Saturday July 16th 2022

The sun didn’t make an appearance today. It remained behind a thick layer of clouds. The good news is it didn’t rain on my RV home, but my car wasn’t so lucky. I made the mistake of driving south toward Jacksonville into some even thicker deep black clouds. My outdoor plans were rained out. I turned back to the north and drove out of the rain before I reached the Georgia boarder.

As I expected not as many RVs departed the park this morning. More people are here for the weekend rather than a single night. I’m really not good at guessing the intent of my fellow campers. I expected the people in the RV next to me to be leaving this morning, but they didn’t. They are from Massachusetts and didn’t disconnect the trailer from their truck when they arrived Friday. On the other hand the people a couple of sites down from Florida setup a whole outdoor kitchen when they arrived Friday. They were gone before 9:30 this morning.

The park pool got a lot of use today. It is a good size pool with a water slide and a refreshments stand. All of the families with kids seemed to be over there at one time or another today. The park tried to provide entertainment late in the afternoon. They sent out a text message announcing a musical performance by “one of your fellow campers” on the stage near the pool starting at 4PM. I wandered over their around 4:30 and they were packing their instruments away. It may have been a little too impromptu.

Friday July 15th 2022

It turned out to be a nice weather day. The forecast at the start of the day called for rain at any point during the day. It was cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. The temperature peaked around ninety with plenty of humidity and a gentle breeze. The threatened rain never arrived.

Today was a grocery shopping day, but I went the long way. My first stop was back on the river in downtown St. Marys. There was more wildlife around today. There were seagulls on the piers and a confused juvenile alligator in the river near the boat launching area. Alligators do not usually live in the brackish water of a tidal zone river. It was getting a lot of attention from the people trying to fish for crabs. From the gator’s perspective the crabs the people were trying to catch were the center of attention.

The grocery area of Walmart was very busy in the afternoon. Part of the community the store serves includes the Kings Bay Submarine base, so there were a few military families in the crowd. It is a well stocked store, but suffers from some the issues I’ve observed at other Walmart stores in the northeast Florida and southeast Georgia area. They don’t seem to be stocking as many alternatives as I expect. Fore example, they don’t have all the flavors of Rice-A-Roni or microwaveable rice dishes. In another area, one thing I’ve been putting off buying for the last few weeks was coffee. I have been waiting to find the larger sizes. Today I finally had to buy the smaller size container. Anything is better than running out my morning elixir. It still cost nearly as much as the larger one cost a few months ago.

In yesterday’s blog entry I wrote that the campground was probably filling up for the weekend. I was wrong. It emptied out this morning just like every other morning this week. This afternoon new arrivals filled in the empty space. I am not going to guess if they are here for the night or the weekend. My track record is terrible.

Thursday July 14th 2022

Today turned out to be an inside kind of day. The weather wasn’t bad, but just different enough from the last few days to cause a change in my behavior. The temperature didn’t get down as low last night meaning that it got hot and humid quickly this morning. I had the AC on before I finished breakfast. I ventured out for a couple of walks around the campground, but stayed in the cool comfort inside my RV home the rest of the day. The daily thunderstorms arrived after 5PM. The rain continued for a few hours.

I was busy with inside chores all day. The most annoying task was a carryover from last night. My Windows laptop was applying all of the latest Windows 10 updates. I’ve had updates turned off for the last few weeks, because I was connecting via expensive and limited Cellular Data. At this park there is good free WiFi available. I changed the settings when I was finished updating the blog last night and the updates started to download. I allowed the system to reboot once last night before I went to bed. This morning it needed two more reboots. Hopefully it will be stable for a few more weeks. It is practically unusable while it is updating.

I also got a little bit of cleaning done and got one of two new seat covers installed on the seats in the motorhome cab. It actually fits well and looks pretty good. Anything was going to be better than the pealing fake leather. I’m tired of vacuuming little pieces of vinyl all the time. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the other one.

The campground has a few more residents tonight. It may be the coming weekend of or it may be just a coincidence of travel. How many leave in the morning will provide the answer.

Wednesday July 13th 2022

The temperature got into the lower half of the nineties with plenty of humidity. The forecast had a very low chance of rain for the day, but it managed to rain for a few minutes. I was away from the campground with the vents and windows in my RV home open. There was a little bit of water on the kitchen floor from the open vent when I got home. Overall I was lucky. It only rained enough to wet the ground.

I was along the St Marys River in downtown St Marys while the black cloud was over my RV home. It didn’t rain at all in that area about five miles from the campground. There was a nice breeze along the river. I strolled along the riverfront and sat in the park watching the limited activity on the river. It was near low tide so the small boat traffic was being careful near the shallows along the shore. I was surprised not to see any bird life taking advantage of the areas exposed by the low tide. Strangely, there were no gulls, egrets or ibis around.

When I got back to the RV park I had a new neighbor. Last nights neighbor had departed. The sites on the other side have been open since I arrived, but given that I got the last site available for my period of stay, they will be filled sometime during my eight days here. Probably they will be occupied this weekend. The front part of the park and the sites with lower amperage electrical service have a higher occupancy level.

Tuesday July 12th 2022

Most of the day was sunny and humid without any real breeze. The ninety plus degree temperature was uncomfortable. During the afternoon thunderstorms were all around the area, but none directly impacted this area. Around 8PM one storm got a little closer. The lightening was close and a few minutes of light rain fell. It wasn’t enough of a storm to change the temperature or humidity level.

The plan for the day was to get settled in and find out what’s new at the campground. My last visit was in May of 2021. I have stayed here at least once every year since the Rambling Road Trip began in 2016. There have been many little changes every year and this one is no exception. I think they do a lot of the work themselves. Changes seem to be slow and might get interrupted if higher priority tasks come up. Last year they were working on removing trees from an area between the campground and the access road. I thought they might be working on expanding the campground. This year I found the trees thinned out, but no new sites have been added. The area just doesn’t look finished. Right now they are working on replacing the utilities on a whole row in the campground. There are all new water taps and electrical boxes in place. It looks like they are in the middle of running conduit for the electric lines between the boxes. A backhoe on a little Bob Cat is located in the middle of the row, but in the day and a half I’ve been here no work has happened on the project. All of those sites are no available for use.

This campground is located on Interstate 95 right at the Georgia Florida boarder. Its location means it gets many single overnight stops by travelers. At noon today, after check out time, there were very few RVs in the front transient part of the park. As the afternoon progressed the sites filled in. I didn’t have any close neighbors last night, but tonight I have a small motorhome on my front side.

Monday July 11th 2022

Today was a travel day so I was up early to allow plenty of time to be on the road by 11AM. It was a sunny, but humid morning. A few minutes outside was enough for sweat to flow like a waterfall. I took a couple of breaks to dry off, but still managed to pull out as the 11AM clock clicked over. As I pulled away the park employee that had been hovering in the area immediately headed for my site to weed wack all the green stuff coming out of the cracks in the concrete. He wasn’t doing anything to push me to leave, but it was clear he knew my site would need to be cleaned up soon.

The problem with short travel days is the need to kill time so I don’t arrive before my new site is ready. Today was one of those days. I sat in my RV home in the Georgia Welcome center parking lot for close to two hours. My destination was in sight on the other side of the Interstate. Shortly after 1PM I drove to the Jacksonville North/St. Marys KOA and got checked in. One of the advantages of this location is the tall pines that provide some shade. That is very different from my last five weeks fully exposed to the heat of the sun.

I just managed to get setup before the rain arrived. It started with a strong thunderstorm followed by pretty much constant rain all afternoon into the evening. This is the first day the forecast has been close to right in several weeks. My site is now on an island surrounded by rain water.

Sunday July 10th 2022

I was expecting another day with heavy thunderstorms during the afternoon, but that is not what happened. The day started cloudy, still and humid. Shortly after noon when the first set of thunderstorms were predicted the sky to the north and east got very dark. I buttoned up my RV home and turned on the AC expecting a downpour at any minute. We got a few sprinkles of rain. During the rest of the day a few more dark clouds passed by, but no more rain fell. The high temperature was in the mid eighties.

This is my last full day at Pecan Park RV Resort. I’m moving up the highway a few miles tomorrow. Most of my activity today was focused on getting ready to move. The inside of my RV home had gotten quite cluttered over the five weeks I’ve been here. The biggest item of clutter was all of the packaging from my Amazon purchases. I had broken all of the boxes down, but hadn’t taken them to the park dumpsters. I’ve walked my trash bags full of junk to the dumpsters on a regular basses, but the boxes needed to be chauffeured to the dumpster. They would have been dropped or blown out of my control on the long walk to the dumpster.

I have enjoyed my stay here, but it is time to move on. My walks around the park are not turning up new things to see anymore. Check out is at 11AM tomorrow, so I will have to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow morning. No more sleeping in. I’ll have to kill some time on my way to my next location, so I’ll buy gas and checkout the Georgia Welcome Center.

Friday July 8th 2022

The day began with sunshine among scattered clouds. It was very still morning. The temperature climbed rapidly to the upper eighties. Not long after lunch everything changed. The sky started to darken and the wind started to blow. To the east lightening started to flash followed by the rumble of thunder. The rain from this storm missed here as the storm moved south away from this area. Half an hour or so later the next storm brought the rain. The remainder of the afternoon was wet. Sometimes it was a heavy rain and at others just a light precipitation. Overall it met the very definition of a rainy afternoon. The good news is it wasn’t as heavy as yesterday’s storm.

I squandered the better part of the day. A lazy breakfast with lots of internet reading took up all of the sunshine hours. Just as I was getting ready to implement yesterday’s plan for a trip to the St. Johns river the threatening weather approached. The first storm was on a path right for my desired destination. Some of these Florida summer afternoon storms can drop enough rain to make driving very dangerous. Staying home is the best choice under theses conditions. On the news this evening the weather talkers reported one area southwest of Jacksonville that got over six inches of rain. I need to switch the active part of my day from afternoon to morning before the weather.

Today was a low exercise day. I only got in one partial walk around the RV park. There was too much moisture in the area along with the threat of lightening. Some sources call Florida the lightening capital of America. It seems like there is a story on the local news about somebody getting hit by lightening every week.

Thursday July 7th 2022

Last night the weather forecast for today called for thunderstorms in the afternoon. This morning the forecast had changed. There was only a ten percent chance of rain all day with a mostly sunny sky. They shouldn’t have changed the forecast. About 4PM the sun disappeared, the sky darkened and it began to rain. As the precipitation got heavier cloud to ground lightening flashes surrounded the area. The time between many of the flashes and the sounds of thunder were next to instantaneous. The lightening was very close and the ground often shook. The storm was also very slow moving. It lingered overhead for close to two hours. This was a typical Florida summer afternoon thunderstorm that we haven’t been getting in this area much lately. I think the weather pattern has changed.

Earlier in the day I was out on a mission to visit the St. Johns river for some sight seeing followed by a stop for groceries. Traffic had another idea. I got on Interstate 95 heading south and almost immediately slowed to a crawl. It took almost twenty minutes to get to the next exit two miles away. The traffic on the local roads was also heavily backed up. My plans changed to just grocery shopping since the Walmart was easily accessible. With groceries in the car it is more or less imperative to head straight home in this heat. Checking the south bound lanes of the interstate as I headed north showed that the backup hadn’t improved. My trip to the river was off until another day.

I got in one walk around the park late in the day. It was necessary to dodge a few puddles and a goose or two, but I stayed dry and got in a little exercise. The temperature drop after the storms made the walk more comfortable.