as an update to my post, it seems that due to my travel to an area with limited wifi and 4G network that had very limited strength that perhaps that was causing the drain. I know that if wifi is on and the phone is not connecting it keeps looking for a wifi signal. Turning wifi off, therefore has provided much better battery life. that was the only real change I made. now that I am on wifi solidly, back at my home network, I have wifi turned back on and at 830pm I still have 40% battery after having the phone on all day. Most of the day was driving, but with wifi off, and using Google Maps for the first hour of the day, and my other notifications still coming in like email, apps, txt, battery life is good.
Other changes I did was to look through the top 10 apps that were indicating high battery use and set them to Put App to Sleep when. ot in use. so perhaps that and turning wifi off made the difference. I will monitor over the next few days to see if that makes an ongoing difference.