Florida Revisited

Indialantic, Florida -- A week on a warm beach in Springtime always sounds like a good idea. Particularly when we had just experienced a late snow in Murphys and temperatures that froze my tomatoes. And it was. So we did it. Pat and I changed our minds about never returning to the place where we met, a mindset shaped mostly by the weird politics of Florida today and the realization things could never be like they were when we first met. We were married and had our first home on Cocoa Beach in the mid-1960s at the peak of the Apollo Program. Pat worked for NASA and I worked for The Miami Herlad and then the Today newspaper. The lure of beaches and the wonderful feel and smell of Spring overwhelmed our misgivings, so we took off for a week in an old-fashioned motel. No one eer mentioned politics. The logistics (detailed at the bottom) got complicated but did not stop us from having a great trip full of nostalgia, memories and great walks on the white sand beaches. We spent the first night in a motel near the Orlando Airport, and drove up to The Villages --a mega-development for Snowbirds built near Ocala -- for a quick lake-front lunch with Pat's brother Ron and sister-in-law Anita, then drove south on A1A to our destination in Indialantic Beach, a tiny town tucked in between Patrick Air Force (now "Space Force) Base where Pat's parent lived and more beach towns. They are all buried in condos today, but we found our quiet spot. I found the Paradise Beach Motel on-line after searching for the closest thing I could find to an old-fashioned beach motel of the type that dotted the almost-empty beaches decades ago. It was perfect: recently re-modeled, only eight units all within 50 yards of the boardwalk over the dunes, complete with a good air conditioner and a kitchen, bedroom and bath.

It is not fancy, but just what we wanted.

Our vacation "schedule" was light. The only appointment we made was for me to be interviewed by a documentary film maker about our former beach neighbor Marty Caidin, a colorful charachter who happened to be our friend in the 1960s when he came to modest fame for writing books including one they made the movie "Marooned" from, and another that was the template for the "Six Million Dollar Man" TV shows. Every day started with lathering with sun screen and a walk on the beach before the sun got too hot. We did not get burned. We ate our way carefully through shrimp, chowders, hot dogs at Longdoggers, Greek, pizza and other Italian. Yes we gained a little weight. We visited friends. Ruth Ann Alibrando had worked for NASA at the same time as Pat, and when I was with the Miami Herald. Her late sister was a close friend to Pat in college and her late husband was a NASA official I worked with. Her current husband is a sculptor of beautufl metal art and they made us welcome, and sent Pat home with a gift of a Florida painting to hang on the wall at home. We also visited with Eugenie Amalfitano and her husband Carlo, sitting on the dock in front of their Indian River home, tasting treats and drinking wine and catching up on family. The hospitality they offered washed away the decades, and made us feel welcomed. Friends are the real treasure wherever you go.

We lost track of the days, which is what a vacation is supposed to do. We spent one wonderful day exploring our old haunts on the beaches south near Sebastian Inlet, now a state park. This is a place we used to camp, explore, fish and just hang out. The A1A bridge was built the year we arrived in Florida. We camped at a county park with friends Benton and Sandy Bingham. I had fished the pilings under the bridge with my late friend Ron Caylor, trying unsuccessfully to catch a Snook. At one time Pat way back then and I took our 12 foot aluminum boat out into the ocean inlet and caught a lot of inedible fish, but having lots of fun. And yes, the birds caught in one single photo below include a Pelican, a egret and Ibis and a Stork. They were all stalking a fisherman who was throwing his net for baitfish. The weather remained wonderful every day: low humidity, temperatures in the 70s and one wonderful massive thunderstorm that dumped about two inches of rain in an hour. Pure Florida. The logistics were challenging, particularly with all the added fees for the airline, the rental car and even the motel. But once I learned to use the APP for travel, we were set. I'll save the complaints for the vendors on the internet. A good time was had. Enjoy the photos.