Jacksonville FL

Monday, 12 March 2018

Walmart parking lot, Jacksonville, FL

My appointment at Camping World to get my leak diagnosed is for 9:00 AM tomorrow.  I knew that any campground anywhere in this area would be too far away for me to be sure I could make the appointment in time, so I decided to try something I’d heard about on line.  RVers have said Walmart will let people park in their lots overnight, and it turns out to be true.  They just wanted to be sure I was parked at the back and not likely to interfere with paying customers.

It’s the parking lot for about a hundred other stores and restaurants as well, and an active bus stop right across from where I’m parked, so the traffic level is high.  In fact, there’re so many people coming and going that Dexter’s a little edgy, and I’m not sure how much sleep we’ll get tonight.  

The RV's shaking because we're parked crosswise to the wind, which has been really strong all day – blowing so hard earlier the RV stayed on the road only because I happened to have both hands firmly gripped to the wheel.  But that means to me it’s likely to suck the heat out of the RV as night grows.  We’re lucky it’s been such a sunny day – not cold and rainy like yesterday – so the solar heating should help.  I’ll cover up the windows in a few minutes, which will help hold the heat in a little.

But I knew yesterday I was going to try this, so I filled up or emptied everything that needed filling and emptying so we should be okay for the night.

Somebody’s backed a truck into a space about 2 spaces in front of our nose and several people are hanging around outside the truck now talking and laughing, so Dexter barked a bit and keeps gruffing now and then.  I hope this doesn’t keep up for too long.  I don’t want to listen to either them or him.

I got charged $5/gallon for propane at Camping World.  That seems really high – I’m sure I didn’t get charged anything like that the last time I bought it.  I need to find that earlier receipt.  But now I’m full of propane – or the RV is.  It’s a comforting thought.  I can turn on the heater and make coffee.  What more does life need?

I forgot to say yesterday that Glen St. Mary, where Karen and Bobby live, was named Florida’s Outstanding Rural Community in 2004.  How about that?

This morning when I still had plug-ins, I spent quite a bit of time looking at New York state parks.  A surprising number of them aren’t scheduled to open until mid- or late April, which is apparently normal and not related to this year’s specific weather.  And I could still use my TV, so I took a good look at the weather and started thinking that maybe I should combine Plans A and B: begin in Pennsylvania, go on to New York, bump all the next states a month, and then end up in Ohio next year at the time I would have been there according to my original itinerary.  Which I posted as one of the pages on this blog, but may need to modify.  Sometime tomorrow, I’m going to spend some time looking at Pennsylvania’s state parks and see what’s available before I decide.