October 2020 Road Trippin - 10-25- 20 and 10-26-20 - Homeward Bound

 After our exciting day yesterday, we thought we would take our time and head in a westerly direction, then we saw the forecast for Zeta.  It was a couple of days away, but, it had a bulls eye on New Orleans.  Our laid back, loving this life, got in fast motion.  We changed our plans, and headed on the shortest path to Crossroads on Sunday.

As Lauren was doing the finishing outside chores, I walked down the nature trail to put the garbage in the dumpster.  My first thought, was I didn't need my camera, my 2nd thought was, why not.  I am so glad I went with, the, why not.   

On my way to the dumpster, I got a picture of a male Painted Bunting.  The last time we got a picture of this beautiful creature was a couple of years ago at Dolphin Island.  The pic maybe kind of blurred, but it was an awesome bird to see.

Our, we gotta get home mode, got us 352 miles in a little less than 6 hours.  We are staying at Stay N Go RV Park on site 45 for the night.  This is the same RV park that we stayed at on our first night of the trip.  

We sat outside, relaxed for a while, and bellied up to that Chili I made for the ride home.  I am pretty sure, Lauren will be like the horse headed to the barn, when we get up tomorrow.

Monday, we covered 316 miles in about 5 1/2 hours.  It definitely was not as fun as when we were traveling eastward, but, everything went smooth.

We fueled up before getting on I 10.  Our next stop was 3 hours later, when we got to the Mississippi Welcome Center, where we had lunch.  The next exit was another stop for fuel.  The last stop was home sweet home!!

It was another fantastic trip, enjoying 2,229 miles, with 1,477 pictures added to our album. Our 2 week excursion was awesome!

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October 2020 Road Trippin - 10-24-20- Day 6

We made our third attempt to see a rocket launch this morning.  On our ride out of the campground, we found juvenile White Ibis'. 

We were on the road at 8:30 am, thinking it would be busier at the seashore on a weekend.  And we thought right. The first parking lot filled up about 5 minutes after we parked.

We had a nice, stroll, along the beach for almost 2 hours.  I think we did as much people watching, as we did bird watching.

There were lots of surfers on the rough seas today.  We kept hearing them talk about how tough of a day it was for them to surf.  There were more butt busting than surfing.

There were also a lot of people fishing. A few of them caught fish.

We sat in our chairs in the back of the truck, and waited for the 11:21 a.m. launch.  11:21 a.m. came, and nothing happened.  I checked on the Facebook page and the post had a time change to 11:31 a.m.  11:31 a.m. came around, and it was on!!  

The Final Countdown 🎵🎵🎵🎵🙋, happened today!! Whoop Whoop!

It was so great to watch the rocket head up in the atmosphere with its fire ball tail.  When it got right over our heads, we could hear the mighty roar of the engine.  We were so glad, we were persistent to witness the SpaceX fifteenth Starlink mission.  Falcon 9 lift off was well worth our efforts.  As the saying goes, third time was a charm.

After we left, we made a ride through downtown Titusville to make a Walmart run.  When we saw how busy the parking lot was, we changed our mind and went to the Dollar Store.  

Late afternoon, we were walking back to camp after going to the dumpster and  heard a Barred Owl calling.  We have heard him several times this week.  I went on a quest to find the owl without a camera.  Lauren told me that I would not find it..  Not only did I find it, I went back to camp, got my camera and Lauren.  He posed really nice for us, watching us with those wise eyes.

This wraps up our last day of Road Trippin October 2020 - Space Coast, Florida.  Tomorrow, we are heading West.

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October 2020 Road Trippin - 10-23-20 - Space Coast Day 5

We did another drive thru on Black Point Wildlife Drive this morning.  When we left camp, it was raining, by the time we crossed over the Indian River, we had sunshine.

We thoroughly enjoyed our drive again today.  We saw a lot of the same critter species that we saw on our first day.

The weather continued to cooperate allowing us to hike to the blinds and the tower today without any liquid sunshine.

The Gators were very active today. We saw about a big Gator swimming in a pond. 

Then we saw a little Gator crossing the road.

Then we saw a medium size Gator laying in the road showing off his teeth. 

You realize just how beautiful these creatures are when you get to see them out of the water.

We stopped for our picnic lunch at Parrish Park.  We had a birds eye view of the birds and Dolphins in a feeding frenzy.

We made another ride through Sand Point Park before heading back to camp.

We were hiking around camp when the liquid sunshine began to fall.  Florida's weather is as fickle as Mississippi weather.  One minute it is beautiful, then the next minute, it is raining. 

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October 2020 Road Trippin - 10-22-20 - Space Coast Day 4

We knew this morning that we had a 50/50 chance of seeing a rocket launch from the Kennedy Space Center.  We got to the National Seashore a couple of hours prior to the planned launch.  We spent the morning being beach bums, or rather, birding beach bums.

We thoroughly enjoyed our walk along the beach, seeing Shorebirds and Crabs while having our toes in the water and our ass out of the sand!

After about an hour of walking the beach, we got in the bed of the truck, sat in our chairs and waited, excitedly, for the launch.  About 11 minutes before the launch, we found out the launch was scrapped.  Dang it!! We knew coming in that there was a 50/50 chance of the launch not happening today.  But, it would have been cool to see.  Maybe we will get another opportunity before we leave.  

It was probably not a coincidence, when we drove out of the park, that the Final Countdown was playing on the radio, at the exact time the launch was planned.  Just saying.

We went to the Haulover Canal to look for Manatees and found them.  There were several of them on both sides of the canal.  

While we were eating our lunch, off the tailgate of the truck, under the shade trees, we saw Manatees, Dolphins, Ospreys and such.

Our excursion to check out the Biolab Boat Ramp was a little more than we expected.  We thought we would ride in and out in just a few minutes.  That few minutes was not in and out, and not a few minutes.  6 miles later on a one way road, we found ourselves 2 miles inside the National Seashore from the entrance gate.

Our attempt to drive thru the Black Point Wildlife Drive was cancelled when the road was closed for construction.  Oh well, we have a few more days for this opportunity. The ride over was well worth it, seeing a Bald  Eagle sitting on his favorite Osprey nest.

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October 2020 Road Trippin - 10-21-20 - Space Coast Day 3

We were hoping to see a rocket launch at the Kennedy Space Center today.  We got up, checked it out, and the launch was cancelled.

We had a rainy start this morning.  Which was not a problem.  We lounged around, ate lunch, then went looking for Limpkins, which was our back up plan for the day.

We checked out the Chain of Lakes Recreation Park where we were greeted by 100's of White Ibis, along with lots of other species of birds on our drive in.

We hiked along the 3 miles of trail, meandering through the woods, and over and around the water.  It didn't take long to achieve our goal of finding Limpkins.  There were plenty of them here.  Another Cha-ching for us!

A walk up the 50 foot Tower rewarded us with a spectacular view. It also rewarded me with wobbly legs.  But it was definitely worth the rewards.

We saw lots of Loggerhead Shrikes, aka the butcher bird today.  We got really close to a couple of them.  We never knew they had such a pretty song.  We also got a close up view of that wicked looking bill as they were singing.  

We thoroughly enjoyed our couple of hours at this park walking along the beautiful scenery, watching all kinds of shorebirds, songbirds, gators, etc.

We saw some more pretty views and critters at our next stop, Marina Park. 

 We went back to Black Point Wildlife Drive for another looksee.  We didn't see as many critters as we did the other day when it was rainy, but, it was still a very enjoyable time.  

We finally saw our first turtle in Florida, a Florida Softshell Turtle. The things that excites us!!

Tomorrow, may be another rocket launch day.  According to the Facebook post, we have a 50/50 chance of that happening.  We will 👀.

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