1 Day Adventure.

You know what? It was time for a 1 day adventure. An adventure, but one that lasts only 1 day. Get the hell out of this place - shake things up a bit.

Excitement! Peril! And stuff like that.

Or not.

You see, my mom has a friend living a few hours away that had some sort of major surgery. Hip replacement I believe. That is some NASTY shit. They have to pretty much unattach your leg. The problem is nature spent a VERY LONG time making sure your leg can not just fall off. It is attached pretty well. Soooo.....

They have to cut you open from your ass to right above your knee. Then they cut off the old natural ball that attached your femur to your hip. Then they cram this metal spike thing into your femur. Then they attach a metal ball to the metal stud that is now sticking out of living bone. And then they pop the new ball joint into your ass bone socket.

And then you get a whole lot of pain pills. And you need them so if anyone says "you do not need those drugs" you can kick them in the nuts (or other sensitive area) with your now bionic leg. Then tell them that they are overdoing the pain thing, and to please stop doubling over while making hamster noises. Then sell them one of your pills for $20.

But make a "mistake" and give them some other cheap pill instead. Pick one, it does not really matter. Preferably pick one with the most fun side effects - like for example one that causes loose runny gross extra stinky water like stool. For a month.

But I am getting sidetracked here. Mom wanted to go visit her friend, currently recuperating in a nursing home where she can get physical therapy daily.

That reminds me. While I was roaming about the place looking for the right room (staff told us the room number was 208 - which is the dementia ward - when the room that the friend is in is 108 - not the dementia ward) I found the "activity room".

I wish I had taken a photo of the activity room. You see, someone thought that they would decorate the door to the room with Halloween stuff. So what did they put up?

A big ass GRIM REAPER! In a nursing home. Some people there are on hospice. Some are in really bad shape. As in they could go at any moment. A few of the residents are over 100!

And they put up a Grim Reaper. YEA! That works. Hey look! Death! Right there in the "activity room"! Why don't you go do some "activities" in there Mr. Jones? So....complaining about the meatloaf again huh? Shall we make you go to....THE ACTIVITY ROOM?!!??!?!?!

Come one people. THINK! This is a nursing home. Full of old people, many of which are sick and need constant care. Oxygen bottles everywhere. Beds on wheels so residents can be wheeled out of their rooms into a larger room so at least they can hang out with someone. DO NOT USE GRIM REAPER AND SKULL HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS! How about the standard "black car all frizzed up" or the "witch on a broom flying past the full moon" or something?

I have a pretty twisted sense of humor, and even I would have declared that joke was just going too far. Why not put on a hockey goalie mask and bust into the place with a chainsaw?? Or an ax drenched in fake blood? Then start yelling and waving the chainsaw / ax for a few minutes while the staff, in on the joke, pretends to run around in a state of panic while screaming. Hell, hire the Universal Studios special effects guy to make it look like a staff member got a body part chopped off.

Then when you can not contain the laughter any more - remove the mask and have the whole staff say "happy Halloween!!!!"

Then find a lot of new residents. Cause there will be a whole lot of vacancies after that.

But I am getting all sidetracked all over again.

My mom's friend lives in Palm Bay, Florida. That is only about a 3 hour drive from here. In fact, it is a three hour drive. 4 with traffic. Palm Bay is very close to Melbourne FL on Florida's "Space Coast". So named because of Kennedy Space Center.

So it was clear what needed to be done. Mom did not need to drive for 7 hours just so she could visit her friend in the nursing home / physical therapy / GRIM REAPER CENTRAL place.


So I reserved a rental car. And since they were nice enough to ask what kind of car I wanted, and I was renting from Hertz, and Hertz has Mustangs, I got a Mustang. They asked hardtop or convertible. I asked for the hardtop but they gave me this one instead. OOPS! Here you can see said car parked in Palm Bay.

Once mom was delivered to the place to visit with her friend, my job was done. I might as well go explore the place a bit. This is the primary reason the top is down. I can explore better if there is no top on the car, as doing that removes all blind spots.

Eventually I found this. The Intracoastal Waterway.


And there was a causeway on the road I had to pull off of to get this photo!!!


Do I dare find out what lies on the other side of this causeway? I don't know there. I mean, who knows what could be over there. Could be anything! Maybe a beach! And maybe just a large store selling Grim Reaper related decorations - which seem to be so popular up there.

But it was One Day Adventure Day so of course I continued along the causeway.

And what I found was Melbourne Beach. I sort of expected to find that. Next thing was to search out a surf shop place where I could obtain a hat. You see, I did not think that they were going to rent me a vert. So I did not come prepared. No hat!!! You need a hat, as it keeps your hair from blowing all over the place.

There were a bunch of places that probably sold such items along Melbourne Beach, but I also wanted a little beach side place to hang out for a bit while the visiting thing was going on.

But as it turns out, there were no likely places to hang out beach side on Melbourne Beach. Really. Oh sure there were a lot of daily / weekly rental apartments. And hotels. And even some residential units. But no little place to just hang out. At least not on the beach. And who wants to hang out inside some generic place?

So I kept going. Soon I encountered Patrick Air Force Base. A1A runs right through the base. And of course after that comes Coca Beach and then once you are there it is only minutes to Kennedy Space Center.

Too bad the Shuttle was not being launched! That would have been cool. But it was not to be.

I like Coca Beach much better than Melbourne Beach. Coca Beach is a pretty cool place. I found a surf shop where I could get a hat that says "Coca Beach Florida" proving I was in fact there. And I also found this.


A genuine beach DIVE BAR! Perfect. Just what I was looking for. A place to hang out on the beach.

A quick check of the local laws confirmed that this was an acceptable place to hang out.


Notice what it says. Alcohol "restriction". No containers in excess of 1 gallon. 1 gallon?!?!?!? Holy shit that is lot of tequila! How much do you need? I would think that limiting containers to 1/2 gallon would be sufficient - but no. On Coca Beach you can have containers up to 1 gallon in size. Also notice how there is nothing about a limit on the number of 1 gallon containers of booze you can have. So if you want that 5 gallon party keg - no problem! Buy 5 gallons of water, dump out the water, replace with beer. Cops will smile and say "Welcome to Coca Beach!! Don't let that beer get too warm now!".

I inquired about this sign to the bartender in the local dive bar place. She informed me that it is because of - what else - old people. See the old people LOVE their boxed wine. And boxes of wine are around 1 gallon in size. So when the "restrictions" were being written the local bar owners / people who like to drink showed up at the city council meeting to voice their objection to a drinking ban on the beach. All the other beaches have no drinking on the beach laws, so the Coca Beach bars have had an upswing in business. They like that.

The locals also like to be able to go to the beach and have a beer.

The old people, who just do not give a crap about anything, want their box wine. And what are the cops going to do?? Arrest Grandpa who fought the Nazis in WWII for having a box of wine on a beach - kind of like the beach he stormed on D-Day? Oh hell no! What would the headlines say about that? War hero, winner of 12 Purple Hearts and 2 Medals Of Honor, arrested by fascist pigs for having a little bit of wine".

So the "restriction" is 1 gallon containers. Not much of a restriction at all if you ask me. Might was well just say "no glass containers, no kegs". That would pretty much be the same thing.

Looking SOUTH along the beach from the deck of the little bar that seems to be a popular spot for the locals to hang out.


Looking NORTH along the beach from the deck behind the little dive bar I found.


The beaches on this part of the State go for hundreds of miles. They are endless. They just go on and on and on. In South Florida, this is just not the case. And to the east is just open Atlantic Ocean. There are no Bahama Islands, and there is no bay. So the ocean rollers just come in and form breakers on the beach. In Miami, this does not happen. You just do not normally see these breakers. Sometimes you do, but only on some beaches. And usually there has to be fairly shitty weather around.


And this is Ocean Rescue. The red flag means there is a "high hazard". Rough conditions such as strong surf and/or currents are present. Swimmers are discouraged from entering the water, and those that do should take great care.

The rollers were creating 4 - 6 foot breakers. So someone who was not careful could get into trouble in that kind of surf. Also, there probably were some strong undertow currents. All that water breaking on the beach has to drain you know.

And with that the adventure was pretty much over. I got called, the visit was over as my mom's friend had to go to her daily physical therapy, so it was time to pay the tab and get back to Miami.

I was back home at 6:50 PM. I left the house to pick up the rental car at about 5:45 AM. It took about 3 hours to get there and 4 hours to get home.

All in all - not too bad of a haul. I keep forgetting how close the Space Coast actually is to me. I really need to go watch a Space Shuttle launch one of these days - before they stop flying the thing.