Tuesday July 26th 2022

The day began hazy and cloud covered, but progressed to partly cloudy and then full sunshine. The temperature peaked in the low nineties with average humidity for this time of year. Once again today the rain was elsewhere in the state of Florida.

Today was lawn mowing day at the RV park. It seems like a more efficient activity here than at other places I have stayed. One or two guys did the whole park. I think they were part of the local staff. They started around 9AM and finished up mid afternoon. The loud noise was only around my RV home for a short period of time and everything looked neat and clean after.

During the cloudy part of the day I set out to explore a mixed use trail near the campground. I had to drive a couple of miles to the trail head. It turned out to be in a very open area with fields and low level vegetation. The nice shady tree covered path I expected was nowhere to be found. Since the sun was starting to make its presences known, I decided hiking on this trail would be better at another time. Also, it was probably better suited to biking.

My area of the campground is still quite empty tonight, but other areas of the park seem to be a little more occupied. Overall I think the park is about as full tonight as it was a week ago when I arrived. My guess is that the place will fill up as the weekend approaches.

Monday July 25th 2022

This area dodged the afternoon rain showers once again today. It was a humid day with the high temperature in the low nineties. A nice breeze kept the outside comfort level tolerable.

I spent the day catching up on chores around my RV home. It wasn’t the plan for the day, but when I discovered a layer of dust, one thing lead to another and I spent most of the day cleaning and rearranging. Since I like to keep the windows open and fans blowing as much as possible, the dust accumulates quickly. It took a lot of damp cloth, mop and vacuum cleaner action even in the small space to get things back in order. My guess it has been more than a month since I did more than a cursory cleaning.

More of the weekend crowd departed the campground this morning. Another six RVs in view from my site left before the 11AM checkout this morning. Later in the day three RVs from California arrived to occupy some of the sites. I’m not sure they are traveling together since they arrived over the course of a couple of hours and are on widely scattered sites, but it would seem like a big coincidence.

Sunday July 24th 2022

It was sunny and humid with a high temperature in the low nineties which is pretty normal. The exception to the norm was the lack of rain. There were no afternoon thunderstorms.

My main accomplishment for the day was restocking my food supply. This Walmart was a real challenge this afternoon. WARNING: I am about to get on my soapbox. First there were no carts available. I passed plenty in the parking lot, but I didn’t think to grab one outside. I had to wait for a departing customer to turn over their cart. There didn’t seem to be that many customers in the store. Perhaps they were all there earlier in the day.

There were more Walmart employees in the aisles using their carts with blue bins to collect items for online orders than I usually see. These carts and people can be a real obstruction. The carts are slightly wider than regular carts and the employees seem to park them in the middle of the aisle while they wander around looking for some obscure item. Getting by them is one more challenge. The impression is fulfillment of online orders is more important than the business and convenience of in store customers.

When I reached the checkouts I saw another indicator that in store customers are not a priority. There was only one assisted checkout open. It had a line ten people deep. The self service checkout had a shorter line. I don’t like self service checkouts, but will use them in these situations. Today I had two items that the bar code wouldn’t scan. The first item I could laboriously enter the code manually, but the second the code was also unreadable. There was nobody around to assist. They didn’t get the few cents of profit from that item and at some point in time they will have to expend labor to restock the item. I just left it beside the register and finished checking out. One or more of the employees blocking the aisles for online orders should have been assigned to the checkouts. This ends today’s Walmart rant.

Walking around the campground this afternoon I found the place emptier than anytime since I arrived last Tuesday. Most of the weekend crowd had departed and others seemed to be getting ready to leave in the morning. A few new arrivals filled some of the vacant sites later in the afternoon.

Saturday July 23rd 2022

Today was a bit of a rain out activity wise. Based on the weather forecast I expected the daily rain to be late in the afternoon. A thunderstorm arrived shortly after noon. It was a very heavy storm and it stalled overhead. For about two hours it rained very hard. The roar on the roof of my RV home was so loud I put my noise canceling ear buds in and listen to podcasts on my phone. That set the mood for an afternoon of inactivity.

The only thing I have for tonight’s blog entry are a few pictures of Hibiscus blossoms I took on my walk around the campground after the rain. It was a very humid exercise in puddle avoidance.

Friday July 22nd 2022

There was a little bit of rain in the early afternoon, but for the most part it was a sunny day. With only a little breeze and medium humidity the low nineties temperature seemed much warmer.

When I got up this morning I thought I missed an evacuation order. Two of my neighbors had already departed and while I was having breakfast five more RVs in the immediate area pulled out. This area of the RV park really looked empty. I could only assume that most of the sites were reserved by other people for the weekend. For the most part that seems to have proven true. Most but not all of the empty sites have new residents tonight.

There is also a small RV club of some sort enjoying a weekend in the park. Many of the RVs in one area of the park have similar signs with the name of the RV Club and the name of the occupant. There seem to be around ten RVs. Most of them seem to be from Georgia. So far I haven’t seen any indication of them gathering for group events, but I assume they will.

I ventured out of the campground this afternoon to checkout changes in the area. It turned into a lot of driving and not much seeing. I avoided the center of town, so I didn’t see any thing remarkable.

Thursday July 21st 2022

This area avoided the afternoon thunderstorms today. There were a few storms in the downtown Jacksonville area, but St. Augustine stayed dry today. The temperature peaked in the low nineties with a comfortable humidity level.

I drove over to the beaches along the Atlantic Ocean for entertainment today. Driving along route A1A in St Augustine beach I saw a new to me pedestrian protection measure. At every cross walk there was a bucket of orange flags with a sign instructing people to carry and wave the flags as they crossed the street. I didn’t see anyone using them, and I can’t imagine what good they really do, but it is a colorful idea. I wonder how many flags they lose to enchanted kids.

Further south along the coast I stopped at a beach just south of Marine Land. There were many areas of sand blocked off with sticks and tape. The enclosures are intended to protect areas with sea turtle eggs. All of the beach goers had to avoid the area between the beach and the dune with the marked off areas.

Overall it was a nice beach day for those inclined to sunbath, swim, surf or just comb the beach. I was on a scenery viewing mission not one of the traditional beach activities. If I was interested in getting in the water I would have been more inclined to jump in the Intercostal waterway. The beach areas on that area had lots of swimmers, boaters and others frolicking in the water. It looked like a lot more fun.

When I got back to the RV resort I had to maneuver around several RVs waiting to check in. It looks like the park is beginning to fill up for the weekend. Traveling to my site at the back of the campground I passed many sites that had been occupied since I left a few hours before.

Wednesday July 20th 2022

Today’s weather followed the same pattern as yesterday. Shortly afternoon a line of thunderstorms arrived in the area. Rain and thunderstorms continued off and on all afternoon. This is a relatively normal pattern for Florida in the summer, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Except, on Monday I heard a forecast for the week that called for higher temperatures and less rain than normal. That forecast was wrong.

Yesterday was a long travel day with the stress associated with a move. As a result I slept into the late morning. I didn’t have much time to get the remaining camp setup tasks complete before the weather started to look threatening. My second activity of the day had to wait until the first wave of storms moved through. Walking around the resort to see what has changed since my last visit in May of 2021 was an exercise in dodging puddles.

There are no new structures, roads or camp sites, but they have put a lot of new gravel down to level out sites. Everything looks a little neater than I remember it. The other nice thing was all the blossoms on the hibiscus bushes around a couple of the buildings. The ground plantings also made the flower beds look well manicured.

The resort appears to be about two thirds full. There seems to be a mix of people living here temporarily, travelers and vacationers. Since St. Augustine is a tourist destination it is not surprising to find a different mix than at the last few places I’ve stayed.

Tuesday July 19th 2022

I was up early to get ready to travel. The nice sunny morning complicated my travel preparations. A few minutes working outside in the sun resulted in dripping sweat. There was enough time before the 11AM checkout that I could take plenty of breaks to sit, drink water and cool off. It was a couple of minutes after 11AM as I pulled out of the campground.

My first stop was for gas before I got on the Interstate. Georgia is still suspending some of the gas tax, so gas is much less expensive than Florida. I paid four dollars a gallon this morning in Georgia. The price in Florida was about thirty cents a gallon higher. There was a little drama at the gas station. The first pump I tried didn’t work. It looked like the computer control crashed and couldn’t reboot. I had to swing around the truck parking lot and reposition at a different pump.

My understanding of the weather forecast differed from reality. I thought it was going to be a rain free day, but as I drove south toward St. Augustine Florida dark clouds filled the southern horizon. As I got closer, I could see a lot of lightening in the black clouds. I drove into rain shortly after that. The center of the storm was not in my path. The rain I had to drive through was not heavy. When I arrived at my destination, Sun Outdoors St. Augustine, formerly known as Compass RV resort, the rain had let up. Plenty of deep puddles showed the volume of rain I missed. Several other periods of rain passed through as the afternoon progressed. So much for it being a dry day.

I have stayed at this RV resort several times in the past. The name change seems to only be for purposes of branding the resort with its parent company Sun Outdoors. They have been the owner for several years, but the name changed this year. Tomorrow I’ll wander around the resort to see what may have changed.

Monday July 18th 2022

The weather was very uncooperative today. It was bright and close to sunny this morning, but it didn’t last. I usually kick off the lethargy of a leisurely breakfast and internet surfing around noon. Today the rain was on the same schedule. The first line of storms for the day moved into the area just after noon. Any thoughts of going out went out of my head as the rain hit the roof. The rain slacked off and stop after a couple of hours. A second round of rain arrived at the dinner hour.

I got a few travel preparation tasks completed today, but for the most part it was a very lazy day. During the lull between rain events in the afternoon, I got in one walk around the campground. The noise and activity of the weekend were over. There were far more empty sites than occupied ones. As the day went by only a couple more RVs arrived. It will be even more empty when I leave in the morning (not that anyone will notice). I am traveling to St. Augustine Florida as I continue to tread water in northeast Florida.

Sunday July 17th 2022

Most of the day was nice and sunny with low humidity and a low high temperature in the upper eighties. The exception to that norm came as the sun was setting. A thunderstorm started to rumble to the southwest. Shortly after dark a light rain started to fall on the roof of my RV home. It is still raining as I am writing this blog entry.

The campground emptied out quickly this morning. My immediate neighbor departed before I was ready to get out of bed. That left a neighbor two sites away to depart. They were late departing because of a mechanical difficulty. Their patio awning wouldn’t stow into travel position. It turned into a real production between the camper and a couple of the campground staff. Basically, they had to disassemble one of the support arms to get the awning retracted. I’m not sure how they ended up securing the support arm for travel, but they were on the road after an hour or two delay. While I sympathized with their situation, it was an entertaining morning.

During the afternoon I returned to downtown Historic St. Mary’s. There were many other people that had the same idea to walk along the river and sit in the park watching the action in the river. While I was there several pleasure and fishing boats were launched at the boat ramp. I am always amazed by some of the antics people go through to launch their boats. Today I saw one guy hanging by his knees over the bow of his boat to disconnect the cable from the trailer. Why he didn’t do it before he got in the boat is a mystery. I spent a couple of hours getting more entertainment from people watching.