Brevard Zoo

We checked out of the Day’s Inn Titusville at 8:45 and drove the 30 minute trip south on I-95 to the Brevard County Zoo in Melbourne.  Our Cincinnati Zoo membership got us half price admission to the zoo when it opened at 9 am.

The Brevard County Zoo is only 25 years old and is still growing.  The lady at the entrance told us that several new exhibits have opened recently and several more are scheduled for opening in the next few months. Among the new exhibits are a sloth and the black bear.  In addition, the entire rain forest section has been completely renovated. 

We started in the Africa section and saw the zebras and rhinos enjoying the sunshine on the late January morning.  Not long after we got there five, giraffes came out to browse on branches placed on the viewing platform by the zoo staff.  We were very impressed by the number of local volunteers at the exhibits to inform visitors and provide assistance. We were also struck by the number of sponsorships at the zoo.  Most of the animals on display were named by community members who had purchased naming rights. There were plaques on sections of fence, benches and many other areas of the zoo indicating contributions from donors. 

We stood at the lemur island for a long time watching them playing and romping in the morning sun.  The volunteer told us that the lemurs are unable to swim and will not enter the water to leave the island.  In fact, if one of the lemurs falls into the water,  it will likely drown. They had nine of the ring tail lemurs with seven males on one island and a male and female pair on another island. 

We went into a walk through aviary with lorikeets and one with cockatiels. Visitors can purchase sugar water for the lorikeets and seed sticks for the cockatiels while walking through the exhibit. There was a large cockatoo outside that would laugh and do flips on the perch. 

In all, we spent about three hours in the zoo, staying until around 12:30 when we found a picnic table outside the zoo entrance where we had our peanut butter sandwiches and fruit for lunch.  Day was sunny and pleasant and we enjoyed the company of our friends, Steve and Marcia.

After lunch we made the 2 ½ hour drive back to Steve’s house in Sebring.  The sunny afternoon made a pleasant drive west across routes 60 and 98.  We especially liked the small town of Yeehaw Junction along the way.

After unpacking from our trip, Mary and I walked northeast along Lake Jackson doing a 3 mile walk that Steve does on many days.  We stopped briefly at the public beach and chatted with a nice couple form Minnesota.  We were still interested in walking after returning so we continued southwest on Lakeview Drive to a community center area where there is a library, theater, fishing pier and public beach.  We walked past some interesting homes and several large live oak and banyan trees.  

We went to dinner with Steve and Marcia at one of their favorite restaurants in Sebring.  We had been to Dimitri’s Restaurant with them in 2019 and enjoyed it very much.  Steve had a lasagna, Mary and Marcia had Cuban sandwiches and I had a fish sandwich.  Several of us had their Greek lemon rice soup, which was quite good. We all agreed that the meal was excellent and did well to finish.  After our meal the waitress gave each all take-home servings of their rice pudding because of Steve’s military service.

MLK Day in Sebring

We had a mostly lazy day today.  We had noticed that their dryer vent pipe had torn at the bend where the vent leaves the back of the dryer.  We cut the vent shorter and reinstalled it on the vent with strong clamps.

Most things were closed for the MLK holiday so we just stayed at the house until late morning when we decided to go for a walk into town.

We walked from Steve’s house along Lake Jackson in the opposite direction of our walk last night.  We walked to an area with a public library, a stage theater and a public beach.  We walked down to the beach and read the list of plays that are coming to the theater this season.  

We continued our walk to the center of town where there is a central roundabout with a small park at the center.  We saw that there were police with streets cordoned off near the town center circle and asked a city police officer what was going on.  We were told about the MLK parade so we found a sunny park bench where we would have a good vantage point when the parade started.  

The parade was a small affair with one elementary school class, a few elected officials from the city and representatives of local civil rights organization. There was a fire engine and a couple of antique cars.  All together the parade took only about 15 minutes to pass us. 

After the parade completed, we walked to a nearby used bookstore.  The owner reports that she has over 200,000 books on the shelves.  While it appeared that the store was small, there were several rooms each of which was filled with well-organized volumes.  We very much enjoyed browsing the books, chatting with the owner and petting the store cats. 

We left the bookstore and walked back to Steve’s house where we had a lunch of ham sandwiches then spent the afternoon visiting and preparing for the wild boar hunt that we have scheduled for Tuesday.  

That evening we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant (Don Jose’s) for dinner taking Marcia’s “hippie bus” to the restaurant. Predictably, everyone we saw wanted to look at the bus and to take photos of it.  I had a chicken chimichanga with beans and rice, Steve had a beef burrito and Marcia had a super nacho plate.  We all enjoyed our meals. 

After dinner we made a telephone call to Tyler, our guide for Tuesday’s wild boar hunt.  We wanted to finalize our plans, learn when we needed to be at the hunt site and what we needed to bring.  Since we needed to leave the house a little after 4 am we decided to get an early bedtime.