Sunday May 11th 2025

The last few days have been dominated by a rainy weather pattern. Thunderstorms and random heavy rain showers dominated each day. The pattern is similar to summer, but perhaps a little less predictable. Friday the storms arrived in this area late in the day. Saturday the storms came in two waves. The first was around mid day and the second near the end of the day. Today’s first storm came around 4PM and it was a wild one. The wind was extreme requiring a trip outside after the storm to pick up knocked over items and blown in junk from neighboring properties. Additional storms continued during the evening.

The weather changes represent a need to change behavior. Over the winter months I fell into a pattern of behavior that squandered the morning away. It usually was afternoon before I departed my base camp and became active. Now, with rain a regular event during the day, I need to take advantage of all opportunities. If the morning is the clear time of day, then that’s when I need to be out and active. This weekend I haven’t been very good at that. Each day just before or soon after I leave the comfort of my base camp rain gets in the way.

I noticed this last year as well. Gradually I adapt to the expectation of daily rain. I plan activities during the part of the day it will not be raining and I accept that I may get wet. Right now I’m just remembering how to live in this semi tropical environment.

Thursday May 8th 2025

The current weather in Florida is a summer weather pattern. Although it usually waits until mid June, a pattern of high humidity, temperature around 90 and thunderstorms moving across the peninsula has settled in since the weekend. The forecast calls for it to continue until the middle of next week.

Before the afternoon rain today, I made a visit to Lowes to buy a simple trellis for the flowering vine at the back corner of my shed. The plant that cut back severely earlier this year was starting to regrow from the base. I needed something for the vine to climb so it wouldn’t invade the shed siding like it had before I cut it back. The simple white trellis I bought should do the job well.

While at Lowes, it occurred to me exactly how much stuff I’ve bought at Lowes since I moved into my base camp. It ranged from lumber and tools to a mattress and a refrigerator. I bought a few things at Home Depot, but most of my purchases were at Lowes. The fact that it is practically a neighbor makes it very convenient. I can see the roof of the building from my front steps, but it is about a mile by car to reach their parking lot.

Most of the pictures in this blog entry are from a Wednesday visit to Disney’s EPCOT. I stopped in for an early dinner of Fish and Chips as well as some exercise. The crowds were light and I managed to get in a walk around the World Showcase before the humidity and the threat of rain caused me to call it a day. The actual rain on Wednesday actually held off until around 9PM.

Sunday May 4th 2025

I woke this morning to a dull cloudy day. Rain was on the way to give the area a brief reprieve to the drought conditions that have been present in the area for the last month or so. The rain turned into be a few very brief downpours followed by about half an hour of steady rain. The sky got brighter as the day progressed, but never became one of full sunshine

The threat of rain got me out of bed and moving a little earlier than normal. I had to get outside and move a five gallon bucket under cover before it filled with water. It was left near my bougainvillea bush. I was using it to collect the trimmings from my Saturday attempt to get the bush under control. It seems like only a few days since my last attempt to trim the bush into shape, but it was probably closer to a month. The bush grows very fast and didn’t fill in with blossoms very well after the last trimming. The original plan was to touch up my trimming effort today. The rain changed those plans.

I have one other flowering plant near the bougainvillea. It is a vine with a pink flower. Last year the vine got out of control. To get it off of my shed and the ladder stored on the back of the shed, I cut it back to the base last month. The vine is growing fast. I need to buy a trellis or something similar to capture the vine. There are other places around the property that have supported flower plants in the past. I’ve been looking at my options. The current list of possibilities include several different colors of Hibiscus.

Thursday May 1st 2025

I returned to my practice of using the Disney theme parks as a place for exercise this week. The Easter vacation blackout days associated with my entrance pass are over. It is nice to be able to stop at one of the theme parks to just walk around, checkout any changes, observe the visitor antics, maybe eat some food and generally have a good time. I don’t have to ride everything in the park to achieve value.

Getting to the parks has improved while I have been staying away. The expedited accelerated roadwork on Interstate 4 has reached a milestone. The accelerated part of the effort began around the beginning of the year with a plan to have a number improvements that would usually take several years completed by the end of the year. The “expedited” part involved adding a lane in each direction to alleviate slow downs and backups. The new lanes opened this week. They seem to work. The interstate doesn’t seem to be backing up as often or for long periods of time. The traffic on all the surface roads also seems to have improved. Drivers aren’t trying to use the side roads to avoid the interstate as much.

On Monday I went to Disney’s Magic Kingdom, but I didn’t plan very well. First, it was the night of a separate admission After Hours night. For the admission price a select number of guests gets access to the park after the regular park day ends at 10PM, but people attending can start arriving at 7PM. As a result, the park gets busier as the night goes on rather than getting less crowded. My second mistake was not checking the weather forecast. A thunderstorm shut all of the outside rides and activities down for more than two hours, although the actual rain only fell for fifteen minutes or so. I got a little wet.

Today I went to Disney’s EPCOT for my exercise. It wasn’t too busy. I got in three or four miles of walking, road a couple of rides and took lots of flower pictures.

Sunday April 27th 2025

On Friday I finally got to Sea World. A visit has been in my plans each day for the last couple of weeks. It’s a good alternative while I’m in a blackout period to Disney World based on my limited annual pass.

The parking lot wasn’t close to full, so I had high hopes for low crowds and short lines. It wasn’t the case. There were dozens of school groups in the park. Each group had their own colorful tee shirts with identifying information. They moved as groups filling the walkways from side to side making getting from place to place difficult.

On this visit I got to see the Orca show for the first in over a year. The stadium was under refurbishment for a while and I just had bad timing as well. The show was good as always, but I still like the dolphin show better. I took plenty of pictures of both shows.

Thursday April 24th 2025

The first time I was in this area of Florida was in the mid 1960s. I’m not sure if I was in this specific area since I was a kid in the back seat of my parents car at the time, but it’s probable since we went to Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven from north of Orlando. I think I visited this general area at least once every decade since then. Once the Rambling Road Trip began at the end of 2015, I’ve spent several weeks in this area southwest of Disney World every year. All of that means I’ve seen a lot of change.

Originally this area was very rural. The roads were narrow and lined with orange groves. As the years went by scattered housing developments and businesses started to appear in between the citrus groves. On each visit I was surprised by the growth. For the most part developments of single family homes came first followed by business like supermarkets to support the new residents. Since 2020 the development activity has accelerated. In addition to the single family homes multi family dwellings started to be added to the mix. Some or them were townhouses, but the majority seemed to be apartments.

At the start of this winter very few areas of undeveloped land seem to exist. Over the course of the winter the trees on at least seven different large parcels near my base camp have been cut and earth moving equipment has moved in. I have learned that a new Walmart and Sams is going into one of the tracts. A Target anchored development is going into another and a Home Depot into a third. The others could be anything. The bottom line is the greater Orlando urban sprawl has arrived.

Despite all the construction and roadwork the traffic volume in the area has gone down. The only reason I can think of is that the winter snowbird season is over. It certainly has ended in this park.

Sunday April 20th 2025

Happy Easter

I spent the day at home to avoid the traffic I assumed would dominate the area on the holiday. Yesterday was bad enough just getting to the Walmart less than a mile away for groceries. That was a different mistake. I only needed milk, but it took about an hour with all the people shopping for Easter dinner supplies. In addition to the milk, I came home with a slice of ham for my Easter dinner and a few other things.

It was a very quiet day today. Walking around the park I didn’t see much activity. Many people have departed for the summer. Others were gone for the holiday and those that remained seemed to be indoors. The weather was in the upper eighties, but not too humid. Even the usually constant flow of golf carts on the roads was down to a trickle.

Thursday April 17th 2025

One of the things I enjoy doing on the Rambling Road Trip is taking pictures of the bigger wading birds. This winter as I’ve been enjoying life at my base camp, I haven’t found a good location for capturing images of these majestic creatures. Today I was wandering a good distance away from my base camp into one of my regular stopping areas on my rambling road trip. I stopped at the Tom Bennett County Park in Bradenton Florida to check for birds.

The water level in the various ponds was down, but the birds were there. First up was a flock of Ibis at the waters edge. They are very common, but still interesting to watch. My next bird I spotted was a Great Blue Heron standing among the weeds in the shallow water. Three other Blue Herons were in other ponds and areas. The final bird I took a picture of was an Egret.

Traffic getting to and from the west coast of the Florida peninsula was terrible. I saw several accidents on the interstates and had a hard braking event of my own to avoid am almost accident a few hundred yards in front of me. On the other end of the travel event spectrum there were a lot of periods of wall to wall cars moving at a crawl. I think most of the traffic is normal day to day traffic rather than holiday weekend related.

Sunday April 13th 2025

One day last week the morning TV news called this Florida roadwork season. Apparently the months of April, May and most of June are the desired time to get most of the simple road projects like repaving accomplished. It is after the bulk of the winter residents have returned home and before the heat and daily rains of the Florida summer begin. A similar period in the fall doesn’t exist because of hurricane season.

The area around my base camp seems to be proving the statement. Night time paving on US 27 north from here has begun. It appears to be scheduled for about a month. A little ways south of here on the cutoff to Interstate 4 a similar display board announces roadwork beginning tomorrow. East of here on another escape from the area more construction barrels have appeared. It is beginning to look like I’ll have to choose my routes based on the state of various construction projects.

Today was a two walk day. The first was in the nearby Nature preserve and the second was around my base camp. In between I stopped at Walmart for some groceries. It was a busy Sunday afternoon filled with shoppers, some empty shelves and lots of pallets of new stock blocking the pathways through the store. The only missing element was the staff to transfer the contents of the pallets to the empty shelves. I found most everything I needed. Thankfully, I’m only a mile away from Walmart and a few other food stores.

Thursday April 10th 2025

The weather has been just bad enough to disrupt plans. Some days have started with fog and most days have included at least a few moments of real rain. Nothing really bad, just unpredictable. As a result most of my exercise has been local to my base camp. Trips to the theme parks for a few hours of walking, watching and enjoying haven’t happened.

Over the last few weeks I’ve watched the gradual departure of the winter residents. It was subtle too begin with, but now it is clear that many people have departed. When I think about it, the timing is right. On initial thought, it is too soon. I still think it is winter. The weather isn’t winter, but my mode, living in my base camp, has a heavy impact on my thoughts.

When I have stayed in a single place during the winter, I have usually been in motion no later than the beginning of April. During the years that I jumped around Florida every couple of weeks, my departure from the state was usually later. This year it will probably closer to August.

Somehow I am fascinated with peoples travel pattern. Since COVID, I have been off pattern with other peoples travel plans quite a few times. In 2020, I holed up in Eloy Arizona for the months of April and May while the travel situation stabilized. The park of three hundred plus sites was practically empty by the time I departed near Memorial Day. This is probably when I started thinking about other peoples travel plan. The bottom line is I don’t think I’ll ever be consistent with the general set of travelers.