Wednesday May 25th 2022

The series of lazy days has skewed my awake time. I’m getting up earlier and going to bed later. The temperature was well on its way to the day’s high around 90 when I got up this morning. It was a sunny day with a little more wind than the past couple of days. A cold front is moving east across the top of the Gulf of Mexico. It is expected to arrive late tomorrow into Friday.

I wandered around the city of Starke Florida today. About two years ago the US301 bypass opened. The road this campground is located on used to be US 301. It is the north south route through town. The bypass keeps the majority of the traffic west of the city. There are many closed business and empty buildings along the old 301 road through town. Some of the vacancies may be the result of the bypass, but I think more are related to the change in the retail economy. There are shopping plazas with empty anchor stores. I think one in particular used to be a K-Mart. Now the biggest stores seem to be a Dollar General and a Tractor Supply. Fast food restaurants and casual dinning establishments still seem to be thriving. Business hasn’t developed along the beltway so travelers still need to come into town for food and services.

The community seems to have developed because of the railroad. The main north south railroad route through Florida still passes through here today. The track divides just south of the center of town. One line continues mostly south and other angles off to the southwest. This campground is in between the two lines. At night, in particular, you can here the trains on both sides of the campground. The train whistles for the grade crossings are very pronounced. Hearing trains at night in campgrounds is very normal.

Tuesday May 24th 2022

I have definitely transitioned into a very laid back low activity period. The last similar period was last November. Starting in December I moved between different state and public parks usually every two weeks. Each park had its own features, and hiking and outdoor activities were a key element at each place. My days were filled with exploring trails and looking for animals and interesting plant life. It was a steady level of activity and very enjoyable.

The last six weeks or so I’ve been more active in populated areas. I’ve spent a lot of time in crowds and theme parks. This is a different type of enjoyable activity. The downside is all of the interactions with people can be exhausting. I really need the downtime I’m getting at this park to recharge.

There aren’t many of the things I like to do in this area. Walking around the campground is good for exercise, but the environment isn’t the most natural. There are very few flowering plants and the water level in the retention pond is low. On my visit last year there were a couple of families of ducks and a few turtles living in the retention pond. This year I haven’t seen any signs of animal life. Having been to this campground several times on my Rambling Road Trip I have explored the Starke Florida area quite a bit. I haven’t found parks or lakes with recreation areas nearby. Most of the places I’ve been to are twenty miles or more away. The bottom line is this is a good campground to chill out and recharge.

Looking at the planning and reservations I have made for next winter, I’ll be following a very similar pattern. Starting in December I’ll be jumping between state and public campgrounds every two weeks. Some of the campgrounds will be new and the order of my visits will be a little different. I will probably be back at this campground for a few days in late January and maybe again in May.

Monday May 23rd 2022

The humidity may have been a few percentage points below Sunday resulting in a lower chance of thunderstorms, but overall the day was very similar. The temperature peaked in the low nineties with very little breeze.

Today wasn’t a very blog worthy day. I spent another day doing random tasks and chores around my RV home. I took two walks around the campground and the neighboring strip mall. Usually I can find interesting things to take pictures, but around here there aren’t a lot of colorful living things. The campground seems to decorate with plastic flags and whirligigs instead of plants.

Sunday May 22nd 2022

It was another humid day with hazy sunshine. The temperature peaked in the low nineties with very little breeze to mitigate the heat. Late day thunderstorms are beginning to approach the area as I write this blog entry.

Today was a moderately relaxing day with a few chores and planning tasks thrown in for good measure. The biggest chore was getting some laundry done. The facilities at this campground are good, but they aren’t particularly close to my site. There wasn’t any competition for the machines today. As usual the task consumes more than two hours of my day. The distance between my site and the laundry makes it difficult to get anything else done while the clothes are in the machines.

One of the things I was trying to work on between trips to the laundry room is travel planning. My original plans for this summer to travel to the Dakotas have been put off another year. I’ll get into more details in a future blog entry, but now I’m working on alternative plans for the summer. I’m also working on extending the reservations I have for next winter. November of this year and April into May of next year are my current focus. Planning is alternately fun and torture. The anticipation of adventure is the fun part. Making the right choice of location with limited knowledge is part of the torture. The down side is once you commit to a plan, it becomes difficult to change directions if the need comes up.

The campground transitioned back into mid week mode today. The weekend campers have taken their RVs home. The folks that use the campground as a weekend retreat have closed their RVs up and departed for home. Another category of residents is just the opposite. The people that are using the campground as a base for working in the area are back after spending the weekend at home. There is a little bit of everything here.

Saturday May 21st 2022

Thunderstorms started threatening Friday afternoon, but never really materialized all day or during the overnight. There were a few close calls, but this area only got a few random rain drops. This morning the wait for the thunderstorms resumed. It was an overcast and very humid day. Around 5PM the long awaited thunderstorm finally arrived with lots of rain, wind, thunder and lightening. It was a short storm that transitioned into many random rain showers.

My big accomplishment today was getting out of the campground. It wasn’t a long or eventful excursion, but it was better than I’ve done for the last few days. The purpose of the outing was to replenish my fresh food supply. On the way I filled the gas tank for a few cents a gallon less than a week ago.

Walmart was moderately busy on a Saturday afternoon. As usual the grocery side of the store had more shoppers than the general merchandise side. I managed to get all of the stuff I wanted. The shelves in this Walmart seemed to be well stocked compared to some of the ones I’ve been in lately. I don’t think it is shortages as much as it is not having the staff to keep the shelves stocked. This Walmart seemed to have plenty of staff even at the checkouts. I used an “assisted” checkout rather than self service. For my troubles I got behind a customer that must have been stocking their own store of some sort. They had cases of various products that the cashier had to ring up as individual products. There is always something different or curious at Walmart.

Walking around the campground late this afternoon I noted more people had arrived today. I imagine most of them will be departing in the morning. Next door to me is a trailer that arrived Friday afternoon. I’m curious when the occupants will arrive. A couple of guys in two pickup trucks brought the trailer and outdoor furniture. They set it up then departed. My guess is the equipment is a rental for people that will arrive later.

Friday May 20th 2022

Today was a more humid version of Thursday. The humidity was at the summer level that feels like you need to cut the air with a knife to walk through it. The mid nineties high temperature was more uncomfortable than yesterday. Thunderstorms have passed through the area this evening, but so far they have missed this specific area. Tomorrow has more rain in the forecast.

Looking back at my day, I didn’t really do anything. During breakfast I got in to a rabbit chase for information on the internet. I don’t even really know what I started looking for, but during the searches I looked at options for places to stay this summer, this fall and next spring. It wasn’t all travel planning, because I also did searches for smart watches, new TVs and bicycle trails. Overall I spent more than three hours chasing the information rabbit. I came up for air around 1:30PM without any definitive results.

Next on the day’s agenda was a walk around the campground. The weekend residents started to arrive early. It is not a surprise to find the park has more occupied sites tonight than it has all week. Even the RVs that have appeared abandon all week have people in residence tonight.

This campground has very nicely manicured lawns and grounds, but it doesn’t have many flowering plants or things of color. I am not finding a lot of things to take pictures. There are only so many squirrels to photograph.

Thursday May 19th 2022

Today was a little hazier than Wednesday. It was a little more humid, but the overall temperature remained in the mid nineties. Tomorrow is forecast to be a little cooler with a much higher chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

I woke up this morning to the sound of lawn mowers. I’ve been lucky for the last few weeks. The last time I got annoyed by the sounds of lawn mowers was in early March. This is not a new experience at this campground. Probably because they start on or before the end of the overnight quiet hours at 8AM, the mowing at this park really gets to me. There is one guy on a zero turn mower and another guy with a string trimmer. As soon as the day starts to warm up they quit for the day. I expect to hear them again tomorrow morning, but they shouldn’t be right outside my window again.

This was a day for catching up on chores around my RV home. Between tasks I got in a little reading, TV watching and a couple of walks around the campground. Overall it was a busy day, but not much to write about in this blog entry.

Wednesday May 18th 2022

The temperature was in the mid nineties under almost full sun today. There was no wind to keep things cool, but the humidity was fairly low. The majority of the afternoon rain was well to the south of here. It wasn’t the oppressive, but outside activity was best done in small doses.

I got the remainder of my setup tasks completed this morning. This is a familiar campground. I was last here in May of last year. It is a nice campground near the center of Starke Florida. There are stores and restaurants near by. The down side is there isn’t a lot of recreational activities in the immediate area. Most of the places in my interest areas are twenty miles or more away. All of that’s OK, because I’m here to relax and decompress after more than a month of activity in central Florida. Theme parks filled with people are fun, but I need alone time too.

The campground isn’t particularly busy this time of year. As a guess I’d say half of the sites are empty. The ones that are occupied have longer term residents, people working in the area, or units that only get used on weekends. I was the only one that checked in yesterday according to the woman in the office. Today I saw a handful of new arrivals. The location of the campground is good for travelers cutting diagonally across the state from the Jacksonville area to Interstate 75 north of Tampa. My guess is it will be busier on the weekend.

Most of the schools in Florida end their year at the end of May. That starts the travel and vacation season around here. As the northern states end their school years in June tourism picks up. The campgrounds aren’t as full in the summer as they are in the winter, but they are usually busier than they are right now.

Tuesday May 17th 2022

Today was a travel day. I was up working on breakfast before 8AM. On travel days breakfast is usually interspersed around packing tasks. Checkout time was 11AM, so I didn’t have to rush.

The only deviation from the norm this morning was I decided to back out of my pull through site. I was parked under a tree with low hanging branches. They were so low that they banged into my radio antenna and brushed the roof when the wind blew. By backing out I avoided having the branches scrape along the entire roof of my RV home. Coincidentally, there was a tree service in the campground working on tree branches. I imagine they got to my site shortly after I left. Because I backed out of the site, I needed to use the campground road to hook up my towed vehicle. There was no traffic to block and everything went well.

I pulled out of the campground about ten minutes before checkout time. My trip was north along the spine of the Florida peninsular about 150 miles to Starke Florida. Most of the trip is on US27. The last fifty miles is on US301. The US27 section is up and down hills in moderate to significantly developed areas. That equates to lots of traffic lights and lots of traffic. After passing almost through the center of Ocala, I follow US301 the rest of the way. It is much less developed and the speed limit between towns is 65. In towns it drops to at least 45. The route from Ocala north to Interstate 10 is also known for speed traps. It was notorious a few yeas ago for catching northerners, but they’ve cleaned up the behavior a lot in the last few years.

I arrived at the Starke Gainesville NE KOA about 2:15PM. I’ll be here through the Memorial Day Holiday. The bright sun I traveled in rapidly clouded over as I started to setup camp. A brief cloud burst of rain greeted me. It cleared as quickly as it started. The high temperature for the day was in the mid 90s.

Monday May 16th 2022

The chance of rain was lower in today’s forecast. It was down to a twenty percent chance or rain for the day and it looks like I made it through the day in the dry area. The temperature continued its climb from last weeks mid eighties to the low nineties today. It was an overall great weather day.

After a leisurely breakfast that stretched into the noon hour, I headed to Disney Springs for a visit. The shopping and entertainment area was still fairly empty in the early afternoon. Early in the week Disney Springs gets less traffic. Vacationers to the Disney resort spend there time at the theme parks early in the week. Once they’ve got their initial fill of rides and shows, some groups take some time to visit the shopping area. The evening into the night is also a big visitation time because of the entertainment venues.

It was nice walking around Disney Springs without the crowds. It was possible to wander into shops and actually see the merchandise instead of the back of peoples heads. There was also space on the benches along the water to sit and watch the goings on. On my last visit, about a month ago, it was as busy as one of the theme parks.

The wind was calm enough to allow the amphicars to take passengers around the lake, but it was too strong to allow the balloon ride to operate. How they can make money on the balloon ride is a mystery. It doesn’t operate in the wind or rain which are common in the area. I have seen the balloon in the air from a distance, but I don’t recall ever being at Disney Springs when it was operating.

This evening I got most of my outside travel preparation tasks complete. Tomorrow I’m moving about 150 miles to the north. I’ll be in my new location until after the Memorial Day holiday at the end of the month.