Friday, April 7, 2017

March in Melbourne

Florida Scrub Jay at Wickham Park
Fred and I enjoyed a quiet month in Melbourne, Florida. It was great to be back to Atlantic Coast beaches and waves.
Wickham Park was once again our Space Coast home.
This Brevard County park is a great centrally located place to stay. It has several miles of multiuse walking/bike trails that we took advantage of. We even learned the basics of Disc Golf, a sport that has intrigued us for a while now.

We learned the basics of Disc Golf 
Beach Days were prevalent with several spent at Hangars Beach at Patrick Air Force Base, one at the Canaveral National Seashore and one with our RVing friends Jim and Diana Belisle at their oceanfront park in Melbourne Beach. We have to store up the salt air experience since we will be inland for the next several months.

We were lucky enough to spend the day at the Canaveral National Seashore.
The Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge called us back.  It was interesting to see the refuge later in the Spring. When we visited 2 years ago it was early March. We found it much dryer in late March after a dry Winter with vast drying mudflats where we had once seen water.
There were many birds. Heron, Pelican, Egret and Roseate Spoonbill were all represented just not in the numbers we had previously seen. Fred was happy to spot and point out a couple of alligators as well as many turtles and crabs.

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch March 30.
The highlight of our stay was seeing the Space-X Falcon 9 rocket launch on March 30 from South Patrick beach. It was a clear evening and the view was great. The Falcon 9 rose from its launch pad at Kennedy Space Center to our far left and leveled out over the beach in front of us. We heard the rumble of the launch right before losing site of the rockets firey tail.  Falcon 9 delivered a Communications satellite into orbit.  It was a "flight proven" rocket and its successful reuse is an integral part of the SpaceX plan to make space exploration economically feasible.  We were happy to hear that it had successfully returned home.
We are on the move again after a relatively quiet Winter.
Next stop Panama City.

Fred enjoying the launch

2 comments:

  1. It was so much fun hanging out with you two, Bonnie! Glad you were able to see that launch...the weather was perfect for it! Thanks for the disc golf invite...that was fun!

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  2. We enjoyed catching up with you guys. Looking forward to meeting again on the road.

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