Tidy Melbourne

We relocated to Melbourne on a gorgeous warm Sunday, driving through the empty rural roads up the middle of Florida. It was a nice break before we hit the traffic of the congested east coast.

Our new park is lovely and neat, and is symmetrically laid out.

It looks very pretty. 

The park management works very hard to keep it looking that way, too, keeping it well maintained and cutting precise borders along the grass. 

The people that live here seem to like it that way, and happily adhere to the strict rules imposed to reflect that perfection. There are no dogs allowed, and guests under 50 are discouraged. 

The space outside your trailer is supposed to be tidy and limited to patio furniture and accessories, certainly not the “stuff” that we regularly store outside.

Of course, that means that we have to keep all that junk inside, reducing our interior space and making the inside look much less tidy than the outside!

It was even suggested that we keep our canoe on top of the truck while we were here, instead of alongside the trailer where we usually keep it. This turned out to be not such a bad idea, however, as we have ended up using the canoe much more in this location than normal.

As we are along the eastern coast, we have been out paddling all the rivers, creeks, and lagoons in the area. And since most of them are salt water, we saw some interesting things. 

Manatees are profuse in the creeks and rivers here. One river was very muddy, so it was hard to actually see these mammals. All we could see was the mud being stirred up from the bottom. But at one point we must have gotten too close to them, because they flipped and splashed around beside our boat, startling us quite badly. Considering that these animals can weigh thousands of pounds, and are almost as long as our puny canoe, we were careful to give them a wide berth from then on!

Outside of the muddy rivers, the coastal waters are very clear. We paddled shallow lagoons and counted the stingrays we could see buried in the sandy bottoms below. 

We saw dolphins darting in and out of the creeks chasing the silvery fish (mullets) that were to be their midday meal.

Our park neighbors, while extremely tidy and neat on the outside, are also very friendly. I have often been caught using the tell-tale “eh” at the end of my sentences, whereupon I always receive a smile and a comment, “Oh, you must be Canadian!”  

For sure, eh?

Hubby has taken up playing games of pool in the hall inside the park. He spends most evenings there, giving me some time alone, which is a precious commodity when we live in such a small space.

Between the surf fishing and bird watching activities, it’s been a great place to keep us busy.

But it’s way too tidy for our tastes.

W