Canaveral National Seashore

We checked out of the St. Augustine Day’s Inn at 8:30 and headed south on the A1A (US 1) to explore Merritt Island and the Canaveral National Seashore.  The weather was in the 50s with a promise of being beautiful with temperatures approaching 70.   We enjoyed the drive along the oceanfront and watched the wind pushing waves up on the beaches.  

Because Steve would come to this area with his family nearly every summer when he was a child, he knew the area very well.  Even as an adult, he continued to have a great deal of affection for the Atlantic Coast of Florida, especially the Space Coast.  I recalled hearing him say many times that he hoped to live in the Titusville area some day.  He had a number of relatives who lived in the area, many of whom worked in various aspects of the aerospace program. He still has a few family members living in the Cocoa Beach area which gets him here from time to time.  We were happy to rely on his memory of backroads and places where we stood a good chance of viewing alligators and interesting birds. 

Our first stop was at Scragg’s Grove, a fruit stand in Oak Hill, Florida where we bought fresh picked navel oranges, pecans and boiled peanuts.  The two ladies at the store were both from West Virginia.  One lady was from near Morgantown and the owner and her husband were from Logan.  We had a nice chat with them and made our purchases of locally grown fruit.  They gave us directions to the Seminole Rest section of the Canaveral National Seashore. This historic area consists of a restored house from the 1880s that was built on an ancient Timucuan and Ais midden. These tribes lived in this area from about 2000 BC until 1565 AD.  Although the small visitor center didn’t open until noon the ranger let us in at 11 am. Mary bought a T-shirt and had her National Park Passport stamped. We enjoyed looking at the pine paneling and the old glass in the windows. 

After touring the building and visiting with the ranger, we had lunch in the parking lot. We still had plenty of lunch fixings from our Winn Dixie visit when we started the trip. We were having our usual peanut butter and crackers when an older couple pulled into the parking lot in a car with Florida plates and a WVU bumper sticker.  We chatted with them and found out that they were from Whitesville, WV in Boone County and had retired to Central Florida. We enjoyed visiting with them before starting back south on US 1. 

Our next stop was at Playalinda Beach. The sunny Saturday had a lot of people out at the beach despite the cool breeze. Several people were fishing or playing volleyball. One man had a small kite flying, and a surfer was out in the waves. Lots of people were just walking on the beach like us. We didn’t stay at Playalinda very long and decided to continue to move on.  We did not stop at beach 13 which is the nude beach. We figured that the January wind was cool enough that no sane person would be nude today. 

We continued on US 1 to Haulover Canal to try to see some manatees.  Haulover Canal is a small manmade waterway connecting Mosquito Lagoon with the Indian River and Atlantic Ocean.  The canal was initially dug in the late 1800s but has since been moved, widened and deepened to accommodate the movement of cargo.  Because the water is usually shallow and warm, manatees congregate in the canal from time to time.  The National Park Service constructed an observation deck so visitors can observe manatees when they are in the waterway.  There were only a few manatees in the canal while we were at the canal so we didn’t stay long. 

When we entered the Canaveral National Seashore area, we took the “Biolab Road” which took us 6 miles along the shore where there were a lot of alligators and birds.  We drove along slowly and spotted a number of alligators of all sizes and quite a few birds. 

We made a quick stop at the visitor center for the Canaveral National Seashore and picked up some information on the Black Point Wildlife Drive.  This one-way seven mile drive is one of the best places we know to see alligators, snakes and birds of all type.  While we were at the visitor center we walked out the boardwalk nature trail that was short but interesting. We saw signage for a number of plants that we had seen. We also saw a couple of alligators and several huge basking turtles. 

A short drive on US 1 took us to Gator Trail Road, a short gravel loop road. The area had several small to medium sized alligators and a number of cranes, egrets and ibis. The drive was very pretty and pleasant. 

We found the Black Point Wildlife Drive, an area very popular with birders. This seven mile loop had a good deal of traffic since there was a birder’s conference nearby. Like other areas that we visited, we saw many bird species and several alligators of all size. We had been to this drive when we were here in 2015.  At that time there was a large meeting of birders in the area and many of them were out on Black Point Road.  We learned that there is sometime similar this weekend with a large expo in Titusville where vendors were selling camera equipment and other items of interest to birders. Like five years earlier, there was several cars moving slowly along the road viewing birds, alligators and other interesting wildlife. Since this is a beautiful Saturday afternoon it was not surprising that there were more people in the area that usual.  We also learned that SpaceX would be doing a number of major launches beginning on Monday morning reportedly placing communication satellites that would provide high speed Internet to previously inaccessible areas. Some of the people in the area could be there to observe the upcoming launches. 

The seven mile drive around Black Point was very nice.  We cruised around with the windows open driving at near idle speed looking for interesting birds.  We saw a number of heron and egret species as well as many backing alligators of all sizes. This has become one of our favorite wildlife viewing areas in Florida since there is a helpful guide to specific sites along the drive and the number and variety of species on the drive.  

We left Black Point and continued back on US 1 driving to Titusville checking into the Titusville Day’s Inn by around 4:30. We drove by Dixie Crossroads restaurant on the way and noticed that they were already busy at 4 pm. While that isn’t surprising for South Florida restaurants, we considered that we may not be able to get in for dinner when we were ready after 6.  

Our rooms at the Day’s Inn were very nice and appeared to have been remodeled recently. The motel is just off I-95 which will be nice when we leave tomorrow morning.  After unloading the rental car, Mary and I went for a walk around the group of motels and restaurants at that exit.  It felt good to move around and work up an appetite before dinner.

We had several dinner ideas based on TripAdvisor reviews and decided to give them a call to see about wait times for a table at dinner.  Dixie Crossroads had a 90 minute wait time.  Mary called a local Cuban restaurant, El Leoncito, and learning that they had a 40 minute wait so we opted for a popular local diner with an American theme, Steve’s Family Diner.  Mary and I ordered Mahi Mahi, hers grilled, mine lightly battered and fried. Marcia had a strip steak and Steve had the seafood platter.  Although we all enjoyed our meals, no one was able to finish their dinner. We would highly recommend Steve’s Family Diner to anyone looking for a great meal at an affordable price in Titusville. 

We drove back to the Day’s Inn to rest up for our day at the Brevard County Zoo on Sunday.