Jean and I love to visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a fairly regular basis and today we were blessed to be able to see an abundance of wildlife. As you can see above we were able to spot eagles as soon as we drove into the park, and later saw a huge variety of birds and as you will see below, we even got to see a bobcat crossing the road right as we were leaving.

You want to get to the Refuge as early in the morning as possible to get the best chance to see a variety of animals roaming and flying about. The best place to see the wildlife in the refuge is on the Black Point Wildlife Drive which is a 7 mile meandering one way trail through the more remote parts of the park. It will take approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour to complete the drive depending on what you see and how fast you drive. Most people (including Jean and I) creep along at about 5 miles an hour to make sure they don’t miss anything that might be hiding in the bushes or just under the swampy areas on either side of the narrow road.

The drive used to be free, but now requires a $5 per car entry fee. You can also pay $15 for an annual pass or use your America The Beautiful Pass that gets you in to all federally managed parks and recreation areas. We used our pass we purchased last August for our vacation out to Arizona last October.

Young Eagle (we spotted a total of 4 during this trip)

Roseate Spoonbills

Of all the times we have been up to the Merritt Island national Wildlife Refuge, this one was one of the best because of the variety and sheer numbers of birds and other creatures we we able to see. The highlight was probably seeing a bobcat cross the road right in front of us as we stopped a second time to see an eagle that had perched itself on a telephone pole right at the entrance to the refuge. I was taking pictures of the eagle and just happened to look away for a second and there was the bobcat. I have been in Florida for 44 years and have never seen a bobcat in the wild.

The pictures could have been much better, but I was so startled to see it and I thought it was a dog at first and didn’t really have time to focus the camera. I just pointed it and shot 3 pictures one after another. I now know how people taking pictures of Bigfoot feel when those photos always come out blurry. At least I know the Florida bobcat exists and you can see the pictures to prove it.

I used to say I could live at Barnes and Noble bookstore in Melbourne, now I’m beginning to have my doubts. My plan was to hide in the store till closing every night, pitch a cot somewhere amongst the business and science books and then get jacked up on mocha lattes all night while perusing my private library.

That is now getting less appealing since our local B&N is beginning to more resemble the Toys-R-Us just up the street than it does the once hallowed library like atmosphere of nerdliness. For a good coupe of years Barnes and Noble was apparently working right along side my tastes in reading as I could migrate to my favorite section and look at the latest in books on business, finance and entrepreneurship, then move to the other side of the real wood bookcase to view what cutting edge artists were doing with Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, moving over to the web design books, then to a short look through the mind numbing world of computer programming and finally on to some scientist or philosopher’s pontification as to how the universe came into existence out of nothingness.

B&N somehow then decided to replace that entire section with teen fiction which consisted of nothing but ashen faced vampires, with just a hint of sexiness, sucking the life out of each other. When the copy-cat Twilight phenom, along with a few zombie stories and some goofy novels you read backwards, finally ran its course (presumably because literary agents tired of such predictable boy-vampire-meets-girl-non-vampire-while-making-non-vampire-girl’s-dad-a-little-testy plots), then came Lego land complete with bright yellow and red colored plastic shelving.

I’m not sure what other B&N Booksellers around the country are doing (I’ll bet probably the same), but Barnes and Noble in Melbourne Florida has turned at least 25% of its store over to toys, puzzles, games and all things related to mindless kid fun. This is to presumably make happy a guilty mom and dad’s quest to please young junior’s pleading for the latest Lego innovation and to keep them from gnawing on a tired parent’s ankles.

What started as a section with games and a few puzzles, including someone’s twisted idea for a Jackson Pollock puzzle (just plain sick, although it is fun to contemplate who I would give that to), has grown like a blob into a confusing array of stuff (probably ending up under your Christmas tree) that makes the old fashioned book store hard to define any longer. The memories of plush chairs, lots of room, plenty of books, eclectic indie music and the smell of freshly brewed coffee is unfortunately, old school these days. In the spirit of baby Jesus (of course), we must sell to the masses.

I’m sure plenty of so-called market research went into decimating 25% of their floor space of real paper books and turning it over to kid friendly colors and plastic toys that will eventually end up in a landfill or floating around in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in a few months. However, there are customers who appreciate things that somehow were missed by the number crunching accountants-turned-market-researchers who birthed the “new” Barnes and Noble plan.

One of the more aggravating things this new plan has done is seemingly turned the science section into a nomadic tribe of paper, thin cardboard and binding glue that appears to have no home. I’m sure in the last 4 months this genre of books has occupied 4 different, now carpet indented, plots of the store. Just 2 weeks ago I purchased a book from the science section which today has since moved 25 feet to the south. The space it used to occupy is empty, I assume waiting to be filled by more toys.

While I do miss the old bookstore that was a book store, there may be uses for some of this cluster of mishmash aimed at a more Merry Christmas. If you open that mysterious unmarked package under the tree on December 25th morn and it’s a Jackson Pollock puzzle, you will know who it came from.

If I wanted to shop for kid nicknacks I would go to WalMart and wade through the Transformer action figure knock-offs strewn about in the vast toy section amid the new rubber smell of knobby tires on cheap bicycles. Interestingly enough, WalMart has greatly decreased the size of their magazine and book section. I’m hoping this tsunami of non-book related paraphernalia in Barnes and Noble vanishes in a 50 to 75% off door busting stampede on December 26th.

Chart House Melbourne Florida has been here in Brevard County for as long as I can remember and we’ve been in the Melbourne Palm Bay area for about 45 years. However long it has been here, it is a staple of the Melbourne Florida area and sits at the point of land right where boats enter and exit the Melbourne Harbor. Chart House offers a high class dining experience with a beautiful view, but the only drawback is that it can be a bit expensive with most entrees ranging from $28 to $45. Add to that an appetizer, a drink and maybe dessert and you could easily top out at $150 for dinner for 2.

However, there is a way to have a nice dinner at the Chart House and not get stuck with a huge bill. It isn’t advertised on their website and you can’t find a menu for it anywhere online, but Chart House has early bird specials that can save you some money. Early bird dining starts at 4:30 and runs till 6:00 pm and features your choice of approximately 5 or 6 different entrees, plus you get their fantastic unlimited salad bar with items like caviar, hearts of palm and more that you don’t normally find on most salad bars around town. Of course you also get the beautiful view of the Indian River around Melbourne Harbor.

Another tip to save a little money is if you are tempted to get just the salad bar because you are tightwads like us, think about spending just a few dollars more and get a full entree with your salad bar which you can take home and eat the next day. Chart House salad bar costs around $13.50 and their early bird salmon entree cost $19.99, so for only $6.49 more we took home the salmon and split it the next day for lunch and Jean had the salad bar that was included with her meal.

We didn’t get an appetizer or drinks as we usually do when we go to the Yellow Dog Cafe so we did keep the price down, but the early bird special is a way to enjoy dining at the Chart House with its great food and atmosphere and not have top spend like it’s some kind of shin-dig special occasion.

You can get a good idea of what’s on the Chart House menu here, although they don’t have a menu listed for the Melbourne FL location nor do they have their early bird menu listed online as mentioned earlier. It’s a secret.

Chart House Melbourne is located at:

2250 Front Street
Melbourne, FL 32901
Reservations: 321-729-6558

It is the competitive sport of seat jousting and it can range in intensity from a subtle dance played out when you walk just a little faster to get to the door of your favorite restaurant trying to get ahead of some Createn and his large family that have just pulled their mini-van into the parking spot next to you, to Olympic level sprinting in a race to claim front row seats when the latest make money in real estate show comes to town.

It is especially prevalent in churches when the faithful (you know who you are) stake their claim on a row of their favorite seats at 8:30 on Sunday morning with the church bulletin firmly planted on each chair as did the Apollo astronauts sticking a US flag in the lunar dirt. Welcome to our sanctuary, but please don’t sit in my seat. Church starts at 10:30 by the way.

Seat jousting has become a competitive sport for me as well. If you were to frequent the Panera Bread on Palm Bay Road between 6:25 and 6:40 on just about any Friday morning you could watch how the competition plays out much as Dian Fossey did when studying the habits of gorillas in the forests of Rwanda. Yes, I confess, it is that primitive.

The competition at the present time is between myself and the snow white haired executive vying for what we both have apparently chosen as the most comfortable booth. My territory faces east, is a large booth and allows me to place my computer case on the left and my bagel and tea on the right. All is in harmony, the world is good (at least on Fridays), and it could be feng shui for those that adhere. For several months it had been my exclusive domain until the white knight unsuspectingly wandered into foreign lands.

Not to be outdone, Friday morning blogging time moved from 7:30 to 7:00 am, only to be repeatedly thwarted in my attempts to reclaim rightful territory. Drastic measures had to be implemented when one last attempt resulted in being right behind my foe in line one morning. A mere 45 seconds less on the Drudge Report before leaving the house would have resulted in victory. Finally, rising at 5:45 and arriving at Panera at 6:30 opening time has brought the seat jousting advantage back in my favor for the last 3 weeks. I only wish I could subtly take a quick picture of the disappointment on his face when he rounds the corner with his giant cinnamon bun and coffee so as to display it here. I would just take a picture with my Nikon Coolpix, but the paparazzi like flash might startle him.

This morning became a little more competitive when after getting my order and preparing the usual whole grain bagel, I heard “Good morning sir, how can I help you?” only to look up and see the white knight riding up on his horse, okay he was walking (sorry for the drama). Luckily, I was far enough ahead of him to claim the favored booth. As he rounded the corner once again I innocently sit there as “the look” vibes my way, inside and under the radar of detectability I’m secretly pumping my fist in the air and yelling, “Winning!” ala Charlie Sheen.

Lords and Ladies, the foe has anew, been defeated.

If you are like us, once in a while you just get the urge for a pizza conveniently delivered to your house by the nice people at Dominos. We stopped ordering by phone a few years ago and strictly order online now and when you do order online, you have a selection of Dominos coupons you can look through to find the best deal on your pizza of choice. They do offer some pretty good deals, but what you may not know is a little secret that lets you beat even the best online Dominos coupon deals by at least one dollar and up to $3 or more.

We order our Dominos take out (or delivery actually) from the store that’s right near the intersection of Emerson Drive and Minton Road in Palm Bay Florida so I don’t know if this secret will work for your specific location, but it does for us, and we’ve been doing it for years. What’s the secret? Use the wrong, but closely related, coupon and you can  save at least $1 off of the specific coupon for whatever pizza you are ordering.

Here’s how you do it: We usually order a large Pacific Veggie specialty pizza that has 7 or 8 items (depending on how you count the 3 different kinds of cheese) and has a regular retail price of $13.99. If you look through the coupons on the site you will usually see one for a large specialty pizza for $11.99 giving you $2 off the retail price. Don’t use that coupon. Look closer at the list of Dominos coupons and you will see one for a large 5 topping pizza for $10.99, that’s the coupon to use. When you update your shopping cart and go to checkout you will then see that the price for the pizza excluding tax and delivery is now $10.99. Bingo, you saved an extra dollar off your pizza order. I’m assuming that this will work with any Specialty pizza from Dominos.

You can also do this with a medium Specialty Pizza as well. The medium size Pacific Veggie has a regular retail price of $11.99, but if you use the coupon for a medium 3 topping pizza for $8.99, you can get $3 off of your $11.99 Specialty pizza order.

You can play around with other combinations and see what works. If you can’t use the coupon combination you are trying it will just highlight your chosen coupon in red on the check out page and say that you have an unused coupon and the price won’t reflect your savings. No biggie, just try something else.

We only order the Pacific Veggie pizza and used to be able to get an even better deal than this. Over the last 3 years or so Dominos must have reprogrammed their coupon codes and they no longer allowed you to use them to get the super deal we used to get. They used to allow you to use just about any coupon on any order. So we used to use the $8.99 medium pizza coupon to get a $16.99 extra large pizza and get 47% off. I think I probably discovered this by mistake on an order several years ago and just kept using it until Dominos caught on and no longer allowed it.

However, you can still save at least a dollar or more by using the current Dominos coupon deals in a creative way. Enjoy your next pizza delivery from Dominos and save. Hurry, before they catch on to this deal.

(photo from The Green Room Cafe website)

After working up a mild hunger on our kayaking adventure in mid August celebrating Jean’s birthday, we decided to walk around the shops in Cocoa Beach and look for a snack. For going on the kayaking excursion we received a discount for a free drink at The Green Room Cafe organic restaurant and decided to stop in. Bingo, go healthy or go home! We just found a new favorite restaurant and seriously, you don’t want to miss this place.

We weren’t really hungry enough for lunch since it was only about 11:00 am in the morning so we ordered a free drink for Jean and a Tropical Bowl as a snack for myself. Well, it turns out that the Bowl was huge and Jean and I ended up splitting it and that turned out to be our lunch. The Tropical Bowl contains Sambazon Acai, blueberries, banana, strawberries, raspberries, apple juice and all that is topped with granola, bee pollen and coconut making for an incredibly delicious breakfast, lunch or anytime snack. Besides the bowls of frozen fruit deliciousness, The Green Room Cafe also features smoothies, salads, sandwiches, mouthwatering wraps, soups, snacks, sweets, healthy choices for the kids, beer, wine, fresh squeezed juices, organic drinks and more.

I’d have to say The Green Room is probably one of the most thoroughly stocked organic restaurants we’ve ever seen. The abundant choices from their extensive menu make it hard to decide exactly what to pick for your meal or snack. But that’s okay, because you can visit again and again and try just about everything. As I’m writing this post and looking over the menu I’m struck with the urge to hop in the car and drive to Cocoa Beach for lunch. Too bad we live in Palm Bay. However, if you live in Cocoa Beach or nearby I would suggest visiting The Green Room at least twice a week or more and just go down the menu till you try everything and then you can decide what your favorite 2 or 3 items are.

Not only is The Green Room Cafe a healthy and delicious place to eat, it is fun to visit because of the eclectic island decor all done up in bright Jamaican Bahamian nearly fluorescent colors and the friendly staff that makes you feel right at home. Jean and I sat right at the counter and watched everyone work in the kitchen, enjoyed our delicious Tropical Bowl, got to meet Debbie Wright the owner, sampled one of their newer all vegan chocolate, peanut butter cookies (can you say heavenly?) and had a great time.

Chocolate Cookie Treat

If you think healthy, organic vegan and vegetarian food has to be boring and taste like freshly mowed grass clippings, you haven’t been to Cocoa Beach’s The Green Room Cafe. For those that already eat healthy, you may just be like us and discover a new favorite organic restaurant, for those that have yet to try the healthy food way, you will probably be converted.

Visit The Green Room Cafe website for more info and to check out their menu, picture gallery and some of their national and local publicity.

Visit them in Cocoa Beach at:

Green Room Cafe
222 N. 1st Street
Cocoa Beach, FL 32931
Phone: 321-868-0203

Hours are: Mon – Sat: 10:30am – 9:00pm – Closed on Sunday

With the popularity of a post on the largest staghorn fern in the world being in Melbourne Florida (possibly) readers of this site have been commenting and emailing, wanting to send in pictures and even asking where to sell their own staghorn ferns. I don’t have the information as to where to sell these popular plants (your local craigslist.org classifieds are probably the best place), but if you have pictures of a staghorn fern you are proud of, please contact me here and send them in and I will put them up on this post and post to Facebook every time I get a new picture.

Our first staghorn fern picture is from Lou Carrier in Huntington Beach California. Pictured below is Lou, his son and his large staghorn fern. Thanks for the photo Lou!

These next 2 staghorn fern pictures are from Ron Durand in South Louisiana and this one is for sale. The plant measures approximately 5 foot tall to 5 to 6 feet wide. Ron is asking $400 for his staghorn fern and you can contact him by phone at home at 337-369-9515 or on his cell at 337-789-8608. You can also email Ron at rondurand @ bellsouth.net (remove the spaces in the email address). Check out the pictures below:

Staghorn Fern For Sale In Lousiana

Staghorn Fern For Sale In Seminole Florida
Contact Linda Lane at 727-510-1510 or at llgrandma1@verizon.net

Here’s a Staghorn Fern from St Petersburg Florida from reader Monica Kile:

If you want to see the diverse animal life of the Indian River Lagoon and enjoy a leisurely morning or afternoon out on the water, then there’s no better recreational activity to engage in than a Florida kayaking tour in Cocoa Beach. Launched right from the parking lot of the Cocoa Beach Country Club, Cocoa Beach Kayaking owner Jessica Yeaman will take you on a guided tour of some of the winding shoreline off of the Minuteman Causeway.

Our tour began at 8:30 in the morning and lasted approximately 2.5 hours and we saw a a multitude of plant life including 3 different mangrove trees including the red ones that have a bean pod hanging from the branches, a variety of birds including osprey, water turkeys (also known as the snake bird), tarpon streaking through the water, mullet and the gentle giants of Florida river-ways, the Florida manatee. Being in Florida for more than 40 years I have seen plenty of manatee, but never like this. They are the most gentle, curious and mildly playful creatures you can imagine and they enjoyed gently pushing our kayaks around after we spotted them and just floated near their location. You can watch the manatees come right up to your boat and push it around, but don’t touch them because it is against the law.

Florida Manatee playing with our kayak

The area we kayaked in off of the Minuteman Causeway (a permanently unfinished causeway) is actually known as the Cocoa Beach Thousand Islands and if you don’t know your way around the area, it would be fairly easy to get lost as the mangroves and islands create a maze like path to follow. Therefore, we recommend you at least make your first journey with a guide and Cocoa Beach Kayaking is the perfect outfit to introduce you to the area.

Our guide Jessica (pictured to the left) is in the process of finishing up her degree in Oceanography and is a member of the SeaWorld Marine Mammal Rescue Team so she really knows her stuff and knows the natural surroundings of the Banana River and the Indian River Lagoon. Even though I’ve been living here for more than 40 years she informed us of natural Florida news that I didn’t know. One piece of information, that is vital to our manatee friends, was that most manatees are not killed by boat propellers as one would think, they are killed by boat strikes that break their ribs and puncture their lungs. That’s why you are supposed to idle your boat in manatee zones, so you don’t strike them.

If you want to join in on the fun and see a part of Florida up close and personal that you don’t normally see, take a trip with Cocoa Beach Kayaking. The cost is $30 per person and reservations must be made. Bring a snack with you if you want one, but everything else is supplied including hats, towels, sun block, bottled water and sunglasses if you need them. It is worth the price of admission just to watch your guide Jessica pat the water and call and talk to the manatees just like they were little puppies. Trust me, you will have a great time.

You can visit their website above by clicking the link above or call (321) 784-4545 to get more information or to make reservations.

Osprey seen while kayaking the Cocoa Beach Thousand Islands

I never really liked mangos (also spelled mangoes) until a friend brought us a bag of Merritt Island mangos several years ago and now every year around mid July we go on the hunt for those delicious treats right from our very own Merritt Island. Jean and I love mangos and honestly, we have never tasted anything like the ones that come from Merritt Island in South Brevard County Florida. We think they are, without a doubt,  the best in the world.

Of course we haven’t eaten every mango variety in the world, but we buy them all the time from Publix, Walmart or any of the local produce stands around our area and we haven’t tasted anything like what we’ve found that comes from right along Tropical Trail on the Island.

Many mango varieties (some sites claim there are some 2,000 or more) can be quite fibrous and even some of the better ones have a slight amount of fiber. You almost know immediately when you slice into a mango how it sounds as to the amount of fiber in it. But we have found a variety that are almost like slicing into butter when you cut them open and they are the sweetest mangos I think we have ever tasted. The variety is known as the Keitt mango and it is the best of the best.

Eating a Merritt Island mango is almost like drinking a fine wine and trying to figure out all the flavors you are experiencing. The taste of this exotic fruit (it’s not actually exotic in most of the world) is something like a cross between a coconut, a banana and a mango (duh) with a slight hint of pineapple in it. The reason I say it is not exotic in most of the world is that the mango is the number one most popular fruit in the world, even more popular than bananas and apples. I suppose that’s because mangos originate from India and with a population that is almost 4 times that of the United States, no wonder they are popular.

These particular mangoes pictured here are from a produce stand right in Satellite Beach on South Patrick Drive, aptly named South Patrick Produce and this is the second year in a row we’ve purchased out Merritt Island mangos from this vendor. The stand is located right on the northwest corner of South Patrick and Banana Rive Drive.

Don’t miss the mango season here in Brevard county Florida that runs from July till late September or early October. I don’t know exactly what it is that makes Merritt Island mangos so sweet and delicious, but you have never experienced a mango, until you’ve had one from Merritt Island Florida. Make sure you ask wherever you buy them if they are mangos from Merritt Island.

When you think of the Kennedy Space Center you may think of that bump on a Florida map that extends out into the Atlantic ocean, but did you know that only half of that area is home to the Space Center? The other half is known as the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and it offers a visitors center, beautiful beaches, a wildlife drive, boating, hiking trails, fishing and a bioluminescent kayak tour.

Visiting the refuge is a great day trip for Melbourne and Palm Bay residents as it takes only about 45 minutes to get there from the intersection of I-95 and 192 and you can spend a few hours there or most of the day. Then it’s just a short return trip home. Jean and I like to visit the beaches as one of our favorite things to do there. When you drive up through Titusville on Highway 406 and then switch to 402, then onto the Refuge property, that will bring you to Playalinda Beach. When you cross over the railroad tracks, it then become a state park and you do have to pay a $3 per person access fee ($10 max per vehicle) to get to the beaches.

What we love best about the beaches is that they are pristine and you see zero buildings no matter how far you look in both directions. If you are in the right spot you can see the shuttle launch complexes, but when you travel down to beach a ways, you won’t even notice them. There are 13 parking lots and beach access areas as you travel north away from the Space Center so there is lots of room to find a nice spot on the beach for you and your family. We like to bring our beach chairs, a few snacks in the cooler and the beach umbrella and we’re set for several hours just reading and relaxing on unspoiled white sandy Florida beaches.

Our next favorite thing to do in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is take the Black Point Wildlife Drive through the usually swampy areas (it has been very dry this spring and early summer of 2011) and see what kind of wildlife we can spot. We’ve seen alligators, a multitude of different kids of birds, crabs scurrying about along the shore, turtles and more along the 6 to 7 mile drive. Depending on how much you stop to check out the wildlife, it can take you anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours to complete the loop.

Dry Conditions Along The Black Point Wildlife Drive. The sandy area in the picture should have 2 feet of water in it.

The visitors center also is worth a look as it features some of the animals that have been seen in the Refuge and you can also find out about camping there as well. There are only a few spots to camp in the Refuge and they must be accessed from the New Symrna side of the Canaveral National Seashore so it is a bit of a drive for Melbourne and Palm Bay residents if you want to camp there. You can also camp on one of the islands in the Refuge and you can find information on that here.

Enjoy a nice day trip away from Melbourne and Palm Bay up in Merritt Island. Get more information about the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge here.

Enjoy some additional pictures of the Refuge below:

Blanket Flower on the roadside:

Gator tracks in the dry swamps. They’re obviously looking for water.

More dry conditions at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge