Titusville

The whole area from Titusville south to Melbourne is one huge geocaching area. Probably the popularity of Cape Canaveral has exponentially increased the number and quality of geocaches. On Monday we decided to head south to the Cocoa Beach area. Before we left, we did hike a few small parks in south Titusville.  For those who do not geocache, the search for caches takes us to places we would never have found. Combining this with our passion for birding, it is a perfect combination.

The geocaching app I have installed on my iPhone is wonderful. When I have Wifi I can download geocaches in any area I wish. Then I can use my phone, offline to find and log my caches. It sure beats the old Garmin!

Cocoa Beach was rather a disappointment. As soon as we crossed the bridge, we were bombarded with malls, fast food restaurants and traffic. Not our cup of tea. We did find a few nice spots, while caching, but left there rather sad. There were too many people for birds!

Today, Tuesday we were get to go! Today we were going to Merritt Island which many people imagine as space exploration. Cape Canaveral is located here, but we were north of this area in a large area protected by the National Park Service. No geocaches here!

We love to travel through these nationally protected areas, especially here where it is a sanctuary for 1,045 plant species and 310 bird species.

We did a tour of the Visitors Center, with a nice walk. Next we drove to Scrub Ridge in hope of seeing the scrub jay, but it was just too windy. Down the road a bit, we crossed the Intracoastal Waterway and stopped to see the Manatees. They are very difficult to spot and there is no way to get a photo of a complete Manatee!

We stopped at a boat launch area near the lift bridge and Eric got excellent photos of pelicans.

When we left the island, at the foot of the new bridge we were able to do a couple of geocaches and watch a surf glider.

When we returned to Northern Titusville, we did a lot more geocaches.  The parks and recreation areas are lovely.

A great day .... this was our favourite kind of day.

Lakeland

We were with Bruce and Jane in Lakeland for 3 nights. The weather was sunny and warm and we enjoyed it! The first day we drove to Circle B Park near Lakeland and walked one of the trails. Got our fill of alligators and saw lots of beautiful shore birds.

The next day we went to a Regional bridge tournament in Bradenton. Bruce and Jane were lucky to be able to play in the Goldrush and did very well. We were overqualified for the Goldrush and ended up playing in the seniors pairs.  It was either that or the stratified pairs against all the big names. Didn't matter as these seniors were brutal! They were in wheelchairs, used canes and walkers and looked very old, but they were card sharks.  Congrats to Bruce and Jane for wining more gold points!  It was fun though, because any day playing bridge is special😊

Saturday was CanAm day at their park ..... or as they are now supposed to say, AmCan day .... just doesn't sound right. We enjoyed the golf cart parade and went to the dinner and dance.  The next day we left for Titusville to our timeshare.

We had arranged with the timeshare for a late registration on Sunday, when their office is closed. They were to leave the key under the mat in front of our unit. Of course, it was not there when we arrived and after 2 hours of phone calls, we got in.

As far as time shares go, this is a 4 out of 10, but we knew this when we booked. We wanted just a place to sleep as we wanted to explore this area of Florida. We met people here who were renting one bedroom units for $1,700 a month. Ours is 2 bedroom.

We were all set to explore ..... more to come

AROUND THE HORN

We have been gone almost a week and finally I think I have figured out how to use the Blogger app on my iPad.

We celebrated Andrew's birthday with him before he drove us to the airport.

Our trip down to Floirda was interesting to say the least. After our original flight with Delta was cancelled due to high winds and rain, we were booked by them on Air Canada at 8am on Wednesday. Of course, the Air Canada flight did not leave because it did not arrive. We were postponed until 11:45 and this meant we missed our connection in Boston. We were rebooked at Boston, arriving at 10pm.  There were only 12 of us on the Halifax to Boston flight and the flight to Orlando was not full.

We got on our plane in Boston, were taxing out to take off and we had mechanical problems! A sensor in the luggage compartment had failed. Actually this was serious because there was a dog in there and he would have froze. Of course, there is more to this story because when we sat in our seats, the guy by the window was "agitated ". Eric "drew him out" and he explained that he was supposed to be on the earlier flight that we missued. He got hung up in security, but his dog and luggage were on the plane. They got the dog off, but his luggage was on its way to Orlandp.   Honestly, we could hear his dog barking in the luggage compartment. He told us how much his dog meant to him and we think it should have been classified as a service dog.

The poor guy was suffering from PTSD, from Vietnam and told us he had been recovering from a 10lb tumour that had been removed from his liver. At this point, Eric was regretting having started a conversation with him. 

The crew on the flight were wonderful. The captain let us use his cell phone to call Bruce and Jane, to let them know about purchase arrival. One of the mechanics who was working on the plane, took a photo of the dog on his cell, and brought it into the cabin to show our new friend.

We knew this trip was starting off on an interesting note!

Thankfully, we had un uneventful flight and Bruce and Jane were able to meet us.   So great to be in Florida.