Saturday March 18th 2023

Today’s weather was better than anticipated. Early in the week today was forecast to be a severe weather day as the latest cold front passed through. As the week went on the severity decreased, but as of yesterday it was still supposed to rain most of the day. The sun was visible in the sky shortly after sunrise. As the morning went by the clouds increased as did the wind. During the afternoon the wind continued but a few areas of blue sky were visible. The forecast kept pushing the possible rain out. It is currently forecast to happen overnight, but that didn’t sound all that certain. Either way tomorrow is going to be a cold day.

Many, possibly even most, RVers travel with pets. You see people walking dogs around the park all the time. There are big dogs, little dogs, young dogs and old dogs. Occasionally you also see cats getting walked. I am sure there are many more cats inside RVs. Other animals are also traveling with people as pets. At least once I saw a pet rabbit in a wire fence enclosure at a campsite. Birds are also traveling pets. On several occasions I’ve seen cages outside RVs and a few times I’ve seen Cockatoos and Parrots on peoples shoulders. Today I saw a new one.

On my evening walk I passed by a woman carrying a chicken in her arms. This wasn’t a little bird, but a full grown brown hen. Every time she stopped the chicken was allowed to peck at the ground around her feet. The bird seemed to be very comfortable with this behavior. I guess these people decided to travel with a personal source of eggs.

Friday March 17th 2023

The wind was back out of the south today. It brought a little warmer weather allowing the temperature to climb into the low eighties. The next storm front is due tomorrow afternoon.

The last of the week day site fillers departed this morning. This is my term for the travelers that pick up the midweek days that the remain available to reserve after the Florida natives book the weekends. This afternoon the weekenders started to arrive. They come will all forms of equipment from open air hammocks and tents to fancy RVs. Usually the local weekenders are families or young couples. The atmosphere in the park becomes much more active and the weekday quiet is replaced with the sound of active play.

I spent the day at home again today. The local county and municipal parks I’d like to visit are busy his week. It is school vacation week in this area. The county is running enrichment activities at the county preserves for the school kids. The local TV news had a story on the fishing lessons and hiking offerings at one of the parks. I don’t need to fight for parking only to fight for a little peace and quiet on the trails. The weekends have similar problems, so it will probably be next week before I visit the preserves. There is still plenty of nature here at the state park to keep me entertained.

The day use area at the park was a popular place for St. Patricks day gatherings today. In addition to families picnicking with a very green twist, there was a full blown party this evening in one of the pavilions. I think it may have been connected with the park staff. They had all kinds of decorations hung and were playing music that seemed to be appropriate for the holiday. It sounded like they were having fun.

I stumbled on the March Madness Basketball tournament on TV today. A few years ago I would have been glued to the TV watching the games. I’m just not into college basketball anymore. I don’t know the good teams from the bad. I watched about one quarter of a game today. It wasn’t good or bad, just plain ugly. I think I’ll continue to avoid watching the tournament.

Wednesday March 15th 2023

The weather pattern in this area has changed. Last week the temperatures were threatening to break ninety. Today it didn’t make it to seventy. This morning it was very cloudy with a few very light showers. The temperature didn’t even break the sixty degree mark until afternoon. When the sun came out in the middle of the afternoon the temperature finally climbed into the sixties.

While I was out running errands today, I was reminded of how much change has taken place in this area since I started coming here in 2016. This campground is located 8 miles east of Interstate 75. The city of Bradenton is six to seven miles west of Interstate 75. When I first visited this area the build up of shopping and residential property had only expanded a couple of miles east of the Interstate. Each year I’ve visited the expansion has progressed further east. The road has been widened and two traffic circles added. This year the development has expanded into farm land only a mile away from the campground. All of the top soil has been stripped from the land, drainage and roadbeds have been established and the early phase of a housing development is starting to appear. The state park seems safe and the land beyond the park doesn’t seem to be attracting development, but the overall change is dramatic.

Four days into the return to Daylight Savings time I have manged to get my habits aligned to the time. I’m back to getting up at the same clock time instead of an hour later. The end of the day is the biggest change. I have to eat before my last walk of the day and get used to a shorter time inside after dark. The available time to watch TV and write a blog entry had to be compressed so I could get to bed at a reasonable hour. As you might be able to tell based on this paragraph. I’ve spent too much time thinking about it.

Tuesday March 14th 2023

There was a big change in the weather today. The high temperature for the day was ten degrees lower than yesterday and the humidity was way down. The more northerly wind added a chill to the air. The high temperature was in the mid seventies under a very blue sky. Tonight is forecast to get down into the low fifties.

It is amazing how a simple little fumble can change your entire day. In this case it involved a plastic can of coffee. I keep the coffee in the cabinet above my table. This morning it didn’t make it safely from the cabinet to the surface of the table. Instead it bounced off my credenza, popped its lid and landed on the sofa. A cup or two of coffee was spread over a wide area. Cleaning up the mess changed my entire day.

I managed to scoop up and recover the deeper piles of coffee. Some of it made it to the trash off of a few of the movable objects it fell on. The rest required more drastic treatment. I got the vacuum cleaner utensils out and went into cleaning mode. Once the coffee was cleaned up, I continued on with the vacuum cleaning other areas of my RV home. It was close to noon when I made my coffee and started my breakfast routine. Instead of leaving the state park for errands, I stayed home all day. At least the RV got vacuumed.

Today wasn’t a good day for wildlife pictures. The most interesting discovery was an alligator in the lake. While I know that gators may be in any body of water in Florida, I haven’t seen any in Lake Manatee during my previous visits. This afternoon there was one about fifty yards or so from the boat launch area. It was monitoring activity on the bank looking for its next meal.

Monday March 13th 2023

The TV weather talkers called today a Weather Alert day. I called it a weird weather day. This morning it was a nice sunny day with a few scattered clouds. Around 10AM light rain started to fall. It was still sunny and the rain seemed to be mostly on one side of my RV home. After about fifteen minutes it was over and the sun was still shining. Over the next hour or so the wind really started to blow and the clouds moved in from the southwest. Shortly after 11AM the area to the southwest with all the clouds came under a tornado warning. The TV weather people went into overdrive mode trying to find a new way to describe a picture of the weather radar sweeps for almost an hour. The area of clouds never got to this area. The rest of day was filled with a few drops of rain here and a few drops there, but the ground barely got wet. The TV weather reported rain in other widely scattered areas. The temperature peaked just over the eighty degree mark.

The almost rain and the threat of severe weather kept me at home all day. I spent some time on the computer researching places for possible future stays. Finding places and making reservations is one aspect of this lifestyle that I don’t enjoy. Gathering information takes time and making an actual reservation can be a challenge as well. I prefer the campgrounds that have online reservation systems. Getting through on the phone can be a real challenge. Off season campgrounds often don’t answer their phones and I’ve yet to have a campground return a voice mail.

I still managed to get two walks around the state park in today. It cleared up before evening enough for a few fishermen to launch boats into the lake. A few others from the campground were trying their fishing luck from the dock. The gopher tortoises were out feeding in the grass and an odd little heron arrived at the beach area to forage for food in the vegetation at the edge of the lake.

Sunday March 12th 2023

It was a sunny Sunday with a strong breeze. The temperature peaked in the low eighties. Overall it was a comfortable day if you stayed out of the direct sunlight. The next cold front is due to approach the area overnight with rain forecast for the first part of Monday. Several cooler than normal days are forecast to follow. It should be a nice change.

The spring forward action with the clocks caused the usual level of confusion today. It is full of challenges and changes. The first challenge is when to get up. Do you get up at the same clock time or at the time your body believes it is. I chose to split the difference this morning by only giving in to the time change by half an hour. I have three time devices that I have to change manually. Only the microwave oven clock got changed last night before bed time. The other two clocks including the bedroom clock remained on standard time until I wrote the previous few sentences. I wonder how many times during the day it confused me.

The other thing that needed to change today was my late in the day procedure. I have been in the habit of taking my sunset walk before returning home for my evening meal. With sunset an hour later, that flow needs to change. By the time I finished my late in the day walk it was well into the evening. Everything from eating to TV watching and blog entry writing has been squeezed into a smaller time frame. At the very least, I am going to have to eat before my late in the day walk.

Since it was Sunday, the campground turned over a lot today. I have new neighbors across the street. I suspect the neighbors on my side of the street are moving tomorrow. Elsewhere in the state park it was busy too. There were several families using the beach area. I don’t think I’ve seen more than a solo swimmer or two using the beach before. The boat launch was also getting a lot of use. There was a real traffic jam of put ins and take outs going on this afternoon. This even included one small collision between boats just off the ramp. There wasn’t any damage just a few excited people. One thing that was complicating the boat launch were all the people fishing from the dock. They were taking up the space intended for boats to tie up. It kept me entertained watching the action for quite a while.

Saturday March 11th 2023

After last nights rain filled front passed through the area, it was another nice day. The humidity was down a lot and the temperature was a few degrees cooler. The peak temperature was in the low eighties with a good breeze. There is another twenty four hours before the next front arrives with more rain.

Exploring other areas of the park today I found more signs of tree damage from the storm. There are more trees down in the other camping loop as well. All of the trees seem to have fallen in the same basic direction. The camping loops sit in an island of trees surrounded by open areas with only low bushes and a few trees. Combined with the nearby lake it is possible for the wind to really build up some strength.

This is the start of spring break. Most of the Florida school systems have the upcoming week off. That has an influence on the people in the state park. A lot of tent camping families arrived yesterday and more today. The TV news indicates that record numbers of spring breakers from other parts of the country are expected in the area over the next few weeks. There is concern that the beaches will not be usable because of red tide. Many dead fish wash up on different beaches every day. The red tide has been moving north and south along the west coast of the Florida peninsular.

Wandering around the park today, I started to see some wildlife. Unlike the south Florida area I was in the last three weeks, this area doesn’t have a ton of water birds. Even though there is a large body of water in Lake Manatee, it doesn’t seem to attract birds. The wildlife I spotted today was the ground variety. First up was a Gopher Tortoise feeding on some grass in the picnic area. There were also plenty of squirrels in the picnic area. Later in the day on my walk to the boat launch, I walked up on an Armadillo. We were both pretty startled. It made a quick retreat into the brush as I tried to get a quick picture.

Friday March 10th 2023

The weather was nice again today, but the forecast is showing signs of change. It was sunny and warm today. The high temperature was in the mid eighties. As night approached so did a line of storms coming in off the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first break in about six weeks. It was only a brief period of rain, but more storms and change are due over the weekend and during the day on Monday. A low temperature in the forties is forecast for the overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.

Today was focused on relaxing, settling in and refreshing my knowledge of the park. It has been more than a year since my last visit. On a positive note they have constructed a new pavilion near the water in the picnic area. On a less positive note there have been a lot of changes to appearance of the park. Some of it was planned and some of it was the result of storm damage. On the planned side is a large area that was subjected to a controlled fire. In that area the brush is gone, some of the bigger trees are burn scared and the grown is black in color. It was long enough in the past that the grown level palms are all green again.

In the campground proper the foliage between the sites has been thinned out. I’m not sure if this was planned or associated with the clean up of the storm damage. There are many trees that are down in the park. Most of them as the result of being uprooted. I presume this is the result of hurricane Ian. There is a lot of new open space. The trees that interfered with guest parts of the park have been removed, but the ones that are out of the way are still on the ground. There are also a few trees that are no longer standing straight, but are still living. I can’t make up my mind if the changes are superficial or result in a change to the over all character of the park. So far I haven’t checked out the other camping loop. Maybe the storm damage isn’t as visible there.

Thursday March 9th 2023

Today was sunny with only a little wind. It was a good day for travel. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties where I was at the heat of the day. It may have been warmer a my point of origin. One hundred plus miles north in Florida seems to make a difference.

I packed up and departed Collier-Seminole State Park at quarter to one in the afternoon. My departure was complicated by finding space to hookup my car for towing. In older state parks like Collier-Seminole there isn’t enough room along the campground roads near the sites. My usual solution is to use the day use area parking lot to complete the coupling. Today that was a long walk away. I was actually ready to leave the site before noon. Moving the car, walking back, using the dump station and then driving the motorhome to the day use area for the hookup took the better part of an hour.

My only stop on the 140 mile drive north was at a gas station under ten miles after I left the state park. I had scouted the station for good access earlier in the week. Unfortunately, the driver of a gray pickup didn’t know my plans. I entered the station from the back and came around the building to line up with the last row of pumps. A gray pickup truck was parked at that pump. The driver was probably inside the convenience store. I waited a good distance away for over five minutes with no sight of the driver. With plenty of room to maneuver I gave up waiting and continued on my way intending to stop at a station in Fort Meyers I have used in the past. Somehow a combination of traffic and maybe a missing sign, I drove right by the correct exit. I arrived at my destination with a little less than a quarter tank and a few more gray hairs from anxiety.

Starting in the Fort Meyers area and continuing most of the way to my destination I started to see signs of hurricane Ian damage. Even five months later there is still a lot of damage to things like road signs, billboards and other high business signs. I suspect similar damage is why I missed the gas station sign in Fort Meyers. North of Fort Meyers I think there were a number of areas with tree damage, but it is hard to say for sure.

The last thirty miles of my trip were the worst. Traffic was heavy through the Sarasota Bradenton area and a few areas of construction really slowed everything down. I can’t say I ever came to a complete stop, but the forward progress was down to 10MPH a few times. It was after three thirty when I arrived at Lake Manatee State Park in Bradenton Fl. Once again I used the day use area here to unhitch my car. The difference is I can almost see the day use area from my campsite.