From Space Coast to Mickey Mouse

Boy, did we let time get away from us! We spent all of April at Patrick AFB near Melbourne, FL. We had a wonderful view of the Banana River with many sightings of dolphins, ospreys, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, and Great Blue Herons.  Not to mention, a front row seat to many beautiful sunsets.

Great Blue Heron fishing at sunset

While the view was great, the location on the base was very noisy. We decided we could never spend a winter at Patrick’s FamCamp. Our Key West relaxed attitude was becoming a little frazzled. Aircraft noise from the flight line, early morning gun fire from the firing range which is right in the campground, and low flying helicopters were just a few of the noises we heard though out the week. It took the cats a few days to get used to the sounds of freedom, but we have discovered that nothing will come between them and exploring the great outdoors.


New Nikon D7000

We kept pretty busy during our stay at Patrick by taking barefoot 3-mile walks along the beach, taking the cats out for walks, exploring the Space Coast area, and working. Yep, you read that right. Dan accepted an online job with Lionbridge. He now spends time reviewing various websites. He can work whenever he feels like it as long as he does between 10 and 20 hours each week. In the meantime, Sandy spent her time learning how to use her new Nikon D7000. She has some test shots of the Space Coast area in her album New Nikon D7000. Her biggest challenge is learning to trim down the megabytes before uploading them.

Epcot's Flower Festival

We celebrated Dan’s birthday by moving to Disney World’s Fort Wilderness on 1 May. We had a fun-filled week of rides, eating lots of food, and just feeling young again….yea, feeling our age and body…big time! We will try to get the photos uploaded soon.

Magic Kingdom

On Saturday, we moved to a Thousand Trails campground located in Clermont, FL (near Orlando). We are booked in for the next 3 weeks. We might move early or stay. Who knows? It is very quiet here so we think we will find our Key West relaxed attitude once again.  Pictures are "clickable" for larger views.

Hey Neighbor!  Got any food?

Texas State Aquarium and Texas SandFest

We kayaked Redfish Bay and Light House Trails between Aransas Pass and Port Aransas for several hours one day when the winds let up. We discovered Redfish Bay and the Trails are very shallow, with many oyster fields. We scraped the kayaks and were hung up on oyster beds many times while navigating through the mangroves and openings between bay areas. We hope to kayak a couple of more times in different bay areas with more water depth before leaving Rockport.

With windy weather making it difficult to kayak more, we explored more of the local area. It is very entertaining to go to the docks and watch the shrimp fishermen cleaning out their catch. They have quite an audience of Brown Pelicans, Laughing Seagulls, and Cormorants who want the discards from the nets. It is so unusual to be in a local parking lot and see a Blue Heron or a Great Egret fly over.

We spent a day in Corpus Christi for shopping and to see the Texas State Aquarium. Sandy enjoyed shopping and taking lots of pictures at the aquarium. We were able to touch Sting Rays on their backs – very slimy! While the Dolphin show was entertaining, we had more fun watching the dolphins relaxing and playing ball on their own after the show was over. You can see photos in the Texas State Aquarium album in Webshots.

We saw our first sand-carving contest at the Texas Sandfest on Mustang Island. The artwork and the attention to detail are truly amazing! If you ever get a chance to see one, do so. The pictures just don’t do the artwork justice.

Where is Rockport? Click on Rockport to see the surrounding area in Google.