both Ian and Nicole. The real damage was closer to the west coast than I was traveling. All I saw were a couple of gas stations with missing plastic from their signs. One thing that broke the monotony was motorcycle groups. This seemed to be a day for a lot of group rides. I passed two different groups. One probably stretched over two miles with all the riders.
Site 10 at the Midway Campground in the Big Cypress National Preserve.
I arrived at the Midway Campground in the Big Cypress National Preserve about 2:30 after a little more than four hours on the road. I’ve stayed at this campground several times before. The campground has sites around a pond with an alligator or two in residence. It is located about half way across the state from Naples to Miami. Other than the Big Cypress Preserve there isn’t much around.
It was fifteen degrees colder today than yesterday. The cold front passed through late yesterday with only some wind to show for it, but the temperature went from above normal to below normal. Tomorrow it is forecast to be back above the norm.
I have finally recovered from theme park mode. The 7AM hour passed with me still sleeping. I didn’t feel rushed to get out of bed and get on with the day. Breakfast even included a second cup of coffee. Most of the day was very laid back, but included a few tasks to prepare for tomorrows travel. Specifically, I put some water in the fresh water tank and flushed the black holding tank. I won’t have a water hook up or a sewer hook up for the next four nights.
Walking around the campground again today, I noticed a few other changes since my last visit. They have added a dozen new camping cabins. They seem to still be working on installing them. Some seem to have transport damage that needs to be repaired and others still have extra braces in place to assist in transport. They all seem to look a little different, so I wonder if they are used units that are getting re-positioned to this campground from somewhere.
Some of the new cabins at the campground
The park is full tonight. Most of the RVs in the transient part of the park are from northern climates. Most seem to be from the northeast. The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec augment the US states of New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Virginia are all heavily represented. I am surprised that the Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan representation that I’ve seen in other parks in this area isn’t represented this weekend.
I have a long way to travel tomorrow. The 11AM checkout time shouldn’t be an issue. I need to get started as soon as possible to complete the 200 miles before to late in the afternoon. I’ll be traveling south through the center of the state. There will be lots of towns and traffic lights.
Tomorrow night I will be in the middle of nowhere between Naples, FL and Miami, FL. I’ll be there for four nights. From past experience, I know that cell coverage is suspect. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The blog may not be published on time.
The temperature tide the record high for this date in the Orlando area. It was 88 degrees this afternoon. There was a lot of bright sunshine and a strong wind late in the day. The front is forecast to pass through overnight with little to no fan fare. Tomorrow will be cooler.
This campground has had quiet a few improvements since my last visit in the spring. When I was here they had started to build a new playground and were trimming the big low hanging trees. Those tasks have been completed and they have also paved all the roads. Some of the sites have new gravel and most sites seem to have new picnic tables. They still seem to be actively making improvements. A fencing company is currently working around the office and pool buildings.
The other difference is the occupancy of the campground. My other stays have been in the fall or spring. There were many available sites at those times. On this visit all of the sites seem to be full although there was turnover this morning. The occupancy is probably because this is the peak of the snowbird season for northerners in Florida. The other possibility is the holiday weekend. The fact that this is a holiday weekend is a surprise to me. I wasn’t thinking anything about presidents day.
Traffic in the area is also at a peak. This park is located at the major intersection of Interstate 4 and US 27. There are four lanes of traffic in both directions on US27 as well as six traffic lights in about a mile. I waited for two cycles at most of them today. At least half of the cars seem to be from out of state. It makes getting anywhere a much slower process.
I’m still working on catching up on my sleep. I haven’t broken the habit of getting up early and going to bed late that I established over the last week at Walt Disney World. Despite trying to get to sleep earlier and sleep longer I seemed to only sleep the same short amount of time. I’ll try again tonight.
Today began warm in the sixties and climbed into the mid eighties. Warm weather for working outside preparing for travel and setting up at the other end isn’t ideal, but it is better than rain. The current weather trend is forecast to break tomorrow with the arrival of another storm front.
I said good bye to Fort Wilderness today. Departure from the fort is a little more complicated than other places. It isn’t really possible to hook up the car anywhere near my campsite. I use the overflow parking area about half a mile from my campsite. To accomplish this I need to drive the car out to the parking lot and take the campground bus back to my camping loop. Then I finish preparing the motorhome and drive it out to the overflow parking lot to mate up with the toad. I also took advantage of the parking lot to kill time from the 11AM checkout time to the 1PM check in time at my next stop less than twenty miles away.
The shortest distance between the two locations proved to be the longer time wise. I elected to use Interstate 4 to avoid all the traffic lights on the other route. Instead of an easier trip, most of the distance on I-4 was in stop and go traffic through construction. I suspect the traffic light route would have been less stressful. I arrived at the Orlando Southwest KOA at 1:45PM. I’ve stayed here many times before. It is a good filler between state park stays. This time I’ll be here until Sunday.
Site 35 at the Orlando Southwest KOA.
I enjoyed my stay at Fort Wilderness and my visits to the theme parks. Now I need to catch up on my rest. The nature of the place calls for early mornings and late nights. Even though I was back in my RV home every afternoon, the fatigue adds up. Yesterday I was falling asleep in the dark queue area for Avatar Flight of Passage. It is not surprising that you see lots of kids sleeping in carriages and others having a meltdown. The over tired adults are a little harder to identify. You see rude behavior, but it is hard to know if that is tiredness or their natural behavior.
The improving weather trend continued today. The temperature climbed into the low eighties under a clear sky and a light wind. The trend is forecast to continue until Friday.
Blossom of the day.
This is my last full day at Fort Wilderness. It is a perfect day for catching up on some of the things I wasn’t able to do earlier in my stay. Most of those things were at Animal Kingdom, so that’s where I started my day. The park didn’t seem as busy as it was Monday. I also got there half and hour or more earlier. Wait times were not as long.
My first ride of the day was the Kilimanjaro Safari. This morning the wait was listed as twenty five minutes compared to the hour it listed at on Monday. I was onboard the ride truck in less than the advertised time. The animals were very active and I saw more than usual.
After the safari and a walk through the nearby Gorilla trail, I headed to Pandora to ride Avatar Flight of Passage. This is a ride I’ve never ridden. The wait times are usually in the seventy to eighty minute range if not higher. Today I was willing to wait it out. The posted wait time was sixty five minutes. I reached the pre show area in sixty minutes and was finished with the ride an hour and a half after I got in line. Flight of Passage is a motion simulator type ride that emulates a ride on a giant bird like creature called a Banshee. The trip through the wilds of Pandora is beautiful visually, but it is filled with dramatic drops, climbs and turns. Somehow I survived the ride without any real nausea. The worst part of the ride was the long wait filled with a little fear of the ride. I might ride again if the wait is shorter.
After a return to my RV home for a short nap, I made a brief visit to Magic Kingdom. My goal was twofold. First I wanted to watch the Flag retreat ceremony and second I wanted to get another Brownie Sunday for desert. Both missions were accomplished with a ride on the People Mover and watching a character cavalcade thrown in for good measure.
This evening I made one last trip to the beach on Bay Lake to watch the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom. While the show is more complete from inside the park with all the projections, the solitude at the beach can’t be beat. The crowds in the Magic Kingdom for fireworks are food for nightmares.
Today’s temperature was one of extremes. This morning it was about fifty degrees. By afternoon it was in the high seventies only to drop quickly into the sixties when the sun set. All of this made dressing for the temperature a real challenge. I left my RV home for the theme park in a long sleeve shirt and sweatshirt. By mid morning I was carrying the sweatshirt and wishing I had a short sleeve shirt on. For my afternoon and evening trip back into the theme park I wore a short sleeve shirt and carried my sweatshirt. I put it on shortly after sunset.
Before I departed for Hollywood Studios this morning I tried unsuccessfully to make another reservation in a Florida State Park for next winter. The new web interface continues to frustrate me. This morning, no only was I unsuccessful, but the attempt delayed my trip to Hollywood Studios long enough that the wait times for rides was through the roof by the time I go there. I still haven’t been on Star Wars Rise of the Resistance despite several attempts. Waiting an hour or even a little longer would have been acceptable today, but the listed wait time was 120 minutes. Later in the day it was down.
I saw a couple of shows and road Toy Story Mania after a reasonable wait. I’m not very good at hitting the targets from the ride vehicle. My score was below average. After the ride the heat and my lack of food necessitated a return to my RV home for the rest of the afternoon.
In the evening I returned to Epcot. My goal was to watch the Harmonious nighttime show for the last time. Disney has announced that the last show will be at the beginning of April. I like the show content, but I don’t like the location. The show is only completely visible from a limited number of locations around the World Showcase lagoon. If you aren’t in one of those locations you don’t get the full value of the show. I think Disney understands that fact and is replacing after only a short run.
The temperature got down into the forties overnight. It was fifty five inside my RV home at 7AM. I returned to my warm bed changing my plans for the day. The temperature reached seventy about 4PM, but dropped rapidly back into the fifties as soon as the sun set. Tonight is forecast to be back in the forties.
My original plan was to be at Disney’s Animal Kingdom for early opening for resort guests at 8:30AM. When I went back to bed this morning that plan went out the window. It was 8:30 when I finally got out of bed. The only thing that broke my slumber was the noise in the campground. I found out why the nearby sites were empty last night. A tree service arrived the first thing this morning to remove a big tree. They needed the sites empty to get access to the three foot diameter tree.
Random Animals at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
I set out for the Animal Kingdom about 9:15AM. It took two buses to get there. They first bus is the internal campground bus and the second is the bus from the front of the resort to the Animal Kingdom. Both buses arrived with very little wait time. I arrived at the Animal Kingdom a little before 10AM and found myself in a long line just to get into the park. It was an indicator of things to come. Everything had a long wait time. I walked around the entire park viewing the animals along the trails. The wait for the safari ride was over 80 minutes, so I never checked out those animals. The other thing I did during my visit was watch the Lion King Show.
Lion King Show Pictures
After an enjoyable, but not terribly productive few hours at the Animal Kingdom, I returned to my RV home for some food and park down time. Around 5PM I set out for Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The bus connections didn’t work as well. It took a full hour to get to the studios from Fort Wilderness. My goal for the evening was to watch Fantasmic, the night time show. I wandered around the park, had some food and got a seat for the 8PM show. Fantasmic was fantastic.
Today’s weather was dramatically different form yesterday. The sun was out this morning, but the temperature was in the low sixties. If never got near seventy all day. The temperature wasn’t the real issue. It was the wind. The wind speeds were very high all day. For a period of time this afternoon the Disney boats were all taken out of service. The only Disney transportation leaving the resort were the buses.
I spent the day at Fort Wilderness and the Wilderness Lodge. Many residents of the campground departed this morning. Several of the sites around me are still empty tonight. This seems to be a slow time at the Fort. I was able to make the reservation for this site last fall. Usually it is necessary to book closer to a year out. The fact that I could book this site and that there are others open tonight is even more remarkable when you consider that almost 100 sites in the campground are closed for maintenance. The 1400 loops and the 600 loop are all blocked off while new power and cable wires are run to each of the sites. The main Meadows pool is also closed for maintenance this month.
The people who camp at Fort Wilderness love to decorate their sites. For Halloween and Christmas just about every site is decorated. Some of the displays are very elaborate. Other holidays like St. Patrick Day and Independence Day get their share of decorating too, but I’m surprised to see a fair amount of decorating for Valentines Day. Blowup Mickey and Minnie Mouse figures exchanging hearts and flowers seem to be popular. I also spotted other slightly more generic Valentines displays.
After wandering around the campground checking out the sites, I stopped at the horse barn to visit the horses and ponies. All of the horses that pull various Disney wagons and carriages live in a barn. They can be seen pulling carriages around the campground or even in parades at the Magic Kingdom. There is also a small pony cart for the Shetland Ponies. Other ponies are used for kids rides in the corral behind the barn. Other horses, for adult trail rides, are at a different barn near the entrance to Fort Wilderness.
Calliope carriage on display at the horse barn.
After visiting the horses, I took the bus through the woods to the Wilderness Lodge. In the past, you could walk a mile long trail to the lodge, but the construction of a new resort on the shore of Bay Lake where River country used to reside put an end to the walk. The construction was in the site preparation phase when it was suspended at the start of the pandemic. A plan to resume construction has not been announced.
The Wilderness Lodge was very quiet in the middle of the afternoon. Everyone was probably off at one of the theme parks. There were a few people braving the temperature and wind to take a dip in the pool. Others were gathered at the bars watching the Super Bowl pregame activities.
This evening I bundled up and walked back to the beach on Bay Lake beyond the Settlement area. I tried to video the 8:15 showing of the Enchantment Fireworks from the Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately, the wind noise on the video completely drowned out the music and I didn’t have a long enough lens to capture them well. The fireworks were still enjoyable as usual.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 