Saturday November 6th 2021

I thought Friday was a rain day. Today beat Friday in the miserable day contest by a landslide. The overnight hours started without rain, but lots of wind. About 6AM heavy rain on the roof woke me up. For the next twelve hours it rained continuously. As I’m writing this blog entry the rain has stopped, but another round overnight is in the forecast. More than five inches of rain is forecast before the storm moves into the Atlantic.

The outside temperature didn’t reach fifty degrees. Inside I had to run heat to keep it comfortable. My choice is to use a little electric cube heater. It isn’t strong enough to change the inside temperature quickly, but it does a good job maintaining the temperature. The advantage of the little heater is the decibel level. It is very quiet compared to the other options. The loud propane furnace will get the temperature up to comfort level quickly in a pinch, but you can’t hear yourself think let alone the TV.

Once again I stayed in all day. It wasn’t a day for outside activities. Without any pressing need to be on the roads, it was safer and more comfortable to stay in my Rv home. I spent most of the day binging on YouTube videos.

Friday November 5th 2021

It started to rain during the night and has continued all day. Some areas in greater Jacksonville have experienced street and low area flooding. The wind direction and the monthly high tides have also produced some of the creeks and rivers to push out of their banks a bit. Over six inches of rain is forecast south of the city before it ends late tomorrow. The high temperature for the day was in the low to mid sixties. Overall it was a stay inside kind of day.

Last year at this time I was dealing with a different kind of severe weather. I was in the Florida Keys with a tropical storm that turned into a hurricane headed right for me. I ran from the storm a day before my reservation was up, but should have departed another day sooner. The trip off the keys was in heavy traffic, heavy rain and increasing wind gusts. It wasn’t until late the next day that I had successfully gotten out of hurricane ETA’s path to dry weather. Three days later the storm was headed right for me again, but it weakened enough to be an annoyance rather than a problem.

It seems like I’ve experienced a lot of rain this year, but it has more to do with the part of the country I’ve been traveling through. The southeast is a wetter area than the mountains and deserts of the west. A rain storm or two isn’t a big deal, but long periods of rain with heavy wind is a concern. I remember three or four of those occasions this year.

I spent the day researching next years travel on the internet, reading and watching TV. It was a day with much to write about in this blog entry.

Thursday November 4th 2021

The F-15s of the Florida Air National Guard decided to be particularly low and loud on their take off from the Jacksonville International Airport this morning. Shortly before 9AM at least four and maybe as many as eight F-15s forced me from drowsy wakefulness to fully alert and wide awake. They were exceptionally loud and much longer in duration overhead this morning than other mornings. Perhaps it was the low cloud cover that developed overnight and continued most of the day.

Most of the pictures in this blog entry represent Florida’s fall colors. Nothing is as brilliant as the colors on the deciduous trees in the northern forests, but there are plenty of subtle pops of color. Many bushes develop colors and flowers continue to bloom. There are plenty of examples of wild and planted flowers in bloom.

In addition to the fall colors the dropping temperatures are also advertising the approaching winter. The TV news casts are forecasting another feature of winter in Florida; the arrival of the snowbirds. I have heard two different news stories and read a few internet articles on the opening of the US Canadian boarder next week. Interviews with RV park managers and rental property brokers have reported a huge increase in Canadian bookings for the winter months. For the most part, Canadians weren’t here last winter. I think I saw two or three Canadian license plates last winter. Usually they are as numerous as any northern state. My guess is the vehicles were here when the boarder closed and never returned to Canada. The owners probably flew back and forth to Canada with a self declared essential travel exemption if they even returned north at all. From what I’ve read, the closed US Canadian boarder was easily crossed in an airplane, but far more difficult by land.

Last winter the tourism industry cited the lack of Canadians as one of the key differences in the winter season. I didn’t see any difference in camp site availability at any of the places I stayed, but that could be associated with the places I pick. Even so, I’m glad I have all of my reservations in place for this winter. The competition for sites may be intense. The current forecasts are for a huge year for snowbirds. All that could change with another COVID surge, but somehow I think that would only be a tiny deterrent.

Wednesday November 3rd 2021

I woke to sunshine and warming temperatures, but it didn’t last. By midday thick clouds were moving in and the warming of the day slowed. The high temperature was around seventy degrees. The clouds are forecast to dominate the sky for the next few days. Friday and Saturday are expected to be rainy. The sixty to seventy degree temperature outside isn’t a problem. It is a whole lot better than the thirties and forties up north. The downside is without the sun the inside temperature of my RV home needs help to warm up. I’ll have to turn on some form of heat.

When I was returning to the RV park this afternoon I had to stop for a school bus at the park entrance. The presence of the bus answered one of my curios conundrums. There are a lot of school age kids in the park. I wondered if they were all home schooled or if some were in the local school system. It looks like a little of both. The bus delivered about six high school age kids, but there were others already in the park riding bicycles. This probably tracks to the types of temporary living situations in the park. There are some that have permanent ties to the area and others that are visiting for medium length job assignments. I have seen a number of people dressed for work in hospitals like traveling nurses or medial technicians. There are also a number of out of state pickup trucks with various construction trade signs painted to the sides associated with the RVs in the park.

The task of creating this blog entry has been very slow. Once again tonight, my windows PC is attempting to upgrade various things in the background. I can type whole sentences before the characters appear on the screen. Every time that happens I find at least half the words have typos. With any luck Microsoft will get caught up before I start tomorrow’s blog entry. I’ll leave the computer on overnight to see if that helps.

Tuesday November 2nd 2021

The weather met expectations today. It was a nice sunny day without a lot of wind or humidity. The temperature reached a seasonal norm in the low to mid seventies.

My cell phone has been nagging me to download and upgrade to the latest version of the Android operating system for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been waiting for a stable internet connection enough time for other people to discover the issues. Last night, when I put the phone on the charger, I decided to bite the bullet and let it upgrade. This morning I found the process still going on. My internet connection was down. Thankfully, once I restored the internet connection the process continued. I had visions of a dead phone.

The restored internet connection wasn’t the fastest around. The upgrade that should have taken a half an hour took another two hours. Figuring out what changed and how some of the new “features” work took another couple of hours of exploring. Basically, I took the opportunity to geek out. For the most part it seems to be a true upgrade. Most of the things I use regularly look a little different, but work the same. A few things that I don’t use are radically different, but not in a way that will result in my use.

This seems to be my day for updates. Tonight, Microsoft is attempting to update my Windows computer. I have less control over Windows updates. This update could take all night. The combination of the slow internet connection and all the disk activity associated with the update is causing my laptop to really crawl. Getting this blog entry written and published is challenging.

Sunday October 31st 2021

It was another cooler than normal day today. The inside temperature started in the fifties this morning. Heavy cloud cover kept the sun from quickly warming the inside and the outside temperature peaked a little short of seventy late in the afternoon. A little bit of sun broke through before sunset to give the overall temperature climb a little help.

Last year at this time I was at Curry Hammock State Park with daytime high temperatures in the mid to upper eighties and higher. It wasn’t until well into November when I was in central Florida that I experienced cool temperatures. Getting used to winter temperatures is going to take some time. In Florida that means daytime highs in the sixties and the occasional night time temperature in the north half of Florida below freezing. In most of the country those temperatures are positively balmy. I don’t want or need a real winter.

The RV park celebrated Halloween this afternoon into the evening. There were quite a few kids wandering around in costumes trick or treating. I was not a participant. The kids only stopped at sites with a “Trick or Treat Welcome” sign. In most cases those sites were also heavily decorated. While I was on my late afternoon walk I passed many of the costumed mob. The best costume was the pug with a pumpkin colored tutu. I don’t understand dressing up dogs, but this one sure stuck out from the kids in rags pretending to be zombies. It has been years since I’ve been in an area with a trick or treat celebration.

Saturday October 30th 2021

It was a cold start to the day. The inside temperature was in the low sixties this morning. A strong northwest wind kept the temperature in check all day. The high temperature was around seventy degrees.

Around noon I got out of the park for a little adventure. Today’s exercise was a hike on the Cedar Point trail in the Timucuan Parks 7 Creeks Recreation Area. The area is made up of seven parks encompassing seven creeks. It is located between the RV park and the barrier island along the Atlantic Coast, about ten to fifteen miles away. The Cedar Point trail starts in the Cedar Point National Park Service managed area and travels into the Cedar Point Preserve managed my the city of Jacksonville. It is a nice wide well maintain trail suitable for walkers and bike riders. The Cedar Point Preserve side is also intended to accommodate horses. The trails pass through hardwood hammocks, pine forests and marsh lands.

There were a hand full of other hikers on the trails. I only explored a small portion of the trails and didn’t see a lot of wildlife. Only a few bird sounds in the trees broke the silence. When I crossed the bridge over the creek I was rewarded by the sight of an Egret. I probably only walked about three miles out and back, but it was an improvement over walking around the RV park. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be back to hike some of the other trails.

Friday October 29th 2021

The temperature was in the sixties when I dragged my sleepy body out of bed this morning. Outside there was a heavy cloud cover that slowed the warming process way down. The high temperature for the day was in the high sixties, but the temperature inside my RV home managed to get into the seventies without any artificial help. Very late in the day the clouds started to thin allowing the overnight temperature to drop into the low fifties. Tomorrow is forecast to be warmer.

Today starts the beginning of my second week here. I have gotten very few of the things I planned for my stay started. For the last month I have been developing a list of things to accomplish during my five week stay. I need to get cracking. What I have accomplished is getting re-acclimated to the eastern time zone. Basically that means I know what time to watch the TV for specific programs and I’m not surprised when it is time for sunset.

The RV park is getting ready for the “big” weekend. Saturday is the Florida Georgia football game in Jacksonville and Sunday is Halloween. A food truck and football themed lawn games were this evenings attraction from 4-8PM. Tomorrow there aren’t any events scheduled so people can watch the game on TV at their sites. Sunday has a Halloween Costume contest, a best site decoration contest and trick or treating for kids between 4 and 8PM. It has been a few years since I’ve was in an RV park that celebrated Halloween. I’m not prepared or particularly interested in participating in any of the activities. Luckily, I don’t have to hand out candy. They have an opt in system. You need to get a sign from the office to hang at your site that says “trick or treat” to attract trick or treaters.

Thursday October 28th 2021

The weather forecast on the 11PM news last night was trying very hard to put fear in the hearts of viewers. They were calling for severe storms with the possibility of tornadoes all day today. About 7AM this morning it started to rain. When I turned on the TV the weather talkers announced that a tornado watch was in place over most of Florida and southern Georgia until 5PM in the evening. The weather radar showed a lot of threatening rain approaching from the west.

In this area it rained at a steady pace until the noon hour. The updated TV weather report was focusing on the area to the south of Jacksonville, while calling for more rain in the entire area. The Jacksonville airport, located less than a mile from my RV home, reported an inch and a half of rain during the morning rain. The severe weather never arrived and the tornado watch may have been lifted early for the area north of Jacksonville. The area south of Jacksonville on a line toward Tampa on the west coast of Florida seemed to get stronger storms, but no reported tornadoes.

As I’ve written about in this blog before, I am much more weather aware in this lifestyle. You can’t miss the sound of rain on the roof. Even a light rain sounds dramatic and you need to crank the volume on the TV, radio or whatever. A little wind also gets your attention. It can catch the awnings over the side out rooms and start them flapping loudly. Even the absence of sun is very noticeable with all the windows in my RV home.

After the sound of rain on my roof was over by about an hour and it looked like the sun was making an attempt to break through the clouds, I ventured out for some exercise. I got a few hundred yards away from my RV home when it decided to rain again. Lucky for me it didn’t last more than a minute or two. Similar very brief rain showers continued for the rest of the day. The latest forecast calls for similar hit and miss showers to continue through tomorrow.

Most of my day was spent reading, watching the weather out the window and on the TV reports, and surfing the internet. The only real downside to staying inside is that the refrigerator is never more than ten feet away. Keeping from continuous snaking is a big challenge.