Thursday November 13th 2025

My cold weather tolerance seems to have adopted to a southern condition. This week has had daily highs in the sixties and overnight lows in the thirties. When I lived in the north that represented a nice fall day. Here in Florida I used it as an excuse to stay in and hibernate. I even had to turn the heat on to keep the inside temperature comfortable for sitting around. As the weekend approaches conditions are getting back to normal. The daily highs will be back in the low eighties.

Today was all about water in the park. First came a call for volunteers to read all of the water meters on Saturday. The property owners association pays the county bill monthly. Once a year in November they read the individual unit meters and bill the owner. It seems to work. However, that wasn’t the only thing to do with water today. Around noon we got a notification that there was a water leak on one of the roads in the park. Water on that road was getting turned off for maintenance. About an hour later we were notified that the water in the entire park was getting turned off. The next notification at about 5:30 or so announced the return of water service.

I have a few observations about “the great water outage”. On the positive side volunteers in the park did most if not all of the work. If they called a plumber, I didn’t see one. This probably represents a significant savings. Th other observation relates to the system used for notification. Residents receive a voice telephone call via an automated system. For most of the times they use the system, I would prefer a text message, but today’s “great water outage” explains why a lot of people like it. The argument has always been that many residents are of an age that don’t do text. The tone and content of today’s messages also demonstrate a desired value. The announcement calls carefully described the problem without too many details then described what a resident should and shouldn’t do. I know that you shouldn’t expect any water from the tap if the water is off, but maybe sufficient numbers of residents need the reminder. I am continually reminded that many things here are structured for older residents. There is at least one resident that is north of a century.

Sunday November 9th 2026

Today was a weather transition day. The last couple of days have been sunny with highs in the upper eighties. The next couple of days have forecast highs in the sixties. Today had periods of torrential downpours separated by full sunshine, but the temperature remained in the low eighties. Not a bad day, but the weather did manage to throw a monkey wrench into the overall enjoyment.

After today’s first downpour in the late morning, I got on the road for the Atlantic Ocean. I have been wanting to checkout the activity on the coast and the cruise ships at Port Canaveral for a while. Somehow I keep letting things get in the way, but today was the day. The drive east using the toll roads was uneventful with ominous black clouds hovering to the north. Using the toll roads for the east bound leg was a new experience. I usually go east on smaller local roads, but today I was in a hurry. Daylight is short when you get started after noon.

When I got to the coastal area something was different. There were lots of cars parked along the causeways with people sitting around in groups. They weren’t fishing, swimming or kite surfing. They were just sitting around. It took a few minutes of thinking before I realized they were waiting for a rocket launch. I hadn’t checked the launch schedule before I started my journey, but got lucky. I joined the people sitting around waiting at the Cove area in Port Canaveral. The Blue Origin rocket launch was in a weather hold when I arrived, but it wasn’t raining. Interestingly, it came out of hold when it started to rain where I was a mile or two from the launch pad. It went back to a hold and then a delay until Wednesday about ten minutes later. So I didn’t get to see a launch, but watched a couple of cruise ships leave port.

The drive home was filled with traffic, heavy rain and the glare of a setting sun. Overall a fun day with a lot of driving and listening to the NFL games on satellite radio.

Thursday November 6th 2025

After Halloween was over, most Americans get ready for Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Only a minority jump fully into Christmas celebration and preparation. In this area the theme parks jump full force into Christmas with the flip of a switch.

Paying attention to the daily blogs and vlogs about Disney World, Universal and Sea World it was easy to track the transition between Holidays. At Disney World’s Magic Kingdom all of the Halloween decorations were reported down by Saturday morning November 1st. Some people remarked on the absence of decorations in the park on Saturday. By Sunday wreathes and bunting were up along Main street. The town square Christmas tree didn’t arrive until Monday morning. I’m sure they had finishing touches after that to be ready for the first Christmas party on Friday November 7th.

I chose to visit Magic Kingdom on Wednesday afternoon and evening to see the change in decorations. I also got in my daily exercise and an evening meal of Fried Shrimp at Columbia Harbor House. Riding attractions and general navigation in the park was not easy. It was very busy. Maybe other people came to see the decorations too.

Overall the decorations were nice. I didn’t see anything particularly different from past years. The one thing that stood out was all of the background music. Instead of all the Disney specific pieces Christmas songs were playing in their place. The sons were so addicting that I tuned in one of the Christmas music channels on my satellite radio on the ride home.

Sunday November 2nd 2025

It is hard to believe that November has arrived, but the return to standard time is trying hard to convince me. The early arrival of sunshine this morning coupled with the early return of darkness at the end of the day is having the expected disruption to circadian rhythms. It will probably be the end of the week before it feels like normal again. On top of all that, in the stores Christmas is giving the boot to Halloween in a big way. So much change.

As I have done most Sunday’s this fall I took a drive during the afternoon. My motive for this excursion is not travel, but audio entertainment. I enjoy listening to the NFL Sunday Drive on satellite radio. The program provides the radio play by play of the scoring drives in each of the NFL games. It is fast paced football without the boredom of three and outs.

On today’s drive I noted once again all the development going on in the area. Lots along the main roads that were filled with trees or even swamps a year or two ago were now cleared to flat sand filled areas or construction sites filled with concrete and steel. Most of the build up is dedicated to apartments or commercial strip malls to service the apartments or the housing developments that fill the area behind the main roads. This build up started about 5 years ago when people learned they could live in a Florida home and work for companies based almost anywhere. Now, that ability is becoming more difficult and the cost of housing (interest rates and insurance costs) has gone up resulting in slowed overall growth, but they are still building. Is the bottom going to fall out?

I stopped into Walmart today. That was a mistake. Not only was it crowded, but they were changing from Halloween to Christmas. Either this Walmart has no warehouse space or they don’t believe in using it. The aisles in all parts of the store were filled with pallets of stock that needed to be moved to shelves. There weren’t any staff around to complete that task, but they were bring more pallets out from the back. Narrow one way aisles filled with stopped shopping carts and shoppers almost standing on their heads to find stuff around the pallets was the norm this afternoon. I got my groceries and got out of there as fast as possible.

Thursday October 30th 2025

On Tuesday of this week I made my annual visit to Disney’s Fort Wilderness campground to see the Halloween decorations on display at most of the campsites. A few sites were occupied by people that were there only as spectators, but most likely they were just surprised by the holiday celebration they found. The collection of blow up figures, hand made items and absolutely amazing coordinated displays is over the top.

I parked at the Transportation and Ticket Center and made my way via monorail to the Magic Kingdom and then via boat to Fort Wilderness. It was still daylight when I arrived. Being able to walk around during daylight turned out to be a good thing. Sunday and Monday’s rain storms had left parts of the campground flooded. The roads were all high and dry, but some campsites were closed with pump hose lines crossing them and water filled puddles lined many of the campground loop roads. After dark trying to stay out of the golf carts way as I walked around the loops became an exercise in not falling off the edge of the road into the mud.

This year I only walked five of the loops leaving ten or twelve unvisited. There seemed to be a lot more fast moving golf carts circling to see the decorations. Even though I dressed in bright light colors, I feared for my safety a few times. I cleared out and headed for home a little after eight. To make up for my incomplete visit, I watched the a full tour of the decorations on one of my favorite YouTube channels on Wednesday night. The ResortTV1 YouTube channel did a 5 hour live stream from a golf cart touring all the loops in the park.

Sunday October 26th 2025

The weather has been a state of transition. It varies from sunny to rainy throughout the day with plenty of wind to go with it. I wouldn’t call it bad weather. It just isn’t predictable enough for extended outside activities. Tomorrow’s forecast is currently predictable in the negative direction of almost total rain.

This also seems to be the start of the new season in Florida. Not a weather based season, but a tourism based one. Judging primarily by this park the snowbirds are back. Most of the units now have cars in front of them. The change has been pretty obvious over the last week. I noticed new arrivals every day. Sometime it was just a car that I hadn’t seen before and other times it was large scale unpacking from vans or trailers. My immediate uphill neighbors arrived Saturday morning. I am now completely surrounded by occupied lots.

The winter schedule in this park begins this week. The first weekly community campfire is Monday night and the first regular association board meeting of the season is scheduled for Wednesday night. Last winter I had very little interaction with the park activities. I am going to try to be a little more engaged this year.

Thursday October 23rd 2025

Wednesday was this weeks sol visit to Disney World. It was one of my usual visits to EPCOT for exercise and food. I also road the Spaceship Earth ride for the first time since its refurbishment. For the most part it looks brighter and cleaner now, but doesn’t include any major changes.

The EPCOT crowd level was only moderate. Walking around the World Showcase was only partially blocked by all the people. My timing could have been better. I got stuck between China and Germany by a raised draw bridge. The fireworks barges were getting relocated from backstage to the center of the lagoon for the night time fireworks show. The bridge opening added fifteen to twenty minutes to the walking time around the water.

The most interesting and frustrating part of Wednesday’s visit to EPCOT was the strip home. I departed EPCOT before the evening rush hour had run its course. It took about an hour and a half to cover the usual half hour journey. Most of it was spent just trying to get to and on the Interstate 4 highway. The single file one lane backup was over a mile long and was complicated by all the impatient drivers that chose not to join the end of the line and try to force their way into th solid line at the last minute. Most of the perpetrator were in Florida tagged cars so I don’t think ignorance by tourism can be an excuse.

Around my base camp things continue to get more active. I see cars in front of previously empty trailers every day. The number of golf carts flying up and down the roads is also increasing daily. Regular winter activities return November 1st.

Sunday October 19th 2025

We seem to be living in a world of colliding holidays. Halloween decorations and candy started appearing in stores during August. The big home improvement stores had aisles of blowup ghouls, ghosts, vampires, witches as wells all shapes and sizes of pumpkins. In September, as the Halloween decorations got sold the space was filled with Christmas decorations.

Last week, during a visit to Lowes, one side of the main aisle had Halloween and the other side had Christmas decorations. The motion detectors on the Halloween zombie decorations would trigger when you got near setting off motion detectors in Santa Claus across the aisle. There is something very weird about Santa and the devils friend having a conversation in a home improvement store.

This weekend the Halloween blowups were all relegated to a little corner area. The rows were lined with Christmas trees and blowup Christmas figures. Many of the blowups had a distinct Disney flare. I don’t know if the Disney touch is local to this area, but there sure were a lot of Mickey Ears on Santa Claus. It will be interesting to see what kinds of decorations show up at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground for each of the holidays. I plan to walk through the campground before Halloween to check out the usually over the top display and again near Christmas.

On a similar theme of pushing the holidays. The Hallmark channel’s Christmas movie marathon has started. It makes great background TV. All the plots are so similar that you don’t need to watch the whole thing to know what’s going on. You can also tell time within a two hour window by how well the leads like each other. In the first part they don’t like each other. During the middle hour they like each other leading up to a major disagreement. The last hour is filled with rebuilding their relationship leading to the happy ending. Everything else that goes on in the movie is used to disguised the basic plot and add the directors improbable hope for an award wining film.

Thursday October 16th 2025

Today was an EPCOT exercise day, but events almost conspired for me to get my exercise in another way. While I was on my way to EPCOT this afternoon a warning I have never seen on this car appeared on the dash. I was in danger of running out of gas. My random driving pattern over the last few days left me unaware of my fuel level. The warning was fortuitous. There was about fifteen miles to EPCOT without any gas stations on the route. A change of route was necessary to get gas. The alternative, although unlikely was getting my exercise walking for gas. Needless to say I took another route, stopped for gas and got to EPCOT a little later than planned.

EPCOT was very busy this afternoon and evening. It is still fall break in some of the area school districts which may be one of the reason for the crowds. Another reason is the overflow from the Magic Kingdom. It is a special admission Halloween Party there so the extra people are at EPCOT. Whatever the reason lines were long and just walking was challenging. So many people are oblivious to the crowds and seem to go out of their way to make it difficult for others to navigate the walkways.

I made one loop of the World Showcase and grabbed some desert even though I hadn’t eaten supper yet. The vanilla soft serve ice cream cone made with real vanilla bean is hard to skip. I debated another loop or waiting for a ride, but decided on a return to base camp for supper instead.

Sunday October 12th 2025

Fall has arrived in Florida. The thermometer didn’t reach eighty on Saturday and the overnight temperatures are steadily in the sixties. Even though daily highs will still be in the eighties and occasionally in the nineties, once the overnights get below seventies outside activities become much more pleasurable.

This weekend had two hikes (read as walks) in the outdoors on the agenda. One day was in the wildlife preserve near my base camp and the other was in a park around Lake Mineola in Clermont. Both were refreshing light exercise. I was disappointed not to see any wading birds to take pictures of, but found a few wild flowers available for pictures.

The area also seems to have a different vibe in the air. Traffic patterns are changing. Perhaps there are more car on the road. The park surrounding my base camp continues to come out of summer hibernation. Most of the returning residents have Florida license plates indicating they call this home and somewhere else their temporary home. I suspect the ones that claim northern residences as primary will arrive later. Either way there is more life in the place.