Saturday December 16th 2023

The rain began before I got up this morning. It rained with light to medium force continuous until about 4PM. Since then it has rained with medium to heavy force. The wind picked up about the same time as the force of the rain. The forecast calls for severe weather overnight with the potential of scattered tornadoes. Before the rain lets up tomorrow morning up to six inches of rain is possible. The TV weather forecasters are having busy days.

I was faced with the dilemma today of eating from the freezer or going grocery shopping. Driving in the rain to the grocery store won. Everyone and their families decided to do the same thing. Saturdays are big shopping days, but today had an added element. The family shoppers seemed to have all of their family members with them. So instead of a shopping cart with one shopper and maybe a helper, many shopping carts had multiple kids and a bored adult or two hanging around it. My guess is that outside activities were rained out so everybody joined in on the shopping.

It wasn’t the most successful shopping trip. Many of the shelves including the meat counters were sparsely populated. The people stocking the shelves were not able to keep up with the rush or maybe just fit in the busy aisles. I got enough for a couple of days, but I’ll have to make another grocery run soon. On a positive note, as I was approaching the checkout counters they made an announcement calling all cashier qualified staff to the checkouts. I didn’t have to wait at all to get checked out.

Since I wore a raincoat on for my shopping run, I was only half soaked when I got back to my RV home. The groceries actually seemed a little wetter than I was. The rest of the day was spent inside keeping dry and getting the inside of the RV ready for travel. Tomorrow is a travel day to the Bradenton FL area. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. The rain is supposed to end in the morning and I have until 1PM to checkout.

Friday December 15th 2023

Today was the day for my much anticipated visit to Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground to see how the campers have decorated their campsites. I try to do this every year I’m in the area. This year I combined the trip to the campground with an afternoon at Disney’ Magic Kingdom. The park closed at 6PM to allow for the separate admission Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. I got there at about 1PM and escaped on the Launch to Fort Wilderness shortly after 5PM. The park was very crowed when I arrived and down right impossible to navigate when I departed. The Christmas party guests were allowed to enter at 4PM.

While I was at the Magic Kingdom I checked off another must do for the holiday season. I rode the Jingle Cruise. This is the regular Jungle Cruise decorated for Christmas with the puns delivered by the boat skippers changed to a Christmas theme. I didn’t think they did as much Christmas decorating this year, but it is still a fun attraction.

A little rain occurred while I was on the boat to Fort Wilderness. It was cloudy and threatening all day, but for the most part today was just a wind event. It was dry again when I arrived at the campground and began my walk around the loops near the settlement. Since it is still ten days to Christmas a lot of sites are not decorated yet. Also, I think there were more empty sites in Fort Wilderness than I’ve ever seen before. The horrible weekend weather forecast may be at fault. Spending more than $200 dollars a night to be subject to more than 2 inches of rain Saturday night into Sunday may be the breaking point for some.

I didn’t spend a lot of time at Fort Wilderness. I only walked through five loops near the boat launch. I didn’t have the motivation to walk through the other fourteen camping loops like I did at Halloween. The boat was arriving at the dock when I walked up for my trip back to the Magic Kingdom. It took several monorails filled with people before I boarded one to get back to the parking lot.

Thursday December 14th 2023

Wind and clouds were the operative words with respect to today’s weather. For most of the day there was a very thick layer of clouds over head. Near sunset it started to thin out a little, but the mood of gloom had already been set. Over the last two or three days the wind strength has increased each day. Today there was a strong northeast wind all day. The TV weather reporters indicated that there were 20mph sustained winds with gusts over forty. It wasn’t uncomfortable temperature wise. The air temperature was in the seventies. As long as you didn’t wear a hat it was OK outside.

I did some hiking around the state park today. I went in search of the area subject to a prescribed burn last week. It was a nice walk along the wide trails, but I didn’t find the burn area. It must have been a very small area, or it didn’t happen despite all the warnings. With all the wind this week, I don’t think they would be undertaking any burns.

All of the clouds and wind are a precursor to this weekends weather. A large low pressure system is forecast to form in the gulf and move diagonally across the state. The track hasn’t been determined yet. It will either go from the Tampa area to the Jacksonville area and drop inches of rain on this area or it will track a hundred miles or so further north. The later scenario wont drop as much rain on this area and probably will be a little calmer. Either way, Saturday into Sunday morning sounds like a wash out.

The campground seems to have vacancies tonight. Thursday is usually the start of the build up for the weekend. Perhaps the wet weekend forecast has people canceling. If the same sites are empty tomorrow night, my hypothesis may be proven.

Wednesday December 13th 2023

It was another cloudy day with a strong northeast wind. During the day the air temperature climbed into the mid seventies, but the wind made it seem to be much cooler. Once the sun went down it felt even cooler.

This afternoon into evening I set out to explore the Christmas decorations at Disney’s EPCOT area resorts. To get there I parked at EPCOT and walked through the park to the International Gateway. This is a convenient way to get to the resorts between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. I stop at all five resorts and took a picture or two of the Christmas decorations.

Disney’s Boardwalk Resort

The Swan

The Dolphin

Disney’s Yacht Club Resort

Disney’s Beach Club Resort

EPCOT Luminous

After completing the circuit of resorts I returned to EPCOT and rode a couple of rides and walked around the resort until the 9:30 night time fireworks show Luminous. I had a much better view of the show from in front of the Norway pavilion than I had last week in Canada. It is a very good show. Tonight the wind was strong enough that the fireworks effects dissipated quickly. You needed to watch closely. I took way too many pictures with my cell phone. I didn’t bring any dedicated camera tonight.

Tuesday December 12th 2023

It was another cold start to the day. The inside temperature shortly after sunrise was fifty degrees. The TV weather talkers were reporting temperatures in the low forties in the area. In the heat of the afternoon the temperature peaked around seventy. There was a lot of high thin clouds and a strong wind out of the northeast all day.

I thought of doing more Disney resort hopping to check out the decorations today, but it didn’t happen. I rolled over once to many times this morning and just didn’t get the day going. I spent the day wandering around the state park. I didn’t do any long hikes, but drove to the beach and a few of the trail heads. I wandered down the trails a bit at each stop.

It was a nice relaxing way to spend the day. However, it didn’t result in much to write about in this blog entry. As usual, I took a few pictures.

Monday December 11th 2023

Florida winter weather was back today. The overnight temperature was in the forties and the peak temperature in the afternoon was only in the low sixties. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but you needed to be bundled up.

My mission for the day was a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in the late afternoon and evening. I have not seen the park after dark in several years. In addition to the normal lighting in areas like Pandora, there were Christmas lights and a projection show on the Tree of Life to see. Most of the animals are put to bed or otherwise hidden back stage by nightfall, so I got there early enough to see a few animals before nightfall.

I arrived at the Animal Kingdom around 3:30 and was directed to a parking space near the front of the parking lot. My late arrival coincided with the parking attendants filling in empty areas in the area reserved for preferred parking as general parking. It was nice to only have a short walk to the entrance. Neither security or the entrance scan points were busy.

The birds and other critters along the entrance path and around the Tree of Life were entertaining as I slowly made my way to the back of the park. The Kilimanjaro Safari was scheduled to close at 4:45 and it only had short wait time. There were plenty of animals to see, but some were waiting to go to their backstage homes. In particular, the giraffes and zebras were clustered up near the paths to their barns. The hyenas, wart hogs, and elephants to name a few were already backstage. Still it was a very nice safari.

After the safari I managed to get in a quick walk along the Gorilla Falls Exploration trail before it closed at 4:30. I was surprised to see the gorillas were still out and about. They seem to go in early, particularly when it is cold like today. My understanding is the gorillas determine when it is time to go in side within reason I expect.

I wandered around the whole park waiting for night fall. Eventually I was able to see the “bio luminescent forest” in Pandora, the Avatar land. Seeing the eerie glowing rocks and artificial vegetation again was impressive.

On my way out of the park I stopped to watch the projection show on the Tree of Life. The detail in the Christmas themed projection is terrific. I was getting cold so I didn’t hang around to see all three shows. I was back at my RV home before the park closed at 7PM.

Sunday December 10th 2023

Today began as a bright sunny day. However, a cold front was approaching from the northwest. The forecasts had the storm front arriving anywhere from 5PM to 8PM in the evening. I tried to plan my day accordingly.

The first part of my day was focused on getting chores completed. I needed to get the laundry done. The hamper was becoming full. This park has one washer and dryer at each of the restroom buildings. One load at a time makes for a slow process. As I was finishing the wash in the early afternoon the sunny weather was transitioning to cloudy and dull.

Hoping the 8PM forecast for rain was correct, I drove to Disney Springs. I wanted to see all of the Christmas decorations lite at night. One of the things they have is a Christmas Tree stroll. The intent is to collect stickers related to each tree on a game card to get an ornimant. I chose to wander the Springs taking pictures of each tree I located. The increasing cloud cover limited the light making most of the pictures appear washed out. Early on I was going to wait for dark before taking pictures, but the very dark clouds to west made it clear that the rain wasn’t even going to wait for 5PM. I got all of my pictures and roamed through a couple of the stores in a couple of hours. I got into the parking garage and my car just before it started to rain. When I emerged from the garage in my car the heavens had opened up and a deluge was falling. The heavy rain came with the arrival of darkness. The drive home was a challenge lite by occasional bright flashes of cloud to ground lightening.

Saturday December 9th 2023

It rain a little off and on last night. Today was just the opposite. It was bright and sunny with very few clouds. The temperature climbed above the norm to around 80 degrees. Generally, it was a beautiful day.

I was planning to go to Sea World today, but I seemed to lack the motivation. Everything was delayed today. I slept in longer than usual. Breakfast lasted into the early afternoon as I chased information on the internet while drinking coffee. It was then approaching the time I was planning to leave for Sea World and I just wasn’t ready. Instead I set off on my first walk around the state park today. My options were a bit limited. The state was doing prescribed burns yesterday. There are warning sounds about the activity and possible smoke fog all along the main park road. I didn’t know where the burn area was located, so I restricted my walk to other areas. It wasn’t a particularly exciting walk. Most everything is dull and brown as befits this time of year.

My second walk of the day was just before sunset. The turnover that occurred in the park today was all filled by new arrivals. The weekenders continued to enjoy their weekend outing and the general activity level in the park remained high. Tonight’s sunset was very pretty once again.

Friday December 8th 2023

Today was a cloudy day, but the temperature was about normal for the area at this time of year. The temperature peaked in the mid seventies. This evening a few light rain drops fell. It was just enough to make you worry about impending downpours that didn’t happen.

My goal for the day was checking out the Christmas decorations at some of the Disney World resorts. I drove to the Magic Kingdom parking lot in the early afternoon and made my way via monorail to the Magic Kingdom. I made a brief visit to the very busy park. The afternoon parade was just reaching town square as I arrived. It was a great parade as usual complete with fire breathing dragon.

I only stayed at the Magic Kingdom long enough to ride the People Mover and walk through most of the park. All of the wait times for rides were very long. From the Magic Kingdom I took the launch to the Wilderness Lodge. They always have a very tall and beautiful tree. It lived up to my memories. While I was at the Wilderness lodge I grabbed an early supper at Roaring Forks the quick service restaurant.

The next stop was Disney’s Contemporary hotel. The hotel is the next resort north of the Wilderness Lodge on Bay Lake. There are two boat route around the lake. One goes clockwise and the other Counter Clockwise. The counter clockwise boat arrived first taking me the long way around the lake. The first stop was Fort Wilderness and the second was my stop at the Contemporary. I didn’t get off at Fort Wilderness. I plan to make a separate visit to the Fort next Friday to check out all the campers decorations.

At the Contemporary Resort I found my first Gingerbread house of the circuit. It is more of a picture of Cinderella’s castle made out of gingerbread than a house. It is in the same style as much of the art created by Mary Blair that decorates the hotel. The Contemporary doesn’t have a big inside Christmas Tree. It’s main tree is outside on the lawn. The lobby has several well decorated smaller trees in the lobby.

My monorail crawl began at the Contemporary. It really was a crawl. They were apparently short one monorail causing a lot of lines to form waiting for the monorail. After a few minutes wait I boarded the monorail for the Polynesian resort. It has a nice tree in the lobby and a few decorations outside along the main entrance, but overall the Polynesian theme dominates any holiday add on.

The big Christmas themed resort on the monorail loop is the Grand Floridian. The tree inside is huge and the Gingerbread house in the lobby seems to get bigger every year. The Gingerbread house is a shop that sells all things gingerbread. It had a line around half of the lobby to make purchases. The green areas outside of the Grand Floridian resort have also been heavily decorated with wire frame animals like reindeer and snowmen. I think the Grand Floridian is the decorating leader of the Disney World resorts.

From the Grand Floridian I completed my monorail loop back to the Ticket and Transportation Center for my walk out into the parking lot and my car. Traffic returning to my RV home was heavy. I made it back home shortly after 8PM.

Thursday December 7th 2023

The temperature was reported to be in the forties this morning. After a long day at EPCOT and a late night while I tried to capture my thoughts about the day in my blog entry, I slept through the low temperature period. The temperature was in the low sixties by the time I got up around ten. It was a mostly sunny day that allowed the temperature to climb to around seventy with a lot less wind than Wednesday.

I got in a couple of walks around the campground today, but I was feeling yesterday’s long walk on concrete at the theme park. There was just enough throb in my legs to remind me that I had a little more activity yesterday than normal. The campground had about the same level of departures this morning as it has all week. I don’t think it will tomorrow. The people that arrived this afternoon have the appearance of weekenders. It is not what the people look like, but what their site looks like after they get setup. Very few people stopping for a night put down rugs, setup outside kitchens and get out all the creature comforts.

All I took for pictures today was the sunset over the lake. I didn’t see any wildlife, not even a squirrel. Probably because of the cooler temperatures, the wildflower are not in bloom. I am including the flowers and bird pictures from yesterday’s visit to visit to EPCOT in addition to tonight’s sunset.