Sunday July 20th 2025

The last three days have been hot. The weather service issued an extreme heat warning from noon to six each day. The actual temperature peaked in the upper 90s, but the feels like was ten degrees warmer. I stayed in the AC a lot during the day.

Before I was aware of the heat, I ventured out to Disney’ Magic Kingdom late Friday into the evening. The heat wasn’t bad once you got acclimated and stayed out of standing in the direct sun. I also didn’t let a water fountain pass by without stopping. For my effort I was rewarded by a new Disney parade. I got to watch the very first showing of the Starlight Dream the Night Away before a real audience. The new nighttime parade premieres on Sunday night, but was soft opened with very little advanced notice on Friday night.

I didn’t know about the parade when I set out for the park. It was only when I was walking along Main street that I got a clue. People were sitting on the curb and cast members were putting down crowd control tape on the side walks. A little thinking followed by confirmation from a cast member confirmed that I lucked out for a chance to see the first soft opening or perhaps better stated as a dress rehearsal of the parade. A few minutes of rain delay did build up the suspense a little, but shortly after 9PM the parade began.

By 7PM all of the good places to watch the parade were gone. Two rows of people lined all of the parade root. I found a place along Main Street in the third row of people around 8PM, but it was still a very long wait standing in one position. My view of the parade was good for observation and enjoyment, but not very good for pictures. There were tall people in front of me that raised their cameras a lot.

All of the floats were very tall and covered in lights that change color and sparkle continuously. It does have a bigger focus on newer intellectual property like Encanto, Coco and Wish along with the princesses. A Peter Pan float and a train shaped float with Mickey. Mini, Donald, Daisy and their friends bring up the rear. It is a real spectacular.

I had planned to see the parade for the first time this coming Wednesday. Since I have the park reservation, I will still go. Hopefully, I can find a better viewing location.

Thursday July 17th 2025

The highlight activity over the last few days was a daytime visit to Disney’s EPCOT. My usual visits are in the late afternoon into the evening, but this time I was on a mission to ride the updated Test Track attraction. It officially opens next week. This week they were offering previews to annual pass holders.

It wasn’t simple to take advantage of this “opportunity”. First I had to make a reservation to visit the park. This is a normal requirement to visit a park with an annual pass before 2PM. Next, I had to reserve a time in a virtual queue for the attraction. This is a timed entry that can be reserved online at 7AM or 1PM. I was up before 7AM only to strike out in my speed of button pushing as the clock struck 7. Being optimistic I arrived at the park around noon thinking I’d have more success at the 1PM online button pushing. I didn’t.

My visit was still enjoyable. I walked around the park taking pictures of the flower blossoms and the birds visiting the park. I didn’t ride any rides, but ate an expensive soft serve ice cream cone and watched the Voices of Liberty sing a few folk and Disney songs in the American Adventure rotunda. Both were very good.

My visit ended shortly before 4PM as I observed a very dark cloud moving in from the southwest. A few rain drops were falling by the time I reached my car in the parking lot. I experienced a few minutes of tropical downpour on my way home. It was all over long before I reached home.

Sunday July 13th 2025

Today I had one outside chore to do. I probably wouldn’t been able to do many more. It was very humid without any real breeze. One brief period of rain didn’t have any impact on the overall condition. Shortly after the storm passed I set out to trim my Bougainvillea bush.

Growing condition must be perfect for the bush. I really can’t keep up with its growth. The last time I trimmed it was two weeks ago, but it should have been cut last weekend. The problem is that it takes about a week for the beautiful purple blossoms to return after a trimming. If I cut it as soon as it needed, I would never get to enjoy the blossoms.

Trimming the plant doesn’t take long. The trick, that I really haven’t mastered, is to know when to stop. There is always one or two areas that look like they need a little bit more attention. The worst part of the effort is cleaning up the clippings. The branches have thorns. I have to wear heavy work gloves in the summer heat. When I was done, I had a Home Depot 5 gallon bucket full of clippings.

Thursday July 10th 2025

It took two tries, but I finally got my fish and chips at Disney’s EPCOT. The Yorkshire County Fish Shop at the United Kingdom pavilion serves a pretty good simple fish and chips meal. It took two visits to EPCOT before I made it to the back of the park for my dinner.

Late afternoon on Wednesday I drove to EPCOT for exercise and fish and chips. Based on the morning weather forecast I thought it would be a fine evening. My first indication of a deviation from that plan came in the EPCOT parking lot. All of the parking cast members were missing. When there is lightening in the air you have to find your own parking space. Looking to the west the reason was obvious. Threatening black clouds with flashes of lightening filled the sky.

I got into the park before the rain started. Believing that it was only going to be a quick storm I rode the Space Ship Earth ride. When I emerged about twenty minutes later the storm was dropping rain in sheets. I hurried into the Connections quick service restaurant and then the Creations Shop gift shop for another waiting out the storm sequence. After about an hour I took a few moments to check the forecast and the radar on my phone. It didn’t look anything like the morning forecast. Moderate to heavy rain was forecast through about 11PM. My decision was to use a small window of lighter rain to head back to my car and home. By the time I got to my car I was soaked. Most of it came from sitting in a puddle on the parking lot tram, which I only rode to stay out of the rain.

This afternoon I repeated the plan successfully. The weather cooperated and I managed to get my three plus miles of exercise and a good meal of fish and chips. The park wasn’t too busy. I even managed to get a seat at a table to eat. I was prepared to use the top of a garbage can for a table as I often have. Even though it was dry, I didn’t stay for the nighttime fireworks. I prioritized getting home with simplicity over entertainment. The state is doing nighttime paving on US 27 outside my base camp. The later you are the worse the delays and difficulties. Trying to see going in and out of the massive construction lights seemingly aimed right at you can be a challenge.

Sunday July 6th 2025

This area of Florida has reached mid summer mode. Today was mostly sunny with a high in the mid nineties and lots of humidity. There were plenty of thundershowers in the area, but not over my base camp. This a change from the last few days that were cloudy and humid with the chance of rain at any minute during the day. The positive part of that weather pattern was a lower overall temperature.

Longtime readers of my blog probably already know I’m a big fan of fireworks. I include pictures of shells bursting in the air quite frequently. Friday night I looked forward to the possibility of watching and taking pictures of the local town fireworks from my base camp. The launch site is two or three miles away, but I am at a slightly higher altitude. It turns out I can’t see them very well. The shell bursts were right on the horizon looking south from my front door. Most of the time only about three quarters of the circular burst was visible. They weren’t picture worthy, but I enjoyed them anyway.

Today turned into a grocery day. I have tried to avoid weekend grocery runs, but when you run out of something the crowds don’t mean as much. In this case I was out of milk. It’s not something I use a lot of, but somethings just don’t work very well without it. The fact that I ran out is Walmart’s fault. They were out of the two quart size last week and they didn’t have many today. They did have lots of customers. It was a bit of a zoo. Sunday also seems to be the day for odd characters at Walmart. The guy in front of me at the checkout kept staring at himself in a hand mirror while talking on the phone. He paused long enough to pay for the mirror before resuming his staring and talking. Weird?

Thursday July 3rd 2025

The last few days have been very ordinary. The threat of rain has remained high, although I’ve only been caught in it once. Driving in tropical downpours is not fun and I’d really prefer to avoid it. Visibility is very poor and it’s hard to avoid driving through standing water.

Tuesday was my last chance to visit Disney World this week, but the rain in the forecast and actual rain kept me home both Monday and Tuesday. My annual pass is blacked out around major holidays. Disney can get very busy during the Independence Day Holiday. I’ll have to settle for watching Disney World live streams on YouTube until Monday. There are plenty of them. A trip to Sea World in the next few days remains a possibility.

My exercise the last few days has been almost exclusively from walks around the park that hosts my base camp. I can get a couple of miles in by walking the perimeter. There are not a lot of people in residence. A few more residence seem to have left over the last few weeks. My neighbors, proud full time residents, say the July and August are the slowest. People start coming back after Labor Day.

Sunday June 29th 2025

The last few days I have focused on chores around my base camp. Outside chores happen in the morning and inside chores in the afternoon. The reason is the weather and its not the heat. High eighties and lower nineties temperature is present in the morning and afternoon. As long as you aren’t spending extended times in the direct sunshine the temperature is manageable. I like to go inside for a drink of water or some kind of juice at regular intervals. The real weather issue is the afternoon rain storms.

Both Saturday and Sunday I wanted to go to Sea World late in the day into the evening. They have a nighttime show this summer that includes fireworks and drones. My general plan is to arrive at Sea World around four or five and tour the park and shows until the 9:30 fireworks show. Mother nature had other ideas. Both days the rain moved in around 3PM and stayed well into the evening. I don’t know if the nighttime show went on as planned. What I do know is Sea World is miserable in the rain. The rain shuts down most of the outside activities. The roller coasters don’t run (not a big deal to me) and the outside shows are questionable. At the very least the seats for the outside show are soaking wet and they don’t go on in thunderstorms. That leaves very little to do. I’ll get there some day that the rain comes early around noon.

Anyway, the inside shores got done during the rain. I even vacuumed the carpet in the living room and bedroom.

Thursday June 26th 2025

The rain has been more cooperative this week. It hasn’t rained as much or as hard when it did rain. The current forecast calls for the summer pattern with rain to return as the weekend approaches.

On Tuesday I made another visit to Disney’s Magic Kingdom. It was my first visit in several weeks. I enjoy the park, but it is much harder to visit than the other parks. The parking lot is across a large body of water known as the Seven Seas Lagoon. You need to take a ferry boat or the monorail to get to the park gate after taking a tram or a long walk from the parking lot. It takes half an hour or more depending on the crowds to get from the parking lot to the park entrance. Getting back to your car with thousands of others at closing time takes much longer.

The park was very busy Tuesday evening. The wait times for the popular attractions were over an hour when I arrived. Later in the evening they became more reasonable. In the intervening time I rode the train around the park probably for the last time for years. Disney has announced that it will be operating in shuttle mode between Main Street station and Fantasy Land station while construction is ongoing in Frontier Land and beyond. July 6th is the last day for full circuit train rides. It is also the last day of operation for the River Boat and Tom Sawyer Island.

Overall the highlight of the evening was watching the Happily Ever After fireworks. I watched it from tomorrow land and fantasy land. There wasn’t enough time to get back to main street after riding Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. There was time to ride Haunted Mansion after the fireworks with a low wait time after fireworks, before making my way back to my car. It was about an hour and a half from the back of Magic Kingdom until I was home. The actual drive time was only about thirty minutes.

Sunday June 22nd 2025

My weekend largely focused on chores around the base camp. I had ideas about going to Sea World for their summertime fireworks and drone show, but the weather had its own ideas. Florida is clearly in a summer weather pattern that has at least one period of rain everyday. It might be just a little shower or it might be a full blown sever thunderstorm.

The problem is knowing when the rain is going to happen. The forecasters seem to only be able to predict the timing about four hours ahead. If you look at the hourly forecast a day ahead, the rain might be coming shortly after the noon hour. By the next morning everything has changed. The rain might be coming around 4PM, but it could still change. That’s what was happening on Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday I went to Disney Springs in the late afternoon into the early evening. The last forecast I reviewed before I departed my base camp called for rain around 8:30PM. My plan was to enjoy some of the entertainment during the early evening and get home before the rain started. I had a good time wandering around the shops and what not in the late afternoon, but Mother Nature had her own idea about my staying for the entertainment. The rain moved in around 6PM and I headed back to my base camp before I got wet.

Sunday the rain began around 2PM and continued into the evening. It was never heavy, but did include some dramatic darkening of the sky. I worked on various tasks around the base camp. The flowering vine that I cut way back in March has bloomed again. Google Lens calls it a Brazilian vine plant called a Mandevilla. I have been keeping the vines climbing the trellis I bought a month or so ago. Today I found one fully open pink blossom with signs of a few more to come. The trick will be to keep the vine under control.

Thursday June 19th 2025

Earlier in the week I managed to avoid the wet weather. The rain was scattered and late enough in the day that it didn’t really impact my activities. Today on the other hand, was filled with flashy, boomy and wet weather. I got caught driving in and around thunderstorms.

I drove to Tampa today for the “Tampa Bay Summer RV Show”. It is at the State Fairgrounds just like the Tampa RV Super show in January, but that’s where the similarity ends. This show is about a fraction the size of the January show. The big show has most every RV brand represented using most of the dealerships in the southeast. This show had the brand selection of the four local Tampa area dealers present at the show. There were also a hand full of vendors of products loosely related to RVs or camping compared to the three buildings full in January.

The RV show was an interesting diversion from my daily routine. I saw a few things to consider as I look to change my way of travel over the next couple of years. The show didn’t really meet my expectations. I knew it was going to be a small show with limited variety, but it was even more limited than I expected. After less than 2 hours I was on my way home.

On Tuesday of this week I visited EPCOT for my daily walking exercise. All of the pictures in this blog entry came from that visit.