Busy, busy day, but no surprise since it was so nice outside for a change. Normal morning of course, get up, eat some breakfast, a bowl of green chili left over from last night, and then some time reading the comics and doing the crossword. Did a sink full of dishes to get the hot water heater to kick on and then went in for a real nice, relatively long, shower. About 3-4 minutes in other words.


    Went south into Ocala first, as I wanted to stop at a hobby shop I knew of there. The idea was to pick up a couple more Code 83 turnouts, or switches as some call them, for my planned HO scale mini railroad layout. But the display there had been picked dry also, except for a couple from the Peco brand that he wanted nearly $50 each. Not wanting them that much, I did find out why Atlas brand track has been in short supply for more than a year. Seems that the company got kicked out of China for some reason two years ago and when they went to set up shop in some other, most likely Asian country, many of the 'dies' they use to cast their track in were destroyed. So they are just now starting to come back on line with some of the new stuff, but in the mean time anything out there is being held really dear. Which explains why my order last August didn't show up before I left in September. Oh well.


    One cool thing is that the owner of the hobby shop there told me that the local model railroad club was holding an open house today, and that it was only about a mile from where I was. So I hopped in the truck and went over there to look at what they had. It turned out to be a very nice HO club layout of about 25'x40' in size. They had several trains running and there were a whole bunch of kids there starring at everything going on. I didn't stay long, but there are always a few things you see that get your mind to going.


    Headed east out of Ocala towards Silver Springs next. I was there a couple of years ago and the word was that they were hoping to sell out to the state and have them turn it into another one of their State Parks. Evidently there isn't enough money of course, so everything has been put on hold, but I am hopeful that one of these days the powers that be will figure out that they are only going to have a certain amount of time to make it happen after which the area will be lost to the public for good. I went in and wandered around some of the trails and walked down to the spring and along the river. Really pretty there this afternoon.


   On east after that and just a short drive out into the Ocala State Forest before turning south and then west again and then back north in order to come back around and into Ocala once again. Rather hungry by that time so I found a local Chipotle's for a bite of late lunch. Haven't eaten at one of those for several months now, so it was nice to once again eat my standard chicken burrito. Yum!


    Got back to the trailer with about an hours worth of sunlight still left so I took a short walk around the RV park and part of the town. The lake here that the RV camp borders finally has water in it again. Two years ago I could hike nearly a half mile out into the lake bed, now there is nearly a foot of water right up to the end of the boat ramp. Still a need for another 5'-6' feet in the whole lake, which is an amount of water I can't even wrap my mind around. But if you had told me even last year that water would be up to the boat ramp again I would of thought you loony.


    The town is still cute and quite, like always. Lots of big live oaks with Spanish moss all over them. There are a couple of houses here that I always like to walk past and look at. One Victorian here is maybe my all time favorite house, although that is a hard one to quantify as my tastes are always changing.


    Read some more this evening, still trying to get through this one Grisham novel that I've been sporadically opening. It's slow going but I'll finish it one of these days. Kind of late right now, but I'm back to my old schedule of staying up late and sleeping in mornings so I think I'll work on a few pictures. Perhaps I'll even get something posted in the next day or two.