We settle into a really great routine in the south. Not having to think about or deal with really foul weather and freezing temperatures helps a lot. Our routine includes a daily dose of activity on most days. We play pickleball twice a week for about 2 hours each time. I do Zumba on Monday’s and yoga on Wednesday. We bike on Saturday or Sunday. And Rudy tops up his schedule with golf. We really enjoy the active opportunities here. And being outdoors as much as possible is great. Don’t forget we walk the dog twice daily without fail. That’s a must.

But in addition to physical activities we have a few more things we like to include. Since we are in a new (to us) area we explore. This week for example we drove to Cocoa Beach. We loaded up a beach bag and our travel coffee mugs and Molly. And we headed to the coast. It was a cold day (13C) and the locals were hunkered down indoors with the heat on. We took the opportunity to check out the beach with Molly. Mostly all beaches are no dogs allowed but there are a few that have dog areas. I get it. Some people don’t stoop and scoop. That would gross me out to no end if I put down a beach chair and hit a land mine. Yuck. The surf was wicked and the tide must have been in as the strip of sand to walk on was narrow. The mighty sea is a force. There were even signs posted on how to escape a rip tide. There wasn’t a soul around and we had a short walk. Having taken the scenic route to get there we returned home via highway. The beach strip is familiar as it’s the same in all beach towns. Funny how that is. https://www.brevardfl.gov//ParksRecreation/South/ParksInIndianHarbourBeach/Canova

Yesterday I took advantage of the 26C sunshine and lounged poolside. Our neighbours were getting a new roof so I was super glad to have the noise canceling headphones (thanks Rudy … birthday gift). It was such a nice day we decided to take a late afternoon stroll with Molly. We headed to Celebration. It’s a Disney community (a small town population of about 7K) that has a man made lake in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears surrounded by park and a walking path. There’s a quaint town centre with a couple of water features, restaurants, cafes, boutiques and an ice-cream parlour. We do our lap around the lake and then enjoy an ice cream. There’s tons of people doing all kinds of things. There’s bikes and scooters to rent. There’s benches and rocking chairs along the path and in the public squares. There’s a park with a pavilion and playground and sports courts. It’s a people watchers paradise. https://celebration.fl.us/

We return home and play cribbage (another birthday gift … thank you Rudy). Rudy wins both rounds. He says beginners luck. I say whatever.

Tonight we are heading to Lakeland. It’s about 40minutes away towards Tampa. We are attending a screening of “Fly like a Girl” at the historic Polk Theatre. https://www.polktheatre.org/. It’s a documentary produced by a local company and the directors and producers will be there tonight at a red carpet event. We will likely grab a bite somewhere beforehand. The theatre is located in the downtown area where boutiques and restaurants are crammed in around the many small lakes. There’s even a bird sanctuary lake that we stumbled upon by accident last year. And while at the Swan Brewery we were told how the swans were donated by the Queen of England many years ago. (I doubt that would happen now as she’s a bit tucked with the US thanks to Meghan).

An adventure awaits around every corner … there’s never a dull moment. Unless we want one that is.