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.
The weather this week has been variable. It has been mostly overcast each day with a tendency to rain for a few minutes every hour or so. Not terrible weather, but it does discourage outside activities. I have allowed the weather to keep me from getting my exercise at the Disney parks each day this week until today.
It didn’t rain this morning. The hour by hour forecast for the afternoon showed a chance of rain it the afternoon and evening. Still, I decided to give it a try. My choice of parks for my exercise was the Magic Kingdom. It was only open to regular day guests until 6PM. The evening was dedicated to a separate admission Halloween party event. People with tickets to the party can get into the park at 4PM. Until that witching hour the park is not crowded on party days.
I arrived at the park around 2PM with a plan to stay until it got too crowded. The wait times were fairly short, but the crowds along main street were heavy. The daily parade had just finished. Getting to the end of main street involved a lot of browsing in the shops waiting for the crowd to thin. Eventually I got to tomorrow land, my usual starting place. I started with a ride on the People Mover. It was one of those rare rides with the lights on in Space Mountain. It is always interesting to see the ride’s actual track.
Second on my touring plan was a visit to the Carousel of Progress. This ride show has intrigued me since the first time I saw it at the New York Worlds Fair in the mid sixties. The ride has changed a lot since then, but I really don’t remember the New York version. It is rumored to be getting updated again when they add a Walt Disney Animatronic next year.
When I finished the Carousel of Progress it was after 4PM. The Halloween party guests were starting to arrive. In addition to the party wrist bands they wore, many were in costumes so it was easy to identify them. Their arrival also drove wait times up. It wasn’t looking like a fun two hours to come and then I noticed the black clouds on the horizon. The decision was made, I headed for the exit. The rain began as I arrived in the parking lot near my car. I didn’t gt too wet, but it rained as I battled traffic all the way home.
This weekend’s weather has been less than ideal. The weather pattern called for brief periods of heavy rain followed by enough heat to dry the roads before another brief period of heavy rain about an hour later. Overall it wasn’t bad weather just not real outdoor weather.
Wandering around the park here at my base camp a little more evidence of activity has started to materialize. The most obvious change is the increased number of golf carts on the roads. Throughout the summer most of the golf carts sat rapped in tarps in the various yards while their owners were enjoying cooler climates. Now they are out numbering the cars on the park roads.
The organized activities that had decreased to a bare minimum during the summer are starting up again. The weekly Friday morning coffee social gathering has returned. I just wish they would find a better time for it. A gathering that runs from 7:30AM to 9:30AM isn’t going to get my attention. I’m barely awake by the time it’s over. This park must have a lot of early to bed early to rise leadership.
Another sign of activity is around the pickle ball court. The pile if leaves in the court has been removed and an umbrella for shade has miraculously appeared. Last winter a tarp surrounded the court fence as a shield from the wind. I imagine they will wait for hurricane season to end before they put that back up.
There also seems to be more activity at the dumpsters. During the summer I rarely saw anyone else dropping off their trash. The last couple of times I dropped my trash there was a bit of a traffic jam. The storage lot where the dumpsters are located is also starting to fill up with small trailers and RVs.
The official winter season here is from November first to March thirty first.
October has arrived and maybe fall weather will arrive soon. It is getting dark noticeably earlier. The weather is getting a little more fall like. The high temperature most days is in the mid eighties, but ninety plus days are still mixed in for good measure. Most overnight temperatures are still in the seventies. Once they start dropping, fall will be here to stay. The hurricane season continues as well. The passage of tropical system Imelda this week a few hundred miles off Florida’s east coast brought a lot of clouds and some rain.
All that said, we still get late in the day thunderstorms. I arrived at Disney’s EPCOT on Monday shortly after 5PM in a downpour. I parked my car and waited for nearly half an hour before the rain started to let up and I could leave my car without getting soaked. By the time I reached the entrance, blue sky was returning overhead. I wasn’t wet from the rain, but I was wet from the tram. The seats on the parking lot shuttle tram were far from dry. Even though I didn’t sit in a puddle of water, as the tram moved the water from elsewhere on the seat seemed to make a beeline for my butt. It is not fun walking around with a wet rear end.
I made a full loop of the World Showcase with a break for a dinner of Fish and Chips in the UK Pavilion. The park got progressively more crowded as I proceeded through the various countries. Toward the end of the loop rain was threatening again. I choose to take my wet rear end home before the rest of me got into a similar state.
Today I finally got around to trimming my bougainvillea. The last two pictures represent the before and after. It still may get a little more trimming tomorrow.
This afternoon it occurred to me that I didn’t have any pictures or content ideas for this blog entry. I took my camera outside to grab a few pictures of the flowers in my yard. I’ve done this before when I was missing pictures. Today I found the picture and an indicator of my procrastination.
As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, my bougainvillea bush grows very fast. It really needs to be trimmed at least every two weeks or it gets very shaggy looking. I think it has been more than four weeks now. The plant is on the west side of my property in the hot afternoon sun. That gives me my first excuse to procrastinate. “I’ll do it in the morning” becomes my mantra. Of course I don’t get started early in the morning so it is usually afternoon before I see the plant and remember my good intentions. Today was an example of the other popular excuse. When I saw the bush today, I was really motivated to get it trimmed even in the afternoon. Unfortunately for action, but good for procrastination, the afternoon thunderstorm was moving in. Hopefully, by writing this quasi confession, I’ll be motivated to get it trimmed and keeping it trimmed.
I haven’t been very active this weekend. Other than filling the car’s gas tank and its tire with a slow leak (It needs air every few months) I have only done a little driving around the area. Most of my time has been spent listening to an audio book I discovered on my hard drive. It’s a book I’ve listened to before. Audio books are the most laid back and passive form of books. They go right along with the inactive weekend.
Once again I seem to be out of sync. Both the weather and my sleep cycle seem to be at odds with daily activity. My natural wake up time has gradually crept later into the morning. Today it was well after 9AM before I dragged my sleepy self from my bed. The fact that I was up until nearly 2AM probably had a lot to do with my wake up time. Fixing my sleep cycle is an easy fix. Go to bed earlier and get out of bed earlier. Even if it means setting an alarm. Now, that’s a scary thing for a retired person. Getting in sync with the weather is much harder.
Either the weather forecasters are getting it wrong or I’m just not listening attentively enough. It is probably a combination of both. Each TV weather forecast this week has dedicated time to the two tropical systems making their way across the Atlantic. Tracking them is important to our safety. I am certainly paying attention, but it takes time out of the forecast time slot. Either the weather talkers don’t give a thorough description of the days probability of rain or I’ve tuned it out after I am comfortable that a hurricane isn’t in my immediate future. It is probably both.
Today, for example, the forecast called for partly cloudy conditions until late in the day. Thunderstorms storms were called for after 8PM. The sky darkened around 2PM followed by lots of wind and a little rain. an occasional gentle rain continued the rest of the day. It just didn’t align with any forecast I heard.
Tuesday was another instance where the weather was out of sync with me. Around 4PM, I checked the online hourly forecast and no rain was in the forecast. I also checked the weather radar and found no rain on the scope. It looked like a very good opportunity to visit EPCOT for some exercise, people watching and a little entertainment. When I arrived in the park the western horizon was filled with dark clouds. An hour or so later the it was raining lightly and black clouds were on the west and northern horizons. I called a halt to my visit and headed back to my base camp. I was treated to a very impressive lightening show all the way home. Craggy streaks of light crossed the sky from air to ground and cloud to cloud. A few even made almost circular streaks through the sky. Despite all the electricity in the air I made it home fine.
Today turned into a day for a Sunday drive. It wasn’t in the original plan, but I ended up driving up the center of the Florida peninsula to Ocala and back. The original plan was to take a hike along the Van Fleet rail trail. It seems like a lot of other people had a similar plan. The parking lot and nearby road shoulders at the trail head were filled with cars. With no place to park, I continued north to another trail head that had a similar pattern. There must have been some sort of event going on.
Instead of hiking my day turned into a driving day. I continued north on county roads I hadn’t been on before. Traffic on the county roads was typical Sunday afternoon stereotype; slow and meandering. The occasional main routes I used were filled with traffic. Eventually I decided on a plan to visit the Ocala Wetland Recharge Park. I visited the park several times in 2021 and 2022.
The park had changed significantly since my last visit. A large section of the park was fenced off. It was clear why. I didn’t see any sign of damage or construction. In other areas of the park many large trees had been removed. The area was much more open to the new apartments that the construction of had now been completed. On the upside there were plenty of birds and water foliage.
After my visit to the park I decided to take the highways home. Interstate 75 was filled with traffic heading south. Only a couple of miles after getting on the interstate traffic slowed to a crawl. For the next fifteen miles traffic was stop and go. The cause seemed to be an accident between a car and a semi truck. It had been over for a long time when I passed. The only emergency vehicle left was a DOT truck with a big arrow light. Who knows what actually happened.
I got home after a Sunday drive and walk in a park of about 6 hours. It was a fun excursion.
It has been about two months since I visited Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I going to use my favorite excuse and blame the weather. The animals hide during the hot part of the day so you need to go early or late. Animal Kingdom isn’t open at night and it rains a lot in the late afternoon. That leaves the morning as the only real time to visit and I sleep in too much.
I’ve been trying to get my act in gear early all week, but it has been approaching noon before I was ready to leave the base camp. Today was only a little bit different timing wise. I was ready to go before 10:30. The real difference was the temperature. It was only in the low eighties and the animals seem to like that temperature. I made to the park entrance by 11AM.
The crowd level in the park seemed to be on the low side even though I had to park a long way away. My first order of business was picking up my free annual pass holder magnet. They distribute the magnets a few times a year. This one is of Crush from Finding Nemo.
Then it was on to the Safari ride. Today was a big Giraffe viewing day. It was hard to take pictures today. There were two very big guys in the row in front of me. It seemed like every time I lined up a shot one or the other big guy would lean into my sight path to take his own picture. There is nothing you can do about it except taking another safari ride right after the first, but the wait time discouraged that idea. It had almost doubled from 45 to 80 minutes.
I wandered around the park checking out other animals and a few oddities of the human kind. My visit didn’t last long. I was on my way home for lunch around 2PM.
This weekend has been filled with a lot of driving, but not a lot of blog worthy content. On the positive side, gas prices are at the bottom side of their oscillation. Regular gas is less than $2.90 right now in this area, but every county is a little different because of different tax structures.
Traffic seems to be gradually increasing as the number of seasonal residents increases. The out of state plates in the Walmart parking lot continues to increase. This week the number of residents in the park that hosts my home base has also increased. As people return the number of cars parked in front of homes increase. I have also seen a couple of U-Haul trucks pulling car dollies in the park. The official start of winter activities in the park is November 1st, but life seems to be getting busier.
We are now entering the peak Hurricane season. Late September into early October seems to be the time of year that storms threaten or impact Central Florida. As long as I pay attention to the forecast, there should be plenty of time to react. Running from threatening storms still seems to be the best approach.
On Tuesday evening I went to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. This is a separate admission after hours event at the theme park. The party is held on select evenings from the middle of August to the end of October. It has special entertainment including two runs of a special parade, special fireworks, stage shows, rare character meet and greats and spooky enhancements to some rides. Guests are also encouraged to collect candy at designated trick or treat sites throughout the park.
I bought my ticket in August for the Tuesday night event. It turned out to be a sold out night. The only problem was I couldn’t predict the weather. When I arrived at the Magic Kingdom shortly before 5PM there was a downpour in progress, but I came prepared. I had a rain coat packed in my backpack. I needed it just to get from the parking lot to the theme park. The theme for the night was set.
A light to medium rain fell most of the night. Disney did its best to work around the weather, but the weather had an impact. The live entertainment became less live by using recordings, fewer performers and no dancing. The real problems started when it came time for the first running of the parade. I lined up fifteen minutes before show time, but should have lined up earlier for a good viewing area. Starting at show time they announce that the weather was delaying the parade every five minutes until 9PM. By then, I’d been waiting for an hour before they canceled the first running of the parade. The next showing was scheduled for 11:15PM. A full hour of park time was wasted waiting for a parade that didn’t happen.
Tangled Castle in spooky colors
The 10PM fireworks went off on time. The weather was only a very light drizzle. There was no wind and the air was very thick. The weather kept all of the smoke from the fireworks near the ground. Many of the shells were obscured by the smoke. It also didn’t help that I was a little too far down main street from the castle in a less than ideal viewing spot.
Shortly after the fireworks Disney announced the 11:15PM parade was going to start early during a window in the rain. I found a good viewing location along the parade route along with everyone else and waited. My viewing location was in Town Square near the exit to the park. As soon as the parade was over I headed for home. I successfully beat the crowd back to the parking lot. It was around 11:30 when I reached my car and started home.
In between all the waiting for parades and such I went through six or seven trick or treat sites. Disney uses the theaters for shows and restaurants that aren’t open during the party as candy distribution sites. According to the map there were another four or five that I didn’t stop at. Still, I came home with a haul.
I had an Okay time. The rain was a big negative, but even without the rain I probably wont do it again unless I have company. I don’t do waiting around alone well. I need to keep moving.
Rob's Rambling Road Trip 