This travel update is for part one of our 9-day stay in Cocoa Beach, Florida, it covers April 23 to 27.

April 23, 2023 – Sunday: Traveling to Cocoa Beach

We were up early this morning in our cabin at the RV park in Jacksonville and were looking forward to getting on the road again after three months of being sedentary.

Packing the car takes a long time since we have so much stuff with us right now. First, I loaded heavy stuff under and behind the front seats then put the back seats down and put our suitcases and document boxes in.

Then I slid my piano keyboard in with my amplifier, stand, and gig bag.

Then we loaded everything else in.

It wasn’t a long drive and we stopped in Palm Coast for lunch at the Metro Diner, where we ate about 5 years ago when we were staying in an Airbnb there. It’s a fun place and is quite popular, we had to wait 15 minutes for a table!

We got to Cocoa Beach a little after the 3PM check-in time.

Here’s the car before we started to unload it. It was pretty much packed up to the ceiling with stuff.

Our Airbnb in Cocoa Beach is a 2-bedroom 2-bath duplex. Here it is from the front.

The front entryway is really roomy and that’s where the washer and dryer are.

We have a nice comfy couch in the living room.

With a big TV in the dining nook.

The kitchen is big with new appliances.

The two bathrooms are almost identical.

The guest bedroom has a queen-sized bed.

Our bedroom has a king-sized bed.

With lots of storage in the closet against the wall.

We have a nice backyard with some decorations and poles for a clothesline.

I like this concrete Octopus decoration in the back yard. I’d like to try to make something like that if we ever have a place of our own.

We unloaded the car and did some unpacking then went to Publix for provisions. When we got back home we finished unpacking.

April 24, 2023 – Monday: I Dream Of Jeannie

We jogged on the beach this morning, which was nice, except we both had some issues with joints and ligaments. We’ve been jogging mostly on roads lately and I’m guessing that the less even surface of the beach was a bit of a strain, I almost turned my ankle in a small divot. Still, it was nice to be on the beach.

After we cooled down and got dressed we drove around town a bit and went by I Dream Of Jeannie Lane. On the drive down here yesterday we had talked about how the 1960s sitcom “I Dream Of Jeannie” had been set in Cocoa Beach and Patti had found the street on the map.

It was a blast from the past.

I can see why Major Nelson wanted to live here, it’s so close to Cape Canaveral, and he was an astronaut.

April 25, 2023 – Tuesday: A Walk in our Neighborhood

The weather has been rainy here so far but today we put on our hiking boots, unfurled our umbrellas, and headed out into our wet neighborhood. One of the things we saw were a lot of pretty wall murals. Here’s Patti with one, in her hiking boots and with her umbrella.

I liked this big pelican.

I think this is just a rental property but the artist did a really nice job with an undersea scene. The big sea turtle even spans a window.

This was on the side of a wedding planner’s office, notice the heart-shaped seahorses.

I liked this perspective of looking up at the fisherman in his boat.

We walked about 1.5 miles east through our area and got lunch at 4^th Street Fillin Station which always seems to be crowded and popular. Then we walked back home, ducking into shops and doorways when the rain got heavier. We enjoy neighborhood walks.

April 26, 2023 – Wednesday: Old Cocoa Village

We’ve been enjoying this area. As you can see on this map we’re on Cocoa Beach which is on a barrier island. Cape Canaveral is just to our north and Historic Cocoa Village in on the mainland. We drove over there today.

But first, we had lunch at an Italian Pizza joint staffed by guys from Naples, Italy. It was fun because the pizzas were very similar to what we ate in Naples, Italy when we were there in 2018. Compared to American style pizza like Papa John’s or Dominos the crust is very thin, but with light, puffy edges and the toppings are sparse. The tomato sauce had a very nice flavor. Patti thought it was one of the best pizzas that she’s ever had.

Next to the restaurant was this wall mural that I liked.

After lunch we drove west to Cocoa Village on the mainland. We went to the Pirate Shop and walked by some charming old houses that looked nicely restored.

This house looked a bit haunted.

This wall mural was said to show what life was like here in the early 20th century.

There are lots of little curiosity shops for tourists, many of them with beach-inspired art. It was a fun place to spend the afternoon.

Special Feature: The Tick!

I haven’t had a tick on me in decades, but I remember them from my childhood campouts, and I occasionally pulled one off my dog back in the 1970s. Last week I noticed a small black thing on my hip when I was in the shower and I managed to pull it off but then realized it was a tick, which I felt was kind of creepy. But we had been doing plenty of hikes in the wilderness so it shouldn’t have been so unexpected I guess.

I got a pretty nice picture of it with my little Nikon point and shoot camera which has a macro setting. It’s very small. Four of them could fit on my pinky fingernail.

Then I googled it and found that it was a Lone Star tick, so-called because of the one white spot on its back. It also can transmit a few diseases. But, there was no big red bump where the tick had been, and no bullseye rash. I checked the next couple of days to see if a bite mark appeared but it didn’t so I forgot about it.

But, a week later, this morning in Cocoa Beach, I found a red bite mark where the tick had been. I thought about it and decided to go on into the urgent care to see what they thought. The doctor there looked at my tick picture and the bite and wanted me on an antibiotic, doxycycline, in case I had Ehrlichiosis.

“Ehrlichiosis is the general name used to describe diseases caused by the bacteria Ehrlichia chaffeensis, E. ewingii, or E. muris eauclairensis in the United States. These bacteria are spread to people primarily through the bite of infected ticks including the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) and the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis). People with ehrlichiosis will often have fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and sometimes upset stomach. Doxycycline is the treatment of choice for adults and children of all ages with ehrlichiosis.”

I don’t have any of those symptoms but I’ll take the antibiotic for 10 days just in case. The doctor admonished me not to wait a week next time before getting medical help.

One reason I mention this here is that it’s probably true that even when you’re traveling, or maybe especially when you’re traveling, it’s important to take care of your health. When you’re traveling you are away from your familiar doctors, clinics, and pharmacies and it can be tempting to just ignore things until you get home, but, you should probably take the extra time to do what you can to stay healthy as issues present themselves.

April 27, 2023 – Thursday: The McLarty Treasure Museum

Patti had said she wanted to drive south on A1A and I had located this treasure museum about 35 miles south of us. So today we headed out on a voyage of discovery.

“State Road A1A (SR A1A) is a major north–south Florida State Road that runs 338.752 miles (545.168 km) along the Atlantic Ocean, from Key West at the southern tip of Florida, to Fernandina Beach, just south of Georgia on Amelia Island. It is the main road through most oceanfront towns. Part of SR A1A is designated the A1A Scenic and Historic Coastal Byway, a National Scenic Byway.”

The road is very scenic and at this point A1A runs along the various barrier islands as you can see on this map.

By the time we got close to the museum it was lunchtime so we got food at Beach Bites.

There were a lot of construction workers getting lunch there, which means it’s fast and cheap (my favorite kind of place). We’d seen their work trucks along the road as we drove south.

Then we went to the museum, which turns out to be all about the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet which to me is quite an interesting bit of history.

“The 1715 Treasure Fleet was actually a combination of two Spanish treasure fleets returning from the New World to Spain, the “Nueva Españo Fleet”, under Capt.-General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla, and the “Tierra Firme Fleet”, under Don Antonio de Echeverz y Zubiza. At two in the morning on Wednesday, July 31, 1715, seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba, all eleven ships of the fleet were lost in a hurricane along the east coast of Florida. A 12th ship, the French frigate “Le Grifon”, had sailed with the fleet. Its captain was unfamiliar with the Florida coastline and elected to stay further out to sea. The “Grifon” safely returned to Europe.

Because the fleet was carrying silver, it is also known as the 1715 Plate Fleet (plata being the Spanish word for silver). Some artifacts and even coins still wash up on Florida beaches from time to time. According to Cuban records, around 1,500 sailors perished while a small number survived in lifeboats. Many ships, including pirates, took part in the initial salvage. Initially a privateer, Henry Jennings was first accused of piracy for attacking such salvage ships and claiming their salvages.”

It was a huge disaster for Spain because at the time they were impoverished and could really have used the money.

Here’s me with the sign.

We watched a 40-minute video that was a documentary of how modern treasure hunters had found some of the lost ships and some treasure. Then we looked around the museum which is one big room with artifacts brought up from the wrecks.

This canon was recovered from one of the shipwrecks.

One of the volunteers gave Patti some information about an old map on the wall.

There’s a boardwalk over the dunes to the beach where I pretended to sail this mock pirate ship.

And we got a beach selfie there.

The Sea Grapes are impressively large here so I got Patti’s picture with some of them. I’ve always liked Sea Grape plants.

“Sea Grape, Coccoloba uvifera is a remarkable native, salt-tolerant species of plant found along many of Florida’s beaches. Plants may appear as low spreading bushes or tall continuous hedges along the sand dunes. This plant can be identified by its thick circular leaves 8” to 10” in diameter and its grape-like clusters of fruit. This fruit is consumed by a number of native birds and mammals, while the protective canopy provides habitat for animals including songbirds, lizards, gopher tortoise and beach

mice. In addition to providing habitat, sea grape helps to stabilize sand dunes and to protect upland structures from storm-induced erosion. In fact, this plant has been deemed important enough to protect under Florida Statute.”

We had a good time at this museum, it’s a good place to spend a couple of hours.

After the museum we did a little bit of hiking in a park but the mosquitos converged on us and we turned back after about 10 minutes. I killed three big fat mosquitos filled with my blood. Luckily the antibiotic I’m on for the tick bite also works against malaria : )

On our way back north we found this historic site about Juan Ponce de León. It’s located at a place where they think he really made his first landfall in Florida. The location is controversial because the city of St. Augustine says he first made landfall there.

Here’s Patti with Juan.

We had a nice day of leisurely exploration.

Future Plans:

• April 23 – May 2: We’ve got this Airbnb reserved in Cocoa Beach, Florida about 3 blocks from the beach.
• May 2 – June 13: we’ve got a mobile home reserved at the Twin Shores Mobile Home Park on Longboat Key near Sarasota. We’ve stayed at that park before but in a different unit.
• Jun 13 – 29: We’ve got our first House Sit scheduled in St. Augustine, Florida. We’ll be taking care of a dog and 3 cats while their owners go on vacation to the British Isles. It’s a nice 3-bedroom house in a gated community about 5 miles from all the touristy stuff people do in St. Augustine, we think it will be a good time.
• June 29 – July 5: we’ve got an Airbnb reserved in Ellijay, in the north Georgia mountains. We’re planning on doing some hiking in the mountains there.
• July 5 – 11: We’ve got our second House Sit scheduled in Columbia, South Carolina. We’ll be taking care of two dogs while their owners go on vacation.
• July 11 – 12: We’ll be staying with friends of ours at their house in Bonneau, South Carolina
• After July 11, no firm plans yet, but we’ve been talking about possibly spending a couple of weeks in the Cincinnati area and after that flying Norse Atlantic, the new long-haul, low-cost airline, from JFK to Oslo then spending a couple of months in Norway. Then maybe a month in Denmark.