The campground is home to both snowbirds who spend from 1-5 months here, plus many more transients who spend a few nights. There are a lot of different ways to "camp". From the lady with over 50 plants, as many strings of lights, and decorative everything. She says she comes down every year for 6 months.
And there is the couple from France in their extreme RV, touring the entire USA, then all of South America. How would you like to buy new tires for that!
There is a sailing saying "sailing is just doing maintenance in new places". Well, that applies to physical maintenance, too.
Having broken one toe as we prepared Latitudes for her winter in Maine, I learned that not going to the doctor can result in 3 months of wearing an orthopedic shoe. Not fun. So, after stubbing a different toe badly on a door jam in the RV, we decided I may as well see a doctor. Not a break, just blunt trauma. Now I am wearing shoes in the RV and limping only slightly. Not happy to be at the doctor, though, waiting for the x-ray results.
Not to leave well enough alone, I broke off a back tooth the day before we left for FL. Fortunately, my wonderful dentist worked me in that afternoon, did x-rays, and determined that I needed an oral surgeon to extract the tooth. I did some research and found a very good one. I wasn't sure of that the afternoon after the extraction....
It IS healing well, I can eat more than just gruel now, and I have a pretty green chin. But it is over with after we go back on Monday to get the stitches taken out.
Even with all of this going on, we have made time in our first week here to do some sightseeing. Florida has her share of marsh lands. This one had a manatee watching platform, but the manatees didn't seem to know that they were supposed to be there.
We followed one shady trail along a board walk
This trail ended in a bird watching blind overlooking the water. the birds didn't get the message either.
Obligatory palm trees in the parking lot.
We took a walk on the Pine Island Sanctuary. Brevard County (where we are staying) has at least 20 wildlife sanctuaries. Some have only a 3/4 mile trail, others are quite large. Some are on Merritt Island. On the Pine Island walk we saw a very large alligator in the water (fortunately!). An ever changing V of White Pelicans flew over us.
These two vultures were resting on the shore. These are BIG birds, not the smaller ones we see at home. The big guy standing more upright must have been 3 feet tall.
A Gray Heron stood silently and motionless in the water's edge. He was beautiful.
Suddenly, with one fast lunge, he came up with an impressive sized fish! The fish is somewhat camouflaged by the mangrove branches, but you can see him in this picture.
An evening out with friends Cathy and Rick to a Mexican restaurant - Mariachi band night!
Yesterday we spend the afternoon with Cathy and Rick, exploring Port Canaveral. We visited the Exploration Tower, which overlooks the port.
From the observation deck on the top, the view of the port is great. Luke's panorama...
A large yellow and black floating platform at the dock is actually the landing pad for the SpaceX rocket! This is the actual landing pad where the first stage rocket came back and successfully landed. Of course, the pad wasn't at Port Canaveral at that time. It was 6 miles out to sea. An interesting side note, the bulls eye, on the "drone ship" has written around the circle "of course I still love you". The first drone ship, the one that was destroyed, said "just read the instructions". It was exciting to me to see it.
Cruise ships leave from this port also. A Disney ship and this Carnaval monstrosity left while we watched.
We finished the evening at an Irish Pub.
Another campground friend, Hawk, was playing there with an Irish music group. Hawk is the second from the right, the one with the fiddle. He has played in several groups and contributed to 10 CDs.
Luke has gone to the library already today, we plan to eat lunch at our favorite bench by the water, then a walk through another of the wildlife sanctuaries, The Enchanted Forest, followed by exciting walks through Target and Publix! No matter where you are or how much you are on vacation, groceries and such are still a necessity. At least we're shopping in 80 degree weather!
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