Day 4 at Indian River

 7-13-2021 Tuesday

It rained during the night but when I got up at 8:00, the sun was out and the forecast had postponed today's thunderstorm until noon.  It finally rained about 9:00 p.m.  Every time I looked at my phone for the forecast, the predicted time for the rain had changed.  I checked with Bridgette to see if she got her run in this morning, but she said it was raining at 5:30 so she just stayed in bed.  Smart move.

Joe and I took the day off from fishing/swimming and took a drive, north along the coast on A1A to Melbourne Shores, Melbourne Beach, and on to Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral.  We were surprised to find that Cape Canaveral was only about 40 miles from our campground, but because of the 35 mph speed limit and all the little beach towns on A1A, it took over an hour.  As we neared Cocoa Beach, I spotted a couple cruise ships anchored off-shore.  I think they may have been Disney cruise ships but I couldn't read the logo.

I walked up on a boardwalk over the seagrass to get these pictures, so I took a shot of the pretty beach too.  It looked inviting, but we didn't dress for the water today (which was a mistake).

As we drove the main street of Cocoa Beach, we passed Ron Jon's Surf Shop, a complex of 3 buildings now, I think.  We see billboards advertising this shop all over Florida, especially along I-75.  We have been to this area once before with Bridgette and her cousin Tyler about 10 years ago, and we had stopped in this store.  We also had gone to the pier and had lunch at a restaurant out on the boardwalk.    We finally found that today--it was one street over from A1A.  The beach was very busy.  Cocoa Beach just runs into Cape Canaveral, so we drove through it too.

Patrick Air Force Base lies on A1A Highway just below Cocoa Beach.  When we passed it going north, we saw several planes on the ground.  On our way back through, one of them was practicing take-offs and landings and we got a pretty good look at it.

We stopped in Indian Harbour Beach, just north of Melbourne Shores, for lunch, then headed back to camp.  We got back about 3:00 from our drive up the coast.  Meanwhile, the other Froeschkes had actually gone out in the boat this morning to our play spot yesterday.  They had hoped to practice some snorkeling but it was too windy, so they didn't stay too long.  John's depth finder developed a problem which made navigating the lagoon a bit difficult.  After they came back and had lunch, they headed south to Ft. Pierce to check out the boat ramps down there.  There is a small aquarium down there they usually go to, so they got that worked in as well.  By the time they got back to camp, we had left to go to dinner in Sebastian, but we finally connected with them just before dark.  We sat outside for a little while, but we felt like we were getting bit so we called it a night.  Not much later, the rain finally came.  

They saw a snake (Catalina saw two) and an exotic lizard in Ft. Pierce.  That's all the wildlife I heard about.

Tomorrow is another day of watching the weather to decide our activities.  Joe and I need to get some serious fishing in sometime, since we have caught one fish between us.  Maybe that will happen tomorrow.