Friday September 4th 2020

Mother Nature added a couple more degrees to today’s high temperature, but according to the TV weather talkers it was a little less humid. It was still hot with a high temperature above the mid nineties.

After another slow start to the day, I finally got in the car for a little exploring of the area. I drove around a lot, but only stopped once. I needed to buy gas to facilitate my exploring. Even in a pandemic the price of gas goes up for holiday weekends. My route of exploration crossed the Swanee River several times, but never in a location with a place to stop and explore. A little research after I got home identified where I should have gone to explore the river. Maybe another day while I’m here.

When I got back to the campground it was starting to fill up again. There seem to be two parts to the campground. A long term area toward the back and the shorter term area with about forty sites I’m staying in. That area has been close to full every night I’ve been here and near empty by eleven every morning until today. This morning the sites right around me stayed occupied. I’m guessing they’re here for the weekend. Tonight the area is near full again. How many more will be staying for the weekend remains to be seen.

Once again today I took a couple of walks around the campground pond for exercise. I saw the same two egrets and five ducks that I’ve seen every day. The ducks I understand. They live here. Why the two egrets hang around is more difficult to understand. They are clearly very wild. If they even catch you looking at them they fly away to the other side of the pond, but once you move on they return. The pond doesn’t look like it has much to offer, but I’m not an egret. Who knows what they see in the murky pond.

Thursday September 3rd 2020

The temperature climbed another couple of degrees into the mid 90s. In all other respects, it was a clone of Wednesday. It was a hot and humid stay in the AC kind of day.

I kept finding things to do inside my RV home today. It was well after noon before I ventured out. A walk around the pond in the center of the campground resulted in lots of sweat followed by a retreat into the AC until supper time. I’m really wimping out to the weather. The daytime conditions really are not much different than the weather I’ve been experiencing since the beginning of August. The difference is somewhere in the last week or so I started running the AC around the clock. Earlier in the summer I only ran the AC late in the day until bed time. The overnight conditions were fine with the windows open and the fans blowing. Once I committed to the AC I became addicted to it. It’s going to take a cold front to break the addiction. Maybe next week.

The mental list of inside chores is getting shorter. I got the floor swept and some of it washed today. The layers of desert dust from early this summer are starting to disappear. I need to take the bigger throw rugs outside before I can finish the job. It is a very fine dust that was hiding until the humidity started to make mud.

The campground is filling up tonight. For the first time since I arrived I have neighbors on both sides. I don’t know if they are here for the weekend or only the night. If they don’t leave in the morning, I’ll assume they’re here for the weekend.

Wednesday September 2nd 2020

Today’s weather was a clone of Tuesday. The high temperature was in the low 90s and it was very humid. Unlike yesterday, I didn’t have to pack and unpack today. After finishing some of the camp setup tasks this morning, I relaxed most of the day.

I took a couple of walks around the RV park getting familiar with the lay of the land and the local wildlife. The pictures in this blog entry are some of the things I saw on my walks.

Tuesday September 1st 2020

It was humid again today. The difference was sunshine. While there were a few scattered thunderstorms in the area, it was bright sunshine where I was. The temperature reached the mid 90s. It was not a comfortable day.

By the time I finished the outside travel preparation tasks this morning I was drenched in sweat. I sat in the driver’s seat of the motorhome letting the dash air conditioner cool me off for a few minutes before departing just before the 11AM checkout time. Traffic wasn’t bad allowing me to make good time on the 135 mile trip. The only problem was I didn’t need to make good time. I ended up stopping at both rest areas along the way to kill fifteen to twenty minutes at each stop. It was about 1:30PM when I arrived at Jennings KOA Holiday in Jennings FL. The RV park is along side Interstate 75 not far from the Georgia boarder. Other than the road noise which I expected the park is much nicer than I anticipated. It will be a good place to stay until after the holiday weekend.

Getting setup in the midday sun was even more sweat inducing than the packing this morning. I still have the usual day after arrival tasks to complete in the morning, but I got inside with the air conditioning going as quickly as I could. Travel days are always tiring and today was worse than normal. I should sleep well tonight.

Monday August 31st 2020

Today began as a cloudy day and got worse before it got better. Starting just before noon a line of storms started to pass through the area. They dumped a lot of water in a short period of time. By 3PM the sun was starting to burn through the clouds. It was sunny and dry before nightfall.

Tomorrow I’m moving on, so today I had a few errands to accomplish. First up was a visit to my mail service to pick up my accumulated mail. The packet of mail included my new registrations for the motorhome and car. I’d completed the transaction by internet and mail earlier in the month, but I needed the paperwork and sticker for the plate. I know have the proof that the vehicles legally registered. It is always easier to stop at the mail service to pick up the accumulated mail when I’m in the area. Finding post offices that accept General Delivery or another place to receive a package can be a challenge.

The second stop of the day was a Walmart. I needed to buy a new sewer hose. My current hose has developed a small leak in the middle of the fifteen foot “stinky slinky”. It seems like they only last a couple of years before something like a bird puts a hole in the plastic or the UV from the sun makes it brittle enough to break. I bought a cheaper lower grade hose this time around. I’m going to try to make the punctured hose into two smaller hoses.

I took the opportunity to stock up on groceries while at Walmart. This store was well stocked. It even had paper goods and cleaning supplies. There were a few gaps on the shelves, but nowhere near as many as I’ve seen at other Walmarts. They were also actively cleaning areas of the store. I saw four different teams cleaning displays, other cases and the floor in several areas of the store.

In the morning I’m packing up and moving inland. My next stop is for the period through the holiday weekend. I’m not sure of the quality of the campground or the things to do in the area, but it had openings over the holiday weekend. The reviews online were OK. I’m never sure how much to believe when reading reviews.

Sunday August 30th 2020

The day began with a few brief showers before the sun tried to find a hole in the clouds. By mid afternoon the clouds won the battle. As evening approached a tropical downpour passed through the area filling the drainage ditches.

My activity level mirrored the weather. During the morning showers I was inside reading, watching TV and surfing the internet. While the sun was trying to break through the clouds, I took a drive across the St. Johns river and north toward Jacksonville. Once it became apparent that heavy weather was moving in I headed back to my RV home. I beat the worst of the weather home.

In general it was a very lazy day.

Saturday August 29th 2020

I woke up to a cloudy hot and humid day. There was a brief period of partial sunshine, but it was quickly shutdown with the arrival of a line of thunderstorms around 3PM. It has been raining off and on ever since. It is very typical Florida summer weather.

There was nothing about today’s weather that encouraged me to get out and do anything. It was afternoon before I finished my morning reading and thought about going out. The extent of my ambition was a walk around the RV park. Back in the comfort of my air conditioned RV home I switched into travel planning mode. I reconfirmed a few ideas and came up with a couple of new ones before I started locking up a few more stops with reservations. I now have the next six months completely booked. My next open week is the last week of February.

I’ll be crisscrossing the state of Florida from east to west and north to south staying mostly at state and other public parks. Most of my stays are for two weeks at a time. In the near term I have a few shorter stays in private campgrounds and the last week of February will probably be filled with a private campground stay. March will be back in public campgrounds if all goes according to my intent. The rest of next year is still open for imagining.

Right now I have 15 reservations ahead. The last time I had so many reservations locked in the pandemic arrived. I’ve had more experience canceling reservations this year than I ever had before. For this set of reservations the hurricane season puts the fall reservations at risk and there is always the possibility of another COVID lock down. I can’t control the weather and public campgrounds seem to be the first to be impacted by the actions of elected and public health officials in a crises. I have to be flexible going forward.

Friday August 28th 2020

The cloud cover was back today, but it was still very hot and humid. I can only imagine how hot it would feel if there was full sunshine. The TV weather talkers are calling it exceptionally warm. It still isn’t record heat just the product of a stationary high pressure system off the coast. I’m not complaining. I’m here by choice. If I was still in the Arkansas or Tennessee area I’d be getting hit by the remnants of hurricane Laura. There are two more tropical waves coming off the coast of Africa that might turn into hurricanes that I need to keep my eye on. The motorhome has wheels for a reason. I don’t want to be in the storms’ paths until they loose their punch.

Today I drove through old St Augustine. I have no desire to get into crowded tourist attractions. The use of masks is far from universal in this area and social distancing isn’t possible in some of the tourist traps. I was surprised that it wasn’t as busy as I expected. There were actually parking spaces readily available. There don’t seem to be as many out of state visitors in the area as I’ve seen other years at this time. It’s never extremely busy at this time of year, but this year is slower. Undoubtedly, the news coverage of the COVID surge in Florida had an impact on tourism. Elsewhere on my cross country trip there were more out of state travelers than there are here. This RV park has mostly Florida license plates on the occupied sites. There are also more empty sites than I’m used to seeing at this time of year.

This RV park has put a reasonable level of COVID precautions in place. They restrict access to the office to one person at a time. Some common areas are closed and other areas have been “reimagined”. The curious part is the social distancing reminder signs. I wonder who they think their customers are with signs that say “keep one cow apart”.

Thursday August 27th 2020

The thick oppressive humidity back today along with plenty of sun. Together they are a dangerous hot combination. It was a very uncomfortable day. The pattern is getting a little less stable. There were a few thunderstorms in the area today, but none of them fell in this area. Over the next couple of days thunderstorms are forecast to be more numerous and impact a broader area.

Today’s driving around took me to the Atlantic Ocean. It was just about a year ago that I was along the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. I’ve been landlocked for the last year. Visiting the ocean, particularly the Atlantic, is something that I’ve done regularly all my life. I enjoy visiting the desert, but living anywhere that isn’t close to the ocean would be difficult. Watching the action of the water and nature along the shore is the primary draw. I’m not looking for close encounters with sharks or other sea dangers, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them from the shore. D

Walking around the RV park today I came across some of the resident birds. Many parks have birds that share the space with the campers. It’s often Canadian Geese or ducks. I’ve even been in a couple here in Florida that the resident birds are noisy Sandhill Cranes. At this park the resident birds are Turkeys. Today I only saw two, but on previous visits I seen a great deal more.

Wednesday August 26th 2020

There were a few more clouds in the sky today. They helped keep the temperature down despite the continued high humidity. Outside activity was possible today, but inside air conditioning was still welcome. Overall I didn’t have a very active day.

I finished getting all of the setup tasks completed for my week long stay. Having the bicycle off my SUV makes running around the area a little easier. I don’t have to worry about fitting in parking spaces or the bike getting vandalized in some random parking lot. I also got my gas grill out and setup. Having the grill ready to go before meal time opens up more cooking options. Of course everything I get out now will have to be restored to travel mode before I move on next Tuesday. It’s a never ending cycle.

This afternoon I did a little touring around the area. Not much has changed in the immediate area since my last stay in 2018. Traffic is just as bad. Tomorrow I’ll expand my touring a little more.