Tuesday October 4th 2022

It was another beautiful day weather wise. After a cool start in the low sixties the mercury climbed into the low seventies. There was a blue sky and bright sun all day. The wind was hardly noticeable. Overall it was another comfortable fall day in the middle of Georgia.

I drove around the area a bit to check things out today. There seems to be a lot of empty and abandoned businesses and buildings. At this interstate exit alone there are four closed businesses. They appear to have been closed for some time judging by the weeds invading the parking lot and building structures. Closer to town I saw empty stores in some of the strip malls. I’m guessing this area has seen more prosperous times.

The local Walmart was about as busy as I would expect on a Tuesday afternoon. There were plenty of shoppers, but no backup at the registers. This store had less space dedicated to food than many. It was also organized a little different. There was not as clear a delineation between the sections. The produce section overlapped the freezer section and the meet section. The dairy and deli sections also merged into the beverage area. In the aisles the space allocated for various products and the number of options was limited do to the size of the area of the store set aside for food.

One odd thing in the store was the total absence of eggs. I wasn’t looking for eggs, but it was hard to miss all of the empty black plastic egg crates. Even the organic and specialty brands were sold out. I wonder if this has anything to do with the hurricane. Might the laying hens live in the hurricane ravaged area? There were no signs to indicate why they were out of eggs or when they might have them.

This is my last day at this location. Tomorrow I resume my return to Florida. I have about 100 miles to my next stop just south of the boarder in Jennings Florida. I’ll be at another KOA that I have been to before. This was my best option for the holiday weekend.

Monday October 3rd 2022

Fall weather seems to have arrived. The overnight temperature is routinely getting down into the sixties or lower. With the cooler start to the day, it takes more energy to get the temperature to a high level. Today started off sunny in the low sixties. Before the sun could warm the air much from the morning low heavy clouds moved through the area. The blue sky was back by late afternoon, but the temperature never made it to seventy. The average temperature for this time of year is in the low eighties.

The clouds moved in just in time to divert any ambition I had for the day. Thinking it might rain I decided to stay at home. It became a common day after travel. Exploring the campground was the extent of my adventure for the day. This is an older campground that isn’t in the best condition. From my conversation at check in yesterday, I learned the campground management is new. Based on a sign I saw on the highway the campground may have just been or soon will be sold. There is a lot of potential here, but maintenance has clearly been deferred. It is perfectly good for an overnight or two and that is exactly what it is getting used for. RVs flooded in yesterday afternoon and evening only to leave this morning. This afternoon the pattern repeated.

On my exploration of the campground I didn’t find anything photogenic. There aren’t any flowers in bloom either planted or wild. Even the squirrels didn’t want their pictures taken. They scurried up the nearest tree as soon as I got near. I had to look to the sky for the pictures in this blog entry.

Sunday October 2nd 2022

It was another cool overnight. The temperature was in the low sixties as I packed up and got ready to travel this morning. By the time the daylight hours ended the temperature was around eighty. On the early part of my travel day there was a gusty wind. I was packed and on the road by 10:30AM.

Interstate 75 in Georgia and Florida is one of my least favorite interstate highways in the nation. Even Interstate 95 in the northeast corridor is more tolerable. The road condition is better than many other interstate highways, but traffic is always heavy. Much of the traffic is made up of big trucks. Most of the trucks are traveling faster than I normally cruise, but a few are slower than I am. I try to maintain a 65MPH speed. Passing is complicated by having to find an opening in the fast moving trucks in the next lane with enough opening that I can gain the five to ten miles per hour necessary to run with the big boys. It takes all of my attention to drive on this road.

Today there were a number of big slow downs. The first slow down lasted for thirty five minutes. I only traveled two miles in that time before it miraculously opened up a little and traffic returned to normal speed. There probably was an accident, but I saw no evidence. Later slow downs were not as dramatic. Just lots of brake lights requiring a speed drop into the thirties for a few hundred yards.

Among the traffic on Interstate 75 today was more hurricane recovery material. There were a few more utility trucks with power line equipment in convoy. A couple of flatbed trucks passed with generators big enough to supply small office buildings. A little while later I passed another flatbed truck with a single huge generator onboard. This thing was as big as a small building all by itself. What it is intended to power would be interesting to know.

I deliberately broke up my travel back to Florida into two segments. Each segment is a little under 100 miles long. First it breaks the torture of driving on I75 into two days and second I want to give Florida campgrounds a chance to recover if they need it. Even with the traffic slow downs, the short distance meant that I needed to kill some time in a rest area.

I was trying to time my arrival for 1:30. It would have worked if I had managed to fill my gas tank before I arrived. Unfortunately the stations had other ideas. The first was filled with cars waiting for a pump. There wasn’t room for me to wait. The second station was a Pilot with a dedicated RV pumps, but the pump was pumping very slowly. I was warned off by a motorhome attempting to fill his tanks in front of me. A regular pump on the end of the row was available so I circled the station and pulled up to that pump. It was broken. I gave up. I’ll get gas at the start of my next travel day.

I arrived at the Cordele KOA Journey in Cordele Georgia at about 1:20PM. I will be here until Wednesday.

Saturday October 1st 2022

It was in the sixties this morning, but by early afternoon the temperature climbed into the low eighties. The sky was blue and the sun was bright all day. Occasionally, the wind would gust despite a normally calm day.

This was my last day hiding out in central Georgia from hurricane Ian. It turned out to be a good place to stay out of the wrath of the storm. In reality the track of the storm was far enough south and east that I didn’t have to run, but I would have been on the edge for a long time. I always prefer to be out of the danger zone. Tomorrow I’ll return south about half way to Florida for a few days. On Wednesday I’ll move down to just south of the Florida line for the holiday weekend. From there I have about a week of time to fill before I have a week booked at Jetty Park in Port Canaveral. The week I need to fill should be in the area of Ian’s path, so the places need a few days to get settled.

Today was a TV day and watching a few YouTube live streams of Disney’s EPCOT 40 anniversary celebration. The park has a few special events to honor the October 1st 1982 opening of the park. It makes me want to be there. Unfortunately, all of the TV and YouTube kept me from getting as much of the pretravel day tasks accomplished. I’ll do a few tonight and the rest in the morning. Checkout is at 11AM.

This campground is clearly back in the short stop for travelers mode. More than twenty RVs departed this area of the campground this morning. When I walked around the campground later in the day, I saw many more empty sites in the other areas of the campground as well. This evening more RVs arrived, but I don’t think there were as many occupied sites as last night.

Friday September 30th 2022

The day began as a dreary overcast day. On a positive note, the cloud cover kept the temperature from dropping as low this morning. It was in the mid sixties inside this morning. Late in the afternoon the cloud cover thinned out enough to allow some sun to peak through and the temperature to rise to around seventy. An occasionally gusty wind out of the north blew most of the day. While the weather was influenced by the hurricane, the actual bad weather associated with the storm will remain many miles to the east.

The atmosphere at the campground has returned to one of normal travelers and general campers. More of the people that took refuge from the hurricane have departed. Both of my neighbors were gone early this morning. I believe one of them was from the Tampa area so they will probably find everything OK, but the other was from further south on the Peninsular. I didn’t hear exactly where, but I wish them luck. Tonight I have an empty site on one side and a normal traveler from Pennsylvania on the other. It may be my own attitude, but things seem calmer.

What happened to September? Tomorrow is the first of October. Today I caught up on a few chores around the RV and tried to look at my travel plans once I leave here on Sunday. Unfortunately I’ve let another holiday weekend sneak up on me. The second Monday in October is a holiday for many. A couple of the places I’d like to stay as I make my way back into Florida are fully booked. I will likely spend the weekend at a campground away from any attractions. They usually don’t fill up. I have three weeks before I stop traveling for a month in the Orlando area. This is the start of my fully booked winter season. During the three week period it looks like I will stay at five or six different campgrounds. It doesn’t look like the hurricane will impact availability at the places I’m considering. For some of my reservations later in the winter that may be more of an issue. It remains to be seen how quickly some of the state parks in the areas impacted by the hurricane reopen.

September 29th 2022

It was cool inside my RV home again this morning. The temperature was in the fifties. The morning sun is blocked by trees and the slop of a hill, so it is slow to warm up from natural sources. I refuse to put the heater on before the end of September. To stay warm I had several layers on inside and took them off when I stepped outside. In the sun it was about ten degrees warmer than inside until early afternoon when the sun got a clear shot at my RV home. There was also a very strong breeze for much of the day. A high pressure system and the hurricane seemed to be having a contest of wills that results in lots of wind in this area. The temperature peaked around seventy with a fifteen mile per hour northeast wind and stronger gusts. The latest path for the hurricane passes north and east of here. There isn’t even any rain in the forecast.

I continued to watch the hurricane coverage on the Weather channel and DirecTV’s special local channel feed. Today the Weather Channel focused on damage assessments in the Fort Meyers area and the local feeds from the Orlando area covered the active storm as it finished its wave of destruction in Florida. In the Orlando area most of the damage is from the more than a foot of rain from the storm. Some of the flooding looks as bad as the storm surge flooding in Fort Meyers.

Paying so much attention to the media coverage of the storm along with being surrounded by people that have evacuated because of the storm, has put me in a form of limbo. I feel like I’m in a life pause waiting to continue when the storm clears. In reality this stop is just like any other stop on my rambling road trip. My home is wherever I park my RV. Many of my neighbors were wandering around the campground with their cell phones out talking with people about conditions in their home areas. Clearly they are starting to get ready to return to Florida. The people in the small trailer beside me went out and bought a number of gallon jugs of water to take with them. The campground is not full tonight. Many people have already moved on. I will start back toward Florida on Sunday. It will be at a much slower pace than my trip north.

In between walks around the park today, I worked on my laptop computer. It is about eight years old and is starting to show signs of failing. Today I worked on the task of making sure I have a good full backup. Most of the time I keep more partial backups making sure I have a copy of what I am working on in the Cloud and on removable media. The other task will be to try to free up a lot of space on the disk. My plan is to keep using the Windows laptop until it dies. I also have a Chromebook, so I won’t be left high and dry when it crashes.

Wednesday September 28th 2022

With millions of people feeling the wrath of hurricane Ian, I shouldn’t complain about the weather. However, I was cold this morning. It was in the low fifties inside my RV home when I got up this morning. The fact that I left a couple of windows open overnight didn’t help, but it has been months since I experienced such low temperatures. Today’s high was in the very low seventies under a cloudy sky. The low temperatures here may be the reason the current hurricane track is further east from here.

I spent most of the day obsessing over the hurricane. The Weather Channel and the special DirecTV feed of local TV stations in the hurricanes path were my primary focus. The Ft Meyers, Naples and Tampa stations provided lots of local insight into the storm. Adding to my interest is the fact that I’ve been in many of the areas they talk about. This evening the west coast of Florida TV stations have been augmented by Orlando based TV stations. Watching DirecTV’s special local station feed is also frustrating. It is heavily curated and they switch between stations every few minutes just when you get interested.

The storms current path projection once it gets through with Florida has moved further east. The impact on my current location is getting less sever. The strongest part of the wind and rain will arrive here late Friday into Saturday. It is interesting to note that the storm hasn’t arrived yet at my last location in Perry Florida and it may not have much impact there. I’m still glad I bugged out. This storm continues to prove that the weather service just can’t predict the path with any accuracy until it is too late to react.

Many of the Florida based RVs that filled the park last night moved on this morning. They are continuing their run from the storm. This afternoon a new set of people running from the storm arrived to fill the sites that were vacated. There are also a handful of northern state residents headed for Florida that are waiting here before continuing south. Last night and tonight there seems to be a frenzy in the park that isn’t normal for regular travelers. For one example there seems to be more trips in and out of the park by arrivals after they get setup. Another observation is the number of dogs some people are traveling with. Two dogs is not uncommon, but the couple in the motorhome beside me have three large dogs. They probably take up more space inside than the people. I also saw another couple walking four dogs tonight.

Tuesday September 27th 2022

Today was the day to escape from the potential devastation heading for the Florida peninsular. It is still a long way away, but there is no chance it won’t arrive. The blue sky wasn’t out this morning, but more because of cold front than the approaching storm. I found the blue sky at the end of my escape this afternoon.

I was up early more out of anticipation than a need to rush. I finished the packing and was on the road by 10:30AM. My first stop was at a gas station less than a mile up the road. A full tank at the start of my journey was a big weight off my shoulders. I didn’t want to worry if I ended up in a mass exodus once I reached Interstate 75.

The first part of my trip north was along US 221 through towns and farm lands. Once I merged with Interstate 75 in Valdosta Georgia traffic became very heavy. Interstate 75 is always filled with trucks. I do not enjoy playing hopscotch with them. Today there were plenty of cars mixed in with the trucks. The license tags on the majority were from Florida. They were likely fellow escapees.

The south bound side of the Interstate was not as busy, but perhaps heavier than normal. Between the usual trucks in the south bound lane were workers heading into the storm. Utility trucks in groups of five or more filled every mile. I am sure I saw several hundred in total. There were also plenty of tree service trucks and medical vans. Along with the bucket trucks and pole service vehicles there were flatbed trucks with earth moving equipment and loads of replacement transformers. I’ve seen the power company and tree service trucks heading into the storm area before, but the medical vans were new to me. They weren’t ambulances just vans with medical names or symbols. They are probably filled with people to support shelters or aid centers.

I arrived at the KOA in Forsyth Georgia around 2:30PM. I was third in line to check in when I arrived and soon there were two more RVs behind me. The park has a rarely used no vacancy sign on display. I’ve stayed at this park several times before. The first time was when I ran from hurricane Mathew in 2016. I am parked in an open area with good drainage on the side of a hill. The forecast for this area calls for rain starting overnight Friday into Saturday. The peak wind is only forecast to be around 30MPH. I’ll be here until Sunday. After that it depends how bad Florida gets hit.

Monday September 26th 2022

It was another nice day in the low nineties. The sky was mostly blue with an occasional fluffy cloud. The wind was close to nonexistent most of the day. Overall it was a very comfortable day without any indication that a major hurricane is on the way.

This morning I got the first indication that the campground knew a storm was coming. They issued a text message around 8AM telling people to dump their tanks because the sewage system would be turned off later in the day. I’m not sure what “turned off” meant, but I gut my tanks dumped and the hose stowed away. Later in the day the campground staff was verifying that all the caps were secured on the PVC sewer connections. Interestingly the people that came in this afternoon didn’t seem to get the message. Many connect to the sewer as usual.

The campground staff was also securing loose furniture. They collected the umbrellas from all of the patio sites. The pool furniture was all collected and stacked in the corner of the pool area. They seemed to be driving their golf carts in random patterns looking for anything else to secure. If they are staying here they have time. The storm is not forecast to arrive in this area before Thursday night. It has really slowed down and the current path is a little more to the east than yesterday’s.

I spent the day getting ready to run north tomorrow. It is likely that I’ll still be in the storms path, but I’d rather be two hundred plus miles inland than a tiny twenty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. People from further south on the Peninsular have already started evacuations. Most of the people that arrived in the campground this evening are heading north. I plan to get going in the morning. The route I’ve planned keeps me on secondary roads the first sixty or seventy miles until I’m north of Valdosta Georgia. My only issue may be finding gas along the way. My guess is I can make it all the way without filling up, but I’ll be on fumes.

Sunday September 25th 2022

Judging by today’s great weather you would never know that this area is in the path of a tropical storm for later in the week. It was a sunny day with low humidity and a high temperature around ninety. Today was a few degrees warmer than Saturday and tomorrow is forecast to be a few degrees warmer still.

I spent the day watching football and the weather channel. The football was enjoyable, but the weather channel was annoyingly alarming. They have to talk about worst case scenarios and attempt to prepare everyone for possible devastation. The challenge is to understand the real risk to you as an individual based on all the information they throw at you. It doesn’t help that many of the meteorologists get really excited about the severe weather like a science experiment. Some of them act like little kids in a candy store except the candy is data and the upset stomach that follows is destruction of property.

The storm is still on a path right for my current location then up into Georgia. The change seems to be to the speed of the storm. It seems to have slowed down by about a day. The worst will get here on Thursday. I plan to leave here Tuesday morning for the middle of Georgia. That area is still in the likely cone, but now it is forecast to be impacted on Friday. If the storm slows down any more I may need to move again. My current reservation ends on Saturday.

This campground is still business as usual. I keep wondering if anyone from the campground will stop and ask what my plans relative to the storm might be. All of the weekenders departed this morning. By mid afternoon new arrivals started to fill in some of the sites vacated. My guess is that most of them will move on in the morning. The park dump station also got a lot of use from outsiders this afternoon. The first group seemed to be from the people that were dry camping at the BBQ Festival up the road. The BBQ trailers behind the motorhomes were a bit of a give away. Later in the day, my guess the people that needed to make sure their tanks were empty before putting their units in storage were using the dump station.