This travel update is for part two of our 9-day stay in Cocoa Beach, Florida, it covers April 28 to May 1.

April 28, 2023 – Friday: Meeting an old Neighbor

From 1967 to 1976 I lived on Phyllis Avenue, in Largo, Florida. Our neighbors across the street were Ron and Regina, and they had 3 children. Ron was a lawn man and I worked for him starting when I was 15 years old. Since then, a lot has happened. Ron passed away, I had a couple of careers, and I’m on my third wife.

Today Patti (wife #3) and I drove up to Titusville to have lunch with Regina and her new husband, Jim. They actually live on Singer Island which is a couple of hours south of here but they have a favorite restaurant in Titusville called Dixie Crossroads where we met them. It wasn’t a long drive for us.

We didn’t get completely caught up on everything that’s happened over the last 45 years but we had a good time. Regina and Jim enjoy traveling and have been going on cruises and recently bought a motor home. Here we are at the table.

And Jim took our picture outside with the sign.

After lunch Patti and I walked around Titusville a bit. I liked this big wall mural chronicling some of the history of Titusville.

And we went into the Titusville history museum to see some old stuff.

We also walked around Space View Park to see the monuments to the US space program. There’s a plaque for every US space mission starting with the first unmanned Mercury launch. It’s a nice reminder of these impressive achievements.

April 29, 2023 – Saturday: Ron Jon and Irish Food

On our drive down here from Jacksonville last week Patti saw numerous signs for Ron Jon Surf Shop and decided she wanted to go there. So, our plan for today was to go to some of the surf shops that are in Cocoa Beach. That’s a very touristy thing to do, but, well, we’re tourists.

The surf shops here are large, two-story affairs with lots of bright colors that seem to attract tourists. Here’s Patti in one of the stores, can you find her? She’s wearing a purple shirt and khaki-colored skirt.

Another tourist took our picture at Ron Jon.

Outside Ron Jon there are several nice sculptures of prominent people in surfing, here’s Patti with one of them.

After that we walked across the street to an Irish Pub that we’d found a few days ago. I hadn’t had a Guinness Stout in a long time.

The bartender was from south of Dublin. Patti and I reminisced about our 10 days in Dublin, Ireland back in 2019 and our visit to the Guinness Brewery where they teach you how to pour Guinness. Then we got some comforting Irish food, Bangers and Mash and Guinness Stew.

That was filling, and not especially healthy…

In the afternoon we hung out at home and I did some travelogue updating and other computer work while Patti started decorating a jacket.

April 30, 2023 – Sunday: Mary Poppins and SpaceX

When we walked through Cocoa Village a few days ago Patti saw that the local playhouse was doing a production of the Broadway musical of Mary Poppins. She wanted to go so we bought tickets and went over there today.

Yesterday Patti had spent some time doing a sewing art project on her denim jacket and she showed off her handiwork in our front yard before we set out.

She hand-sewed the sunburst on the right shoulder and the flower on the left shoulder, with green grass under both.

Pretty nice I think.

Here’s our selfie from our nosebleed seats at the back of the balcony at the theater. It’s a pretty little theater.

After the show we went back home then walked over to the beach for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch which had been postponed a couple of times already. This time it flew. In case you don’t follow the SpaceX programs.

“The Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. The company manufactures the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launch vehicles; several rocket engines; Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon spacecraft; and Starlink communications satellites.”

I’ve always thought space programs were way cool. I was following the NASA programs in the mid 1960s. I got some screenshots from SpaceX of this particular space ship. Here’s what it looks like on the pad.

Here’s a series of shots of Patti on the beach as the Falcon Heavy took off, it looks as bright as the rising sun. As it got higher you could see the reflection off the water.

This shot is after the spaceship was out over the Atlantic. Its contrail was lit by the setting sun.

We heard the rumbling after it took off. This was a really impressive thing for me.

May 1, 2023 – Monday: Our Last Day on Cocoa Beach

We got up early to go see the sunrise this morning. It was quiet and lovely on the beach.

Here’s our sunrise selfie, with the sun in our faces.

We were talking this morning about getting different luggage for our next overseas trip. The older I get, the heavier my 70-liter backpack gets, even though it’s always about 35 pounds. Also, our rolling checked bags don’t really roll all that well and we saw some at Ron Jon the other day that looked better. Today we went back by Ron Jon to check them out. We may each get one of these Dakine 120-liter bags.

They fit into the size restrictions of the airlines for checked bags (62 linear inches adding up L, W, H) and they have nice big, urethane wheels that would roll over the Lisbon cobblestones a lot better than what we have now.

After that we got lunch at the Tiny Turtle which we had scoped out on our neighborhood walk a few days ago, it’s a Caribbean Fusion restaurant. The food was good and afterwards we got our pictures with the cutout.

I think they look kind of creepy, like the turtle swallowed us. But how could it have, it’s tiny?!

We spent the rest of the day getting ready for our trip tomorrow to Longboat Key.

Special Feature: The Curlytail Lizard

We’ve been seeing these lizards all over the place on Cocoa Beach so I Googled it and found that:

Wikipedia says:

“Leiocephalidae, also known as the curlytail lizards or curly-tailed lizards, is a family of iguanian lizards restricted to the West Indies. One of the defining features of these lizards is that their tail often curls over.”

A local website says:

“This species was imported from the Caribbean in the 1940’s by the sugar cane industry to control insect pests. It has since expanded its range in Florida from the Palm Beach area and is now a self-sustaining breeding species especially along the east side of the Florida peninsula. This lizard has a voracious appetite for insects and as far as I am concerned the more roaches it eats, the better. Little is known about its impact to native species, but it may out-compete native lizard species.”

This one was in our driveway.

This one was on some black concrete in our backyard.

When they run, their tails curl up over their backs. I’ve enjoyed watching them.

Future Plans:

• 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
• July 13 to December 3: no firm plans yet, but we’ve been talking about 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. Then maybe a month somewhere in the UK. Then flying back to the US.
• December 3 – 9: I’ll be participating in research in Durham, North Carolina at the Med-El facilities there. Med-El is the company that made my cochlear implant and they’re going to put us up in a hotel and I’ll spend 9AM to 4PM for 5 days being a lab rat. They say they will test various new programming options for my cochlear implant with the goal of improving their systems. It should be fun, I’m looking forward to it.