Friday August 18th 2023

It was a beautiful Friday. The temperature was right around the average in the low nineties. The humidity was reasonable and a nice breeze arrived in the afternoon to cool things down. There have not been any thunderstorms in the area and the forecast for the rest of the day into the night is dry. Last weeks excessive heat warnings are long gone.

This was a day in the life kind of day. My morning was slow as usual although breakfast was over after one cup of coffee and some toast. After my first walk of the day, I headed out for some Walmart shopping. This time groceries weren’t the primary objective. I’ve managed to ruin a couple of shirts over the last few days. Getting a little aggressive pulling them off over my head when I’m covered in sweat resulted in a nice ripping sound. Walmart isn’t my first choice for clothes, but for cheap and simple it will do in a pinch.

The store was not as crowded as my last visit on the weekend. I managed to find a couple of shirts on sale. Even though this is Florida and short sleeves are appropriate until December, there were a lot discounted for clearance. They were pushing long sleeves and sweat shirts. On the grocery front I got a few items I was low on and a roasted chicken for my big meal of the day. I guess I was hungry when I passed the freshly populated chicken rack.

There seem to be quite a few people arriving for the weekend at the RV park. There are still plenty of empty sites because more of the long term residents departed this week. It may have been the middle of the month that triggered the departures or just a coincidence of time to leave departure. My time to leave comes up next week.

Thursday August 17th 2023

The day started overcast and humid. As the afternoon began so did the thunderstorms. The area was filled with lots of little thunderstorms. The term little applies to the size of the storm not the intensity. Some of the storms were packed with lightening and most had plenty of rain. The first storm over my RV park was at 1PM. It didn’t last long and I headed out for some errands shortly after it passed. I drove into the same storm or possible a different one a few miles away, but I was out of it quickly. The pattern repeated all afternoon. Circumnavigating most of Jacksonville I passed through six different episodes of heavy rain.

It was dry when I returned to my RV home. I assume that it didn’t rain during the three hours between the time I departed after the first storm and my return. The next and I think final storm of the day, arrived over the RV park at 6PM. It probably developed very near by as there was no indication on radar a few minutes before it hit. The storm dropped lots of rain over the course of a few minutes. As the sun set a nice red glow was on the horizon.

Wednesday August 16th 2023

I was a very lazy camper today. I sat down to breakfast shortly before 9:30 and didn’t get moving until 1:30 in the afternoon. There was very little eating involved. Most of my time was spent reading various news stories and blogs on the internet followed by a handful of YouTube videos.

The knowledge that thunderstorms would arrived soon was the catalyst to get me moving. The sun was visible through the clouds most of the morning, but as the afternoon progressed the cloud cover thickened. My only walk around the RV park was under overcast skies. The temperature was around the ninety degree mark and it was humid. The geese were hiding out somewhere else this afternoon. The Green hereon that usually takes off long before I can get my camera up was more accommodating today. I was able to get a nice picture of the little hereon before it retreated from the near bank to the trees on the far bank. It is a very colorful bird.

The sky got very dark to the northwest around 2PM. I prepared for a major storm, but the storm seemed to pass to the north. The first storm of the day to bring wind, water and lightening to this area started at 3PM. It brought heavy rain for about ten minutes followed by an hour or so of light rain. The second wave of storms came in about 6PM, but the worst part of this storm seemed to miss this area to the north as well. Overall today was a more normal summer day in Florida. It wasn’t extremely hot and the rain storms were scattered and fairly brief.

Tuesday August 15th 2023

After a sunny start the sky rapidly became overcast today. The humidity was also higher. I was able to work outside for a while once the sun was blocked by the clouds, but the threat of thunderstorms complete with visible lightening and a few raindrops drove me inside. The thunderstorms have all passed by to the south, but the night is not over yet. The high temperature was much closer the low nineties normal.

Once I got driven inside by the threatening weather, I made some progress on planning my fall reservations. I’ve have been here in Jacksonville since the end of June. The long duration stay was planned to allow me to buy an new car and get it setup to be towed. That task is pretty much complete now. A week from tomorrow I will connect my new Chevy Equinox to my motorhome and continue the rambling road trip. The question up until this afternoon was where.

My thought when I decided to stay in Florida for the summer was I’d get out of the state for the peak of hurricane season. I was considering going to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee for September and October. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been looking for good places to stay in those areas and wasn’t getting a good feeling about any of the options. Just the opposite was happening. I was getting excited about the possibility of staying at places in Florida I’d been before.

During the winter I like to stay at Myakka River State Park outside Sarasota and at one of the Army Corp of Engineers campgrounds along the Caloosahatchee River east of Fort Myers. The wildlife and scenery is a real attraction. This year I wasn’t successful getting reservations. More or less on a whim, I checked for reservations during the fall and found vacancies during September and October. The question then became will mother nature keep the hurricanes away. I’ll just pay attention to the forecasts and run if necessary.

I have booked six different reservations with durations ranging from 2 nights to 14 nights for the next two months at various places in Florida and just north of the line in Georgia. The last month before my set of winter reservations kicks in remains to be booked, but I have a pretty solid idea for that period as well. I’ll let that idea marinate in my head for a few days before committing to it.

Monday August 14th 2023

The excessive heat warning continued for this area. Today’s weather was a little better than the last couple of days in one way. There were afternoon thunderstorms in the area. Most of the storms have missed this area, but the cloud cover and winds on the periphery of the storm have really brought the evening temperature down. The temperature dropped from the high nineties to the low eighties fairly quickly.

Since it is Monday, I woke up to the sound of lawn mowers. The landscapers were here to cut the grass and beautify the landscape. They seemed to follow a different pattern this morning. On past Monday’s they have mowed my site before I was out of bed. Today it was after ten before they mowed my site even though I heard them in the area a little after eight. The grass was drier this morning resulting in a better looking outcome to the mowing.

Traffic was my nemesis today. When I departed the RV park today I noticed that the Interstate 95 southbound traffic was not moving. I hadn’t plan to take that route, but I should have been more concerned. I continued under the overpass and on about a mile to US 17 which parallels the interstate in this area. I noted heavier traffic southbound on US 17 as well. The interstate had probably been backed up long enough that drivers had made their way to US 17 as an alternate route. I was heading north against the traffic so I thought I’d be fine. Less than a mile later I was stopped in a solid line of traffic. Both directions on US 17 were moving at a crawl, but it seemed the south bound traffic was moving a little faster than I was. Half an hour later I had moved about a mile north to an intersection that allowed me to loop back to the east and south. I gave up on exploring to the north and decided to return home.

My return loop brought me back to Interstate 95 at the access road to the International Airport. The interstate appeared to be backed up in both directions. A message board indicated that Interstate was slowed one exit to the south by construction and was totally blocked two exits to the north for an undisclosed reason. I continued by loop to the west toward the airport before returning to my RV home via back roads. Two seemingly unrelated issues on the intestate made getting anywhere from my RV home this afternoon a real challenge. I was driving for over an hour but didn’t get anywhere I wanted to be. At least the car AC was comfortable.

The RV park has thinned out and quieted down from the weekend. It is remarkable how few people you see during the day. People are all at work or hibernating inside their AC cooled RVs. This evening it has cooled down enough that people are sitting outside their rigs and walking their dogs.

Sunday August 13th 2023

Today was yet another hot day. Outside activity had to be done carefully or for short periods of time. The temperature climbed just short of 100 degrees. The humidity wasn’t too bad, but there wasn’t any wind until late in the day. The chance of rain goes up over the next few days. Toward the middle of the week the high temperatures return to the normal level.

Traffic on the roads today was heavy. I was out looking for places to enjoy nature without having to venture too far from the air conditioned comfort of my car. It wasn’t a very successful outing. I managed to watch one Great Egret forage for food for a few minutes and a bunch of Canadian Geese peck around. The geese at my RV park are easier to watch and more entertaining in my opinion.

My travels also found me in the middle of downtown Jacksonville at the intersection of Interstate 95 and Interstate 10. That is one confusing intersection. It seems to be possible to go south on Interstate 95 by taking either the left lanes or the right lanes, just not the middle ones. Trying to go south on Interstate 95 from Interstate 10 you need to exit to the left or the right just not the middle. The middle is for north bound Interstate 95. I got where I wanted to go, but don’t ask me how or why.

The intersection of I95 and I10 also gives you an idea about the size of the state of Florida. Intestate 10 arrives in the state from Alabama and ends in Jacksonville. The mile markers in Jacksonville are in the low 360s indicating the Alabama boarder is three hundred and sixty plus miles away. The Intestate 95 mile markers are in the 350s. The road entered the state from Georgia about thirty miles north and ends just south of Miami in the south. That all adds up to more then three hundred and eighty plus miles. The state is around 400 miles wide and 400 miles long not including the keys when using driving distance as your measure.

Saturday August 12th 2023

I haven’t heard the official reports, but today seemed to be the warmest of the summer. At one point this afternoon my phone weather app was reporting the temperature as 99 for this area. My car thought it was 102. Let’s just say it was hot. Contributing to the warm conditions was a lack of wind. Until late in the day there was next to no wind away from the coast. These conditions and the duration are not normal for this area.

I drove out to Cedar Point Preserve today. There were about twelve empty boat trailers at the boat launch. A combination of fishing and recreational boats get launched from the location. The only boat I saw was a personal watercraft (i.e. a jet ski). Hiking wasn’t a real option because of the heat and the sights were rather static. There weren’t any birds around and once the boat motored away there weren’t any people to watch either. The wind along the open marsh area leading to the sea was just strong enough to keep conditions tolerable as long as I remained in the shade. I hung around looking for something interesting for about half an hour.

The second and main thing on today’s agenda was a stop at Walmart for groceries. Saturday afternoon isn’t the best time to go, but I’d been putting it off long enough that it really had to be today. It was very busy. There were a lot of families in the store. The main characteristic of a shopping family is one person focused on shopping and many other disinterested people hanging around them clogging up the aisles. Another indicator of how busy it was could be seen at the checkouts. In addition to all the self serve checkouts they also had most of the staffed checkouts open.

I took my time completing my shopping. For some reason I wasn’t very organized today. There were several times that I had to back track to aisles that I had already been down. I also ventured into the non grocery part of the store. Walmart usually puts the pharmacy and associated products on the other side of the store from the groceries. To get a tube of toothpaste it is necessary to venture across the whole store. Crossing through the clothes, electronics and hardware departments slowed me down with looking, but not with purchasing.

Friday August 11th 2023

Despite a slightly more optimistic weather forecast, today seemed to be the worst day heat wise this week. There was less wind and more sun which made conditions outside less comfortable. The actual temperature peaked at 98 degrees, but the real feel was much higher. It is also taking longer to cool off in the evening.

I generally keep the water heater in my RV home turned off. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is turn the water heater on. It is a simple button push on the panel in the kitchen area of my RV home. When I get up for real, assuming I went back to bed, or after breakfast I can take a nice hot shower. This morning when I went to take a shower after breakfast, the water wouldn’t get hot. It usually takes about thirty seconds for the hot water to reach the shower head. After waiting about a minute with cold water still coming out, I started to think about all the major problems I was facing. Had the electric element in the water heater burnt out? Was the almost eight year old water heater completely broken? Luckily when I checked the control panel, I found the problem right away. I pushed the wrong button. The button below the water heater switch is for the water pump. It was turned on unnecessarily. I am connected to city water. Half an hour later the water was hot and I could take my shower. Unfortunately for an active day, it was well afternoon when I remembered to take my morning shower.

My whole plan for the day got diverted by pushing the wrong button. I ended up staying home and working on chores inside my RV home most of the day. After I finally got cleaned up and dressed for outside activity, I took my daily walk around the RV park. The geese were doing fine in the retention pond and along the bank when I walked by. A couple of minutes later I heard many squawking geese behind me. A dog from a near by RV had gotten loose. It didn’t appreciate the presence of the geese and decided to charge and bark. The noisy racket was followed shortly by an even noisier guy yelling at the dog to obey. Talk about disturbing the peace.

Thursday August 10th 2023

There was still an excessive heat warning issued for today, but I don’t think the weather lived up to its level of concern. There were clouds blocking the sun most of the day and we got a quick shower just before noon that cooled things off a bit as well. In the mid afternoon a thunderstorm passed by to the north. This area was spared of the rain, but got plenty of wind. As night approached the clouds gave way to blue sky.

This was a day for utility issues. The water in the RV park was turned off for maintenance from 9AM until near noon. This was a planned outage, so I made sure I had enough water in my fresh water tank to cover my needs. The second utility issue wasn’t planned. The power went out just before 3:30PM. It was an area issue that was probably associated with the nearby thunderstorm. Power was out for about an hour.

During the power outage I took one of my walks around the RV park. Without AC many people were outside their RVs sitting in the shade and letting the breeze keep them cool. Others had started generators to keep power going to the air conditioners. The generators are noisier than the AC units, but in the few minutes before people started the generators everything was nice and quiet.

Between all the utility issues I got a few more tasks accomplished, but the big outdoor tasks remain on the list. Inside I’ve been on the computer trying to plan out the next three months. After two months in an RV park, I’m looking forward to getting back into a state park like setting. As expected the weekends are difficult to find at non commercial parks.

Wednesday August 9th 2023

The excessive heat warnings continued today. I think it was actually a little cooler, but once you reach a certain point a degree or two isn’t noticeable. It really isn’t bad if you don’t try to do a lot of physical activity in the bright sunshine. My only real problem is going from air conditioned space to non conditioned space repeatedly. Staying in either space is not a problem, but going in and out results in more discomfort. The wind direction today was different from yesterday giving me hope that the weather pattern was changing, but the TV weather forecast calls for the current heat to continue through the weekend. The chance of afternoon thunderstorms increases as the days go by.

I got a few things accomplished outside this morning before it got real hot, but the long duration tasks still remain. The orientation of my RV home gets full sun most of the day. I need a very cloudy day so I can work on the tow bar hook up to tow my new car. I need to adjust the height of the connection and thoroughly test the electric hook up and auxiliary brake.

During the afternoon I drove around looking for a relaxing place to enjoy the day. I stopped at the park and boat launch on the Trout River. It is basically beside and under the Interstate 95 bridge over the river. Today the water level was high. This is an area of tidal water that is more interesting at low tide. Today I sat in the air conditioned comfort of my car and watched the activity in the area. The high water level covered up the area that the water birds use to feed. On the other hand the high water level made it easier to launch boats. A couple were put in the water while I was there.

The RV park feels busier today. As I walked around the park this evening the sense of emptiness I experienced yesterday wasn’t there today. There are more travelers occupying sites at the front of the park and I saw several big RVs heading for the back of the park where the cheaper long term sites are located. There are still plenty of empty sites around my RV home in the middle of the park.