There were a few periods of heavy rain overnight. The result was a little less humidity today, but it was still higher than normal for this time of year. The temperature also continued to be above normal. It peaked above 85 degrees.
Today was the day for my nemesis of campground activities. It was lawn mowing day. Around 8AM I woke to the sound of lawn moving. Initially it was distant sound, but as I debated getting out of bed the sound got closer. It was time to get up and there was no way I’d get back to sleep with the distraction, so I got a reasonable start to the day. When I got out of the shower a few minutes later, the sound of the lawn mower was right outside my windows. It was another hour before I couldn’t hear the sound of lawn mowing somewhere in the park. My obsession or annoyance with campground lawn mowing is just plain weird.
Chores around my RV home took up most of my time today. In between the various tasks I took a couple of walks around the RV resort. The local birds were all hiding in the shade on my mid day walk. On my second walk the ducks and one of the sandhill cranes were out their evening foraging. I even saw the crane with its wings spread. They are a big bird species.
The day began with a layer of fog hugging the ground. It was a clear sign of the humidity of the day. Once the sun burned the fog off the temperature climbed quickly. By the end of the day the temperature peaked just shy of ninety. It was an uncomfortable day all around. Compared to summer days in this area, it wasn’t outside the normal, but somehow once fall weather arrives, you don’t expect today’s kind of weather.
I had plans for the day that weren’t overly compatible with the weather. Today I had a reservation for Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park. I wanted to arrive by the 9AM opening time, but it was not to be. By the time I finished my breakfast it was 8:15 before I departed my RV home. All of the traffic resulted in a travel time twice my expectation. It was close to 9:30 as I entered the Animal Kingdom Park. The wait times were already high. The trend for the day was set.
The wait time for the Kilimanjaro Safari was 55 minutes. It was 9:37 when I got in line. The wait was pretty much spot on. About 10:30 I boarded my safari vehicle. There were lots of animals out today including giraffes, wildebeests, elephants, lions and tigers. I followed up my safari with a walk along the Gorilla trail. Unlike the safari, I didn’t see many animals on the walk. Only a couple of gorilla’s were in sight.
The remainder of my day at the Animal Kingdom was a lot of walking with a couple of shows thrown in for good measure. I waited about half an hour to see the Finding Nemo show and another half hour for the Lion King show. The other rides all had long wait times that I wasn’t prepared to stand in the humidity for a brief enjoyment. Most of my visit to the park was spent walking from side to side, checking out the animals and scenery. I was home shortly after 4PM.
Communities in the local area are experiencing record high temperatures. Here it was in the upper eighties near ninety, but did not set any record. The day began very humid with low cloud cover that was almost fog. The temperature didn’t start to climb until the sun broke through the clouds near the noon hour. It went up fast from noon onward.
My first stop of the day was at Camping World in Kissimmee. I don’t need anything specific. This is one of the bigger stores, so it is interesting to check out various items that I might need. Nothing crossed the threshold from don’t need to need today. I looked at replacing my outdoor chairs with newer more comfortable units, but the ones I have are fine for now. A similar though process when through my mind looking at new grills. There is always the possibility I’ll be back before I leave this area.
While I was out I took note of the gas prices. Despite the fact that the gas stations are required to collect the twenty five cents per gallon state take again starting today, the price didn’t go up twenty five cents overnight. There were various increases ranging from a couple of cents to the full twenty five cents of more. The average increase seemed to be about ten cents a gallon. This would seem to prove that the gas retailers did not pass on the full twenty five cents per gallon tax savings during the state moratorium to the consumer. Unless you believe they are eating the extra expense today so they don’t cause a price increase panic in the consumer.
My second stop of the day was for groceries. I chose to stop at a Walmart in the resort area. Since the store is near Disney and often frequented by tourists, it has a little different focus. The most obvious difference is the big area in the clothing section that is dedicated to Disney logo merchandise. The differences in the grocery section are more subtle. The emphasis on snacks, prepared food, and frozen foods is greater than at most Walmart stores. They do this by making sure all of these types of “easy” foods are quick to find and available in sufficient quantities. If I had any doubt, the contents of the carriage checking out in front of me was added proof. The lady was clearly stocking up a vacation rental. Snack foods, frozen pizza, Clorox wipes, bottled water and a few Disney T-shirts dominated the contents of the cart. It was a long wait.
On my walk around the RV park this afternoon I encountered a new species of bird. Peafowl have joined the ducks and Sandhill Cranes. I believe there was one Peacock and several Peahens wandering between the RVs. Without an elaborate plumage displace by the male I can’t be sure there was a Peacock in the mix, but one of the group was a little more colorful than the rest.
Today’s high temperature was in the upper nineties with quite a bit of humidity. The normal temperature is in the lower eighties with lower humidity. It is nothing like the Halloween temperatures I remember from childhood, but that was in the northeast.
I had one clear must do today. There has been a moratorium on the state gas tax for the month of October. Tomorrow the price of gas will increase by twenty five cents. I had to fill the tank of my Honda CR-V at the lower price. Many other people had the same goal. There were lines at the gas stations. I filled the tank at $3.15 a gallon. It will be interesting to see what they are charging tomorrow. I don’t recall a true twenty five cents drop at the beginning of the month, but somehow I expect a twenty five cents or more increase tomorrow.
The road construction in this area continues to surprise me. Several roads that used to be two lanes are getting expanded to four or six lanes. Intersections are getting broadened and traffic signals added. All of these changes are needed to handle all of the new development in the area. Fields and old citrus groves are getting turned into housing developments and shopping areas. The order of development seems a little strange. The housing units get built and immediate area roads get developed first. Then after the housing is finished they add a Publix supermarket with a selection of little stores. If its a new area, one of the corners gets a CVS and another a Walgreens. After all that, the county decides there is too much traffic for the roads in the area and starts to widen them. After a few years the whole process starts over again a little further out in the suburbs.
The RV park had a golf cart parade tonight that was more festive and well attended than the scheduled one on Saturday night. There were half a dozen well decorated carts along with speakers blasting ghoulish music. I don’t think any of the participants in Saturday’s event took part in tonight’s.
Today wasn’t a particularly blog entry worthy day. The weather was basically a repeat of Saturday. The high was in the mid eighties with lots of sun and medium humidity.
My activity level was even lower than Saturday. I spent the day watching football on TV and catching up on a few chores. On my walks around the park I encountered more Sandhill Cranes than usual. During previous walks I have seen a single pair most of the time. On one walk I saw three, but today I saw a total of five in two different areas of the park.
Saturday October 29th 2022 Today was mostly sunny and warm. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties again. It might have gone higher, but a line of threatening storms passed through late in the afternoon. They didn’t produce any rain just blocked the sun for a time.
When I got up this morning, my body told me that today was a day of rest. My legs and feet were reminding me of all of the walking I did around Magic Kingdom and Fort Wilderness yesterday. I didn’t have any kind of a distance tracker turned on but criss crossing the theme park was probably a couple of miles and at Fort Wilderness I walked around twelve of the twenty plus camping loops. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I walked close to ten miles in the park. All of the walking was on hard paved surfaces. It was worth it. The Halloween decorations were over the top.
It turned into a reading and TV watching kind of day. For exercise, I did some walking in the RV park. The local bird wildlife didn’t seem to care that I invaded their territory. The ducks and ibis continued about their foraging activity and the Sandhill Cranes gave me the side eye, but none of them moved away when I got near.
This evening the RV park had a golf cart parade to show off holiday decorations. It didn’t seem to get much interest considering the number of golf carts in the park. The “parade” contained about eight golf carts and only three or four were decorated. So much for my theory that the golf cart was the center of the social scene in this park.
Today’s weather was a step down from the previous days. It was a mostly cloudy day with an occasional rain shower in the afternoon. The overall temperature reached the mid eighties, so it was a comfortable day.
Pumpkin Mickey
My mission for the day was to view some Halloween decorations. Decorating for Halloween seems to have become as significant for some people as decorating for Christmas. Several years, particularly when I was out west, I have stayed in campgrounds that the residents really decorated for the holiday. The last couple of years I haven’t seen many RVs decorated. Today I went to Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground to see what anecdotally has been called the ultimate Halloween decorated campground.
Fort Wilderness is decorated by the campers. They personalize their campsites with all kinds of festive, spooky and generally creative decorations. Disney doesn’t encourage visitors to the campground. They have parking problems and they want to avoid crowd control issues. You can’t just drive to the campground if you aren’t staying there. Today I parked at the Magic Kingdom and took a boat to the campground. I think even that method of getting to Fort Wilderness will be restricted to people camping in the campground this weekend and on Halloween.
I started my adventure with a quick visit to the Magic Kingdom theme park. I arrived just before 1PM only to be greeted by the start of a rain shower. I dodged the rain most of the day by riding rides or eating inside. I got in four attractions, watched the Parade and the Castle stage show before it was time to make my way to Fort Wilderness.
Here are some pictures of the Halloween decorations in the Magic Kingdom.
It was still daylight when I arrived at the campground. Being very familiar with the campground from previous visits I set out to explore the various loops to check out the decorations. The majority of the sites were decorated. The most common forms of decoration were store bought blowup figures. There were lots of blowup pumpkins, ghosts, witches and of course Mickey Mouse. Some people were more creative. I saw attempts to recreate the Haunted Mansion, elaborate grave yards, and other things that were just plain creepy. After dark they got even spookier.
Shortly before 8PM I caught the boat back to the monorail at the Magic Kingdom for the ride to the parking lot. The next adventure was navigating the traffic back to my RV home. It wasn’t theme park traffic, just everyday commuter traffic combined with several construction zones. It was close to 9PM by the time I was home.
Here are some pictures of Halloween at the Fort.
This turkey on a fence post in Fort Wilderness didn’t seem impressed by the decoration or me as I walked by with in a yard of its perch.
Today’s weather was a change from the last week or so of terrific weather. It just didn’t rise to the same level of excellence. The day started cloudy, but the sun managed to make a few brief visits. Rain also made a few visits. The first was brief, but the second got everything wet and left a few puddles. Overall it didn’t rain for more than ten minutes all day. It was still a nice day overall. Tomorrow’s weather sounds like it will be returning to the previous trend.
I spent the day at home generally goofing off and not accomplishing much. A couple of walks around the RV resort broke up the day. There are a lot of mobile homes and RVs here, but I don’t think a lot of them are occupied. The slide out rooms on many of the RVs are not extended and window awnings are not deployed on some of the mobile homes. The snowbird season hasn’t gotten fully underway.
There are not a lot of people walking around in this park, but there are plenty of people out driving around in golf carts. Social gatherings seem to be gatherings of golf carts. Every time I’m out walking I see two or more golf carts pulled up beside each other often in the middle of the road. The occupants have very animated discussions from their respective carts. There is a Halloween golf cart parade scheduled for Saturday night. The golf cart really seems to be the center of the social scene at this RV park. I feel a little odd walking around. The ducks and Sandhill Cranes are the only other creatures out walking around.
The temperature climbed a few degrees into the upper eighties today. We are officially above the seasonal normal temperature now. At least the humidity is only moderate and the temperature cools off overnight. The next few days are forecast to be similar.
This afternoon I went to EPCOT in Disney World for Fish and Chips. The Yorkshire County Fish Shop in the UK pavilion serves pretty decent Fish and Chips. I’ve been looking forward to having them again all summer. Of course there are a lot of other good things about a trip to EPCOT.
Fish and Chips the object of my adventure.
I headed to the park shortly after 1PM. With the traffic and the long walk in from the parking area I arrived in the park around 2PM. My first stop was a ride in Space Ship Earth. The history of communications ride needs some maintenance. I think there were lights out in some of the areas along the ride and the newsboy audio-animatronic seemed to be missing. Disney had planned to update the ride, but the closure associated with the pandemic delayed or eliminated those plans.
After Space Ship earth I stopped in the Creations shop on my way to the Land Pavilion. This is the main merchandise store in the park. It is fun to look at tall the stuff, but I didn’t buy anything. At the Land Pavilion I wanted to ride Living with the Land. This is my go to ride at EPCOT. I try to checkout what they are growing on every visit. Today the wait was exceptionally long at 30 minutes. I chose to view both of the other attractions in the building first. I expected the wait time to be shorter after watching the Awesome Plant movie, but it wasn’t so I road Soarin’ Around the World which only had a twenty minute wait. The wait for Living with the Land never got below thirty minutes while I was in the pavilion. I’ll have to give it a higher priority on my next visit.
A Great Egret visiting the China Pavilion.
My late lunch or early dinner of Fish and Chips was next on the schedule. It was very good as usual. My slightly early timing also made it possible to find a table and seat to enjoy my meal. For company I had a number of Ibis birds watching me carefully for any dropped or leftover food. The birds can be real pests.
The Three Caballeros
Next up was a ride in the Mexico Pavilion. The Gran Fiesta Tour had a posted wait time of ten minutes. It took that and a little more to get on the ride. I think it is the longest I’ve ever waited to see the three caballeros tour Mexico. Still it was a fun boat ride.
My next stop was indented to kill time on a bench, but it turned out to be really entertaining. I stop at the American Gardens Theater to watch the Eat to the Beat Concert. Every night during the Food and Wine festival a band performs three concerts. Tonight it is a local 80s tribute band called the M-80s. They put on a good show. The concert series has more well known artists Fridays through Mondays. Some of the upcoming acts include Hanson, Boyz II Men, Kenny G and Sugar Ray.
My last ride of the night was in the France Pavilion. I waited in a line with a posted wait of 50 minutes for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The line looked a lot shorter than a posted 70 minute wait I stood in back in April. MY assumption was correct after 45 minutes I was through the line and the ride. As expected the little rat was able to prepare his feast for his friends.
My original plan was to stay for the Harmonious night time show at 9PM. It was not to be. I was feeling all the walking in the late afternoon heat. With an hour and a half to kill, I sat on a bench and almost fell asleep. It was time to go home. I’ll catch the night time show another night. Getting home through all the traffic and construction proved challenging enough.
It was a comfortable start to the day. The overnight temperatures got down into the sixties. By the middle of the afternoon the temperature peaked in the mid eighties. The forecast calls for the temperature to return to the sixties for good sleeping temperatures overnight, and there isn’t any significant chance of rain in the seven day forecast.
A couple of the nonhuman residents.
I worked on getting setup for an extended stay this morning. In addition to taking my bicycle and rack off my car, for longer stops I get out the tire covers to block the UV rays from reaching the rubber and a do a few other odd setup things. I’m looking forward to not having to move for more than a month.
Second up on the day’s activities was a food run. I was out of non frozen meat, bread and OJ. I skipped going to the grocery store before I moved on Sunday, so today I was a little overdue. It seemed like other people were overdue too. Walmart was as busy as the day before Thanksgiving. There as more than one traffic jam of shopping carts. It took a little longer than normal, but I managed to get everything I needed. Since I’m staying in one place longer, I seem to have converted my shopping habit a little. More than once today I thought “I can get that next time” instead of “I’ll get it now and not have to shop again for awhile.”
Although this is a new to me RV resort, I am very familiar with the area. I stayed nearby for four months in the winter of 2015-2016 and have returned for shorter periods of time at least once during each winter I’ve been in Florida. The bottom line is I know my way around. That came in handy today. There is a lot of road work going on in the area. I changed my route twice today to avoid roadwork, but traffic was still an issue.
Wandering around the campground today, I saw very few empty sites. It is hard to tell how many of the residents are permanent, here for the winter or for a shorter time. Clearly most of the park model homes and mobile homes are long term, but the RVs are a more difficult puzzle. The fifth wheel trailer beside me is not currently occupied. The slides are all pulled in and there is no outside furniture. I wonder when the owners will return? The park doesn’t have a lot of daily turnover. I was the only RV scheduled to arrive yesterday, but there was one leftover from Sunday that arrived a day late. The weekend might be different or maybe things will change with the arrival of the first of November. It’s all guess work to me.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 