The dry weather pattern changed last night with the arrival of rain. It was noticeably more humid today. The day began bright and sunny, but in the early afternoon the clouds started to move in and darken the sky. During the late afternoon there were several brief rain showers. Since darkness arrived there have been many flashes of lightening and roars of thunder. So far heavy rain has not fallen.
Here come the clouds.
This was a lazy day without much activity worth writing about in a blog entry. I got a few chores accomplished, but most of the day was spent reading and watching video on the internet. The pictures in this blog entry come from my main walk of the day before the clouds completely won the day.
I can’t complain about the weather today. It was another repeat of low nineties, slight breeze and moderate humidity. Once again the rain was twenty miles or so away.
It was lawn mowing day at the RV park. They started before 9AM and were complete in less than two hours. For some reason the mowing doesn’t bother me as much at this park. The noise level doesn’t seem to be as high or intrusive as it is at other parks. Either way everything looks nice and neat after the mowing.
My major task for the day was replenishing my grocery levels. Walmart was just as busy today as it was last week. The good news is there were five assisted checkouts open today as compared to the one or two last week. All of the assisted checkouts had three to five people in line. I chose a short line and got burned. A lady a couple of people in front of me was truly challenged by the activity. Getting her groceries out of the cart and on the belt was her first challenge. Everything needed to be moved around a minimum of three times before she selected the next item in the cart. Once everything was rung up her next challenge was selecting the appropriate card to pay with. I think she tried a zero balance gift card, followed by a debit card that she couldn’t get the pin right and finally settled on a credit card. I think she was capable, but lacked focus. It really was just a sad situation. This could be in any of our futures.
I drove back by the ostrich “ranch?” to try and get a picture of the big birds. Traffic was heavy again so I couldn’t stop. There were at least two birds well back from the road. The snapshot I tried to get one handed as I drove slowly by the field only captured a blurry tree. Maybe another time.
Today’s weather was another repeat of the previous day. The temperature peaked in the low to mid nineties with a nice breeze and mid level humidity. There wasn’t any rain in the area. According to the TV weather talkers this is all thanks to dust from the Sahara Desert keeping the air dry. Thank you Africa.
It turned away just as I took the picture.
Because of the morning sun, I don’t open my drivers side curtains until late in the morning. This morning when I raised the curtains all of the sites in that direction were empty. The weekend was over and everybody departed by the 11AM checkout time. I knew people were leaving, but the extent of the departures in that area was a bit of a shock.
The departures started early this morning. A big diesel motorhome a few sites in the other direction cranked its motor before 8am. It ran at high idle for a few minutes which is very loud. Overall the motor was running for close to an hour before they departed. Everybody has their own sequence for getting ready to travel, but having the motor running for that long seems to be excessive. I think they also had the diesel generator on to power their two roof air conditioners while they loaded their golf cart on its trailer. Maybe the noise from the diesel motorhome kept me from hearing the silent departures on the other side of my RV home.
I was out driving around the area this afternoon. After filling up with gas for only $3.90 a gallon, I took a few local roads to get back toward the beach. Traffic was heavy and I had to stop in slow traffic waiting for a distant traffic light. Looking to my left I was looking right into the eyes of an odd creature. Its head was just above the top of a high fence. When it moved away a few moments later, I finally realized it was an ostrich. You don’t see those everyday.
The dry weather pattern continued today. The temperature peaked in the low nineties with a gentle breeze and only medium humidity. Once again the daily rain showers missed this area.
The afternoon sky.
I made the mistake of forgetting it was a weekend day. My travels today took me close to the ocean. Since it was Saturday everybody had a similar idea. Cars, many with boat trailers attached lined the sides of the road as I crossed the inter coastal waterway. There was nowhere to stop to enjoy the view. As I got closer to the beach the traffic started to back up and lots of pedestrians in beach clothes were everywhere. Once again there was nowhere to stop. I didn’t really want to “go to the beach”, but would have liked to stop for a few minutes. Instead I made a big loop and headed back toward my RV home.
The good news along the way was the price of gas. It is now twenty cents lower than it was the last time I bought gas two weeks ago. It went down another two or three cents in the last couple of days. The price of Regular Gas is now $3.95 or less per gallon. I need to fill my tank the next time I go out.
On the weekend this campground becomes a weekend destination for people that want to enjoy the location and attractions of historic St. Augustine. People show up in weekend warrior mode. They leave their site early in the morning to tour or play in the area and return in the afternoon to enjoy the campground. As is common, there are many people that are camping with people on other sites. As the evening approaches the gatherings start. For some families this is the last weekend of summer, because the kids start returning to school next week in some of the districts. I think this immediate area is the week after next.
Today was a few degrees warmer than yesterday, but overall it was a very nice day. It was sunny almost all day with medium humidity and a light breeze. The temperature peaked in the low to mid nineties. The rain storms were elsewhere today.
I got a late start to the day. It was the middle of the afternoon before I finished all of my online reading and began the active part of my day. By that time new campers were arriving for the weekend. The park staff were leading RVs to their sites in a steady stream. It was difficult to navigate the narrow park roads against the flow of incoming traffic. I suspect the park will not be as full this weekend as last.
Today’s temperature was a little warmer than Wednesday. It peaked in the low nineties with lower humidity. A couple of very brief showers wet down the area. For the most part today’s thunderstorms remained to the north over the Jacksonville area and inland in the middle of the peninsular. The trend for the next few days is increasing temperatures and humidity.
I found an access area to the inland bank of the Matanzas River this afternoon. The little park with a boat launch was accessed at the back of a residential area. It was necessary to navigate through the twenty to thirty year old homes at twenty five miles an hour. Speed seemed to be a real concern. There were two electronic speed measurement signs along my path.
It was low tide along the river. Mud flats were exposed providing additional access out into the river area for fishermen on foot. The boat launch seemed to be questionable at low tide. I was disappointed not to see any birds near the area of the park. A couple of egrets were flying along the water in the distance, but they were too far away to get a decent picture. I spent about a half hour sitting in the shade enjoying the breeze and the view.
The campground has started to fill up for the weekend. Returning into the park this afternoon I had to dodge around two arriving RVs at the entrance. The two rows of sites in front of me that were empty for the last two nights now have half a dozen RVs setup on the sites. It looks like it will be another busy weekend.
This area was right on the edge of the rain belt today. Throughout much of the day storms formed just to the west of here and moved north away from the area. An occasional brief shower wet things down, but many occurred with the sun still shining. The showers kept the temperature in the mid eighties, but the humidity was through the roof.
It was a slow day overall. I got a few maintenance tasks accomplished around my RV home. On one of my walks around the campground between showers I took a lot of closeup pictures of the Hibiscus plants complete with the moisture from the rain.
The day began hazy and cloud covered, but progressed to partly cloudy and then full sunshine. The temperature peaked in the low nineties with average humidity for this time of year. Once again today the rain was elsewhere in the state of Florida.
Today was lawn mowing day at the RV park. It seems like a more efficient activity here than at other places I have stayed. One or two guys did the whole park. I think they were part of the local staff. They started around 9AM and finished up mid afternoon. The loud noise was only around my RV home for a short period of time and everything looked neat and clean after.
During the cloudy part of the day I set out to explore a mixed use trail near the campground. I had to drive a couple of miles to the trail head. It turned out to be in a very open area with fields and low level vegetation. The nice shady tree covered path I expected was nowhere to be found. Since the sun was starting to make its presences known, I decided hiking on this trail would be better at another time. Also, it was probably better suited to biking.
My area of the campground is still quite empty tonight, but other areas of the park seem to be a little more occupied. Overall I think the park is about as full tonight as it was a week ago when I arrived. My guess is that the place will fill up as the weekend approaches.
This area dodged the afternoon rain showers once again today. It was a humid day with the high temperature in the low nineties. A nice breeze kept the outside comfort level tolerable.
I spent the day catching up on chores around my RV home. It wasn’t the plan for the day, but when I discovered a layer of dust, one thing lead to another and I spent most of the day cleaning and rearranging. Since I like to keep the windows open and fans blowing as much as possible, the dust accumulates quickly. It took a lot of damp cloth, mop and vacuum cleaner action even in the small space to get things back in order. My guess it has been more than a month since I did more than a cursory cleaning.
More of the weekend crowd departed the campground this morning. Another six RVs in view from my site left before the 11AM checkout this morning. Later in the day three RVs from California arrived to occupy some of the sites. I’m not sure they are traveling together since they arrived over the course of a couple of hours and are on widely scattered sites, but it would seem like a big coincidence.
It was sunny and humid with a high temperature in the low nineties which is pretty normal. The exception to the norm was the lack of rain. There were no afternoon thunderstorms.
Today’s animal picture
My main accomplishment for the day was restocking my food supply. This Walmart was a real challenge this afternoon. WARNING: I am about to get on my soapbox. First there were no carts available. I passed plenty in the parking lot, but I didn’t think to grab one outside. I had to wait for a departing customer to turn over their cart. There didn’t seem to be that many customers in the store. Perhaps they were all there earlier in the day.
Wildflower blossom of the day.
There were more Walmart employees in the aisles using their carts with blue bins to collect items for online orders than I usually see. These carts and people can be a real obstruction. The carts are slightly wider than regular carts and the employees seem to park them in the middle of the aisle while they wander around looking for some obscure item. Getting by them is one more challenge. The impression is fulfillment of online orders is more important than the business and convenience of in store customers.
When I reached the checkouts I saw another indicator that in store customers are not a priority. There was only one assisted checkout open. It had a line ten people deep. The self service checkout had a shorter line. I don’t like self service checkouts, but will use them in these situations. Today I had two items that the bar code wouldn’t scan. The first item I could laboriously enter the code manually, but the second the code was also unreadable. There was nobody around to assist. They didn’t get the few cents of profit from that item and at some point in time they will have to expend labor to restock the item. I just left it beside the register and finished checking out. One or more of the employees blocking the aisles for online orders should have been assigned to the checkouts. This ends today’s Walmart rant.
Walking around the campground this afternoon I found the place emptier than anytime since I arrived last Tuesday. Most of the weekend crowd had departed and others seemed to be getting ready to leave in the morning. A few new arrivals filled some of the vacant sites later in the afternoon.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 