Friday, February 28, 2014

To the Beach

This morning the Coles spent an hour walking to and from the beach, as well as down the beach. We took a few pictures along the way and thought we would share a glimpse of our morning adventure. It took an hour in all.
Here we have Gary on the beach. Louise was right up with him.

To go to the beach, we walk down Eau Gallie Avenue from the condo. Here is a view of Eau Gallie from the park at the beach.
It is a busy street and this is the intersection of Eau Gallie and A1A, the major road through this area. There are crosswalks and lights to get across it.
There is a park between the street and the beach. Here are a couple of views of the park.


It's a nice park with restrooms and a hot dog cart.
Here's another couple sitting on the steps where you go down to the beach. The temperature was cool, nice breeze, lots of sun, and good exercise. Who could want more?

Monday, February 24, 2014

Where has February gone?

Here we are at the end of February and the time is flying by. We are in a warm and humid period of weather - thunder showers every afternoon, tornado warnings yesterday. Louise is starting to complain about the heat.
Gary is in outer space with a painting of the space shuttle over Florida. This is the first painting this winter that has really inspired him, and he is working on it quite steadily. It's good that he is back to painting with enthusiasm again.

Louise has finished sweater #2 for the year - this one destined for a little boy in Massachusetts.
The days in Florida are lovely. The complex seems to be getting ready for spring as they have replaced all of the red mulch around the place.
It certainly has a summer look here to go with the temperatures.
Here we have a stork and some ducks in the pond. The complex has two ponds and colored fountains at night.
Earlier this week a rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral. The sky was so clear we could see it for several minutes. We viewed this one from the balcony of the condo.
February nears the end, and our visit here just has a month left.





Sunday, February 2, 2014

What a difference in the weather...

How is this for keeping the blog up to date? Two days in a row! Since the last post was somewhat depressing, we wanted everyone to know that Florida weather has returned. Yesterday we went to Cocoa Beach for the afternoon. After some knitting and painting, we returned to 27th Street to see what was up there. We renewed our friendship with a couple of neighbors on the street and got a good look at the beach.
Today we went to Canova Beach in Indian Harbor at the end of our street and enjoyed walking for a half hour on the beach. Here you see an outcropping of rock, something we have never seen on any other Florida beach.

It was a lovely day at the beach with surfers, sunbathers, and kids playing in the water. What a difference a couple of days makes in the weather.
Louise took off her shoes and walked in the waves, the first time this winter. Here's a picture of it:
We've had a good weekend right in our own neighborhood!


Saturday, February 1, 2014

Rain, rain, go away...

We are having the wettest weather we have ever seen in Florida. We've had three straight days of heavy rain. The rainfall broke records in Melbourne all three days. This is the balcony these days:
The parking lot has a river running through it!


There are a couple on ponds at the condo site, usually just a little water with ducks and other birds. This one looks like a river!
Here is Gary with a boat painting he is working on. Perhaps the wet weather has encouraged him to paint boats!
The good news is that after the fog cleared this morning the sun came out. We are hoping it will last, but we saw a weather report last night that had rain in the forecast for almost all of next week.