Month: December 2017

After having spent two solid weeks absorbed into a whirlwind of activities to sell mom’s home, belongings, and many other tasks, we took a day off to enjoy the beautiful weather and celebrate our wedding anniversary.  We decided to just do some local sightseeing, go through several art galleries, visit a brewery, walk on the beach, and then have dinner at one of the nicer, upscale restaurants in Cocoa Beach. Continue reading “Anniversary in Cocoa & Cocoa Beach FL”

It is now three weeks for us on the space coast as we are helping my mom sell her retirement home of 25 years and most possessions.  And make the transition to an independent living facility in Indianapolis close to my brother.  We have been working most everyday making some significant progress.

We have either sold or given away most of the furnishings, even the piano!  The sale of the house is still pending a few details.  Hopefully, it will be resolved this week.  The movers are contracted to pick up the few things for the move.  The contract has been signed for the new Indianapolis facility.  Even her car is basically sold.

We have also gone with mom to see many of her local friends.  Many changes in her world and she is handling the stress very well.  She has been right in there with us working through the entire process.  At 85 years old.  Quite remarkable.

Another of the saying goodbyes was a trip to the Canaveral National Cemetery where dad was buried two years ago.  At 88 he was a WW-II veteran in the US Navy.

On Christmas day, Pat made a great ham dinner that we all enjoyed eating poolside.  The weather down here has been close to perfect.  This last week it has ranged from highs of 74 to 84.  When communicating with family in the northern climates, we heard of mostly sub-freezing temps with some snow.  Sure happy to be spending the winter in Florida!

I hope that everyone enjoyed a Merry Christmas with family and friends!  Being in Florida for the winter meant being away from our kids for the first time at Christmas.  Another big and difficult transition for us.  Almost as difficult as assembling and wrapping the kids toys on Christmas eve until very late and then being awaked by the kids at some very early hour the next morning!  Ah, the memories of the excitement in their eyes made it worth it.

Take care and God Bless

It has been a very busy last two weeks!  It is almost like I’m back to work again with juggling many items at the same time while facing looming deadlines.  Yes it does but it is also different.

You may remember that we are here on the Space Coast of Florida to help Mom selling her home and most possessions and then move her into an independent living facility near Indianapolis by my brother Kevin.  Things are moving along well toward this goal.

The home has a buyer and a sale pending.  We did this one as a for sale by owner similar to our own home back in Virginia.  Mom’s home also sold within the first few days on the market mainly because it is on the waterfront canal system and there are very few waterfront homes on the market.  Great timing.

We also held a moving sale this last Saturday and sold about half of the extremely full garage of stuff.  The rest goes to a local charity.  It is strange that all the things do have some memories attached from my parents 25 years in their retirement home.  But it is all just stuff.  Things that really do not matter.

We did take a little time off this last Friday to watch the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch.  This was a mission to resupply the international space station.  It was a flawless launch that included landing the rocket’s first stage back at the launch site.  To me that was an incredible sight.  The rocket actually descended back through the skies riding on top of a bright flame.

The booster was traveling at many times the speed of sound and slowed to a crawl at the point of landing.  Amazing.  There was also a double sonic boom heard just after it landed that shook the ground.  We watched it from Jetty Park that is just a few miles from the launch center at Cape Canaveral.  The photos do not really do it justice.

On Sunday, Pat and I attended our Merritt Island church and afterwards walked around the historic Cocoa district.  This is an old downtown that has been nicely updated and has many small shops, restaurants and the like.  We took this Sunday as a day of rest and are right back at work today with many things on the agenda.

My brother in law, Robert, did retire last Friday as he planned and drove the 800 miles to his new Colorado mountain home on Sunday.  A major transition!  Well done and congratulations again!

Have a great day and God Bless.

On Monday, we moved about 17 miles from Jetty Park Campground located right at the beach to a location further inland and across to large rivers.

While the drive was only about 30 minutes the chores of packing up and then setting back up again take about 3-4 hours out of the day.  Then we were off to Walmart to reprovision.

We are staying at the JOY RV Park on the very west end of Cocoa FL.  I’ll post some more about this park at a later date, but this mid-sized park of 75 sites is almost full.  Most of the camper appear to be here for the winter from somewhere up north.

It is a very friendly park that is run by a Christian non-profit group and all workers are volunteers.  They have a great club house, heated pool, and an activities director who has loaded the calendar.

The home for sale by owner ad on Zillow seems to have worked.  I had many calls and now have an accepted offer.  We just have to work through all the common snags such as buyer financing, home inspection, and any other number of “opportunities” that could arise.

The timing for Mom to move into an Independent Living Facility would be around mid-January if all goes well.  My brother Kevin has been touring places in Indy near his home and we also toured one down here in Viera FL.  Lots to do in this major change for her.

I have placed ads for the major pieces of furniture and the smaller things will go via garage sale this weekend or else we make a donation to the local SPCA group.

The cold weather that ripped across the country has also dropped the temps in this central part of Florida.  The lows have been in the 40’s while the highs are in 60’s and low 70’s.  Even though our RV is made for “four seasons” it just does not have the insulation as living in a house.  So, we have to use the propane furnace for just a bit in the mornings as the camper temps drop into the low 60’s overnight.

We are looking forward to seeing an upcoming rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.  It has been delayed a few times, but is now planned for this Friday.  This one will be a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft sitting on top of the massive Falcon 9 rocket.  Read more about it here.

This is the rocket that is able to return the used booster to safely land in the same spot as it took off.  How cool is that?  Technology has certainly advanced from the early days of the Space Coast.  We just watched the movie Hidden Figures about the early days and the Mercury program.  In those early days all of the complex programming was done by hand.  The orbit and reentry calculations.  Very interesting.

Here is an RV license plate at our campground.  I can identify with it!

Have a great day and God Bless.

We are located just a few feet from both the ocean/beach and the port canal with its heavy boat traffic.  What a cool destination for a week’s stay!  We have already seen a cruise ship leaving, several fishing boats and a couple of Navy ships on their way past our campground.

Our main reason for being in this area is to help Mom downsize her possessions, sell her home, and then help with the move and transition into a retirement community.  A huge job. Continue reading “Jetty Park, Port Canaveral”