Melbourne Florida

L. and her hubby keep talking about how small a town Melbourne is.  However, I'll have to take some pictures of Bremen where I live to show them small.  It appears to me that Melbourne is about as small as Decatur, Georgia or maybe Charleston, SC.  What's really nifty is how people who went to high school together still see one another at the grocery or live down the block.  There are lots of families that live on the same street or in the same neighborhood.  It's nice to see folks close and watching out for one another.

Today we went over to a park nearby that has hosted the moving Vietnam Wall for something like 20 years.  It was interesting to see so many veterans together and talking about their assignments, and where they served.   It was very disturbing to me to look at all these people that were essentially my age and see how old they look.  It makes me wonder if I look like THAT and just refuse to see it or something.  There was a LOT of walking there so when we returned to the house, I tried to read for a bit and lay down, but really ended up taking a nap.  When I woke up I had some friends that were laying around keeping me company.  The black girl is Boe-bee and of course Slider.    

Before dinner today L. and I went to the beach at low tide to see if we could find some good sea shells.  The 2004 hurricane season has definitely left its mark on the beaches here.  They are doing / have done a lot to restore the beaches to before-Katrina condition, but the damage has effected the whole beach ecology.  There aren't any crabs on the beach.  When they came in and put down the new sand, evidently they buried all the crabs -- or they couldn't adapt to the new sand or something.  There are no crabs on the beach anymore.  The shells that wash up are little.  No great big clam shells or great big scallop shells anymore.  Just little ones.  We got a woman at the beach to take our picture.  My shorts are wet at the knees because we kept walking into the surf looking for better shells.  

Yesterday we spent the most of the day at the beach and had crab-stuffed-shrimp for dinner.  Tonight we're having grilled scallops and filet mignon -- really.  Wowzers.  Ken, just for you, we took a picture of me and the cook.  He's been by every night since I got here.  He cooks, he's savvy, and wow is he a cutie!  

For Sigrid there's a picture of Me, M. (L's husband) and L.  The hospitality has be GENEROUS and the food has been INCREDIBLE!

You'll just have to wait and see what adventures we have tomorrow.  I think I've convinced L. to take me to find a geocache (www.geocaching.com).  I haven't done any caches in Florida, I don't think, so that'll had a new state to my places I've geocached.