Long Point Park, Melbourne Beach, FL

We hope you all had as warm and Merry Christmas and as Happy a New Year as we did!

We've hit a cold spell in Florida the past month but Christmas day itself was in the mid-70s and beautiful!  Thanks to Susan's Mom & Dad (Janet & Charlie) for making our holidays special!  They spend their winters near by our latest stop at Long Point Park in Melbourne, FL. 

New Years eve we checked out the Palm Bay neighborhood all decorated for the holidays:

While staying at Long Point Park, we moved around a couple of times but our favorite spot was right on the inter coastal waterways:

Here's a look out our back window where we'd see fish jumping and dolphins & numerous birds hunting:

Here's one with a couple dolphins on the hunt just off the shore from camp:

Several nights we had the moon rising out our back window:

And the sunsets at Sebastian Inlet State Park bridge were incredible:

Still learning how to take pictures in the low light - this sunset was enhanced by huge smoke clouds from wild fires in the area:

Often at our camp site and all over Long Point you would find heron, ibis, crane, egret, pelican, anhinga & more and often they would all be hanging out together:

Hadn't mentioned before but since we've been in Florida we've enjoyed seeing hundreds of butterflies migrating - haven't been able to catch a picture of one until this past stop (perhaps they are slowing down with the cold weather too):

From our camp site we were able to ride bike trails along A1A for more miles than we'd be able to.  Here's another slow mover we caught while hiking Pelican Island SP (a 7 mile bike ride from Long Point):

We found this osprey resting/hunting half in the water while hiking Pelican Island:

Another day we were out with Charlie & Janet and found this guy running wild.  Evidently they cause a lot of problems down here with lawns and fairways . . . he came within a few feet of us:

One day we drove to Loxahatchee, FL to see more animals in the wild at Lion Country Safari.  You drive your car through the preserve where the animals roam - right up to your windows in some cases.  Here's an ostrich reminding us to keep our windows up:

Here's a 500 lb aldabra tortoise that was running circles around the car:

This wildebeast won the staring contest:

Here's a male & female impala grazing just a few feet from us:

These kulan's look a lot like a few Big Mouths I know from Cinci:

A nilgai (largest Asian antelope) chilling out:

What'cho looking at?  glares this Asiatic water buffalo:

A rare Indian blackblick:

This East African watusi came right up to the window:

as did this waterbuck:

These zebra and white rhinoceros were grazing together:

This 2.5 ton white rhino could have been a real challenge for our F350:

The park included a large walk-thru area to view more wild life and to relax to have lunch (the white ibis were looking for scraps too):

  You can get up close and feed the giraffe:

All kinds of colorful ...

and exotic birds to see:

There were so many more animals to see here.  Highly recommend a visit if you're in the area.

Another day we took a trip down to Jupiter where we checked out the Jupiter Inlet lighthouse from a deck bar across the inlet where we met our friend Roger:

We also checked out the beach while we were there.  Nice scenery but not our favorite beach to sit at:

Another day we hit the Sebastian County links where Suze (and her Caddy Mom) gave Charlie and me a lesson on consistency:

Another day Roger, Charlie & me went golfing at the Habitat course.  We saw a couple of each of these critters:

I noticed this guy looking back after I had just played my ball within 10' of the rough where this one lied:

And what would be a blog posting without mentioning the last 2 Pats games.  Blow outs but the only thing that made the insignificant Dolphins blowout enjoyable was that our Miami Dolphin fan friend Roger joined us to watch the game:

Were in Pembroke Pines (between Ft Lauderdale and Miami) for a week before moving over to the west coast in the Naples and Ft Myers area.  More to come . . .