Sunny and HOT Melbourne, Florida!

A sunrise on Indian River captured from our campsite by Terry as I don't get up that early!

We arrived here last Thursday and have been spending most every day at Brandon's. It has surely been hot here. Very high humidity and they have been setting records of 99*, with 120* heat index. So.............naturally we are staying indoors. He keeps his house cool, so that is good. I spend time in the pool which is really nice. It is not heated, but feels just like bath water. I bought a hat so I can keep my face shaded.

Brandon's project for his dad was to get some shelves put up in his garage so he could organize it more. They made the rounds of all the lumber yards on Friday on Brandon's day off, then went back Saturday and bought what they needed and got them set up. They are really nice shelves. His garage looks much better now and he has room for his car and his and Megan's motorcycles. They also moved stuff around so now his attic pull down stairway is accessible. While they were doing that, I was watching the dogs. Jax, it turns out, seems to like Neal, and Neal, of course, likes everybody.

Our spider which was living in the outside mirror has left us. Not sure. . . maybe he couldn't stand the heat, but I haven't seen him lately. I planned on relocating him, but now there is no need to. But we have seen a lot of wildlife. Terry particularly likes the little skinks (small lizards) that run everywhere. They are quite comical to watch. We also see a lot of pelicans and osprey. The ospreys are large birds which eat only fish. They are very large birds and build their nests up high like eagles. We have seen more this time than any other time we have been here. They are white underneath, with a white head and a black streak through the eye.

Yesterday we went south. Since Brandon was at work, we decided to take a drive. We went down to Vero Beach, then cut across the bridge to A1A and the beaches. The water was so beautiful. Such a lovely color and extremely calm. It would have been a great day to be on the beach. It was hot and the water looked really refreshing.

We then went north to Sebastian Inlet. They have a fishing pier and we always like to walk out on it. We frequently see porpoise, but this time we saw manatees! There was a small pod which was swimming in toward the bridge close to the bank and we got some really good views of them.

The water at Sebastian was beautiful as well. On the south side of the bridge, it was extremely calm which was very unusual, but the north side of the pier was a little choppier. It was still a good day at the beach and there were a lot of people out enjoying it.

Last evening we had a storm come through. It was supposed to be a little worse than we had although we lost our electric about 4:30 this morning. If was off for about an hour. Today we drove up to Cocoa Beach and visited Ron Jon's surf shop. It is a little overcast and is supposed to storm later again. We are headed over to Brandon's tonight for supper. We are going to cook up some of the fish he brought back from cousin Gary's last winter. Should be a great fish fry!

Till next time. . .

Dale