It's All About Sadie Day

~Tuesday, April 4, 2023~

Day 1,025

As I’ve mentioned before, there aren’t too many dog friendly beaches in Florida. But when we find one near wherever we’re camping, we make sure to dedicate a day for some Sadie splash time. She absolutely loves riding the waves. We considered Cocoa Beach, but they have limited dog hours 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and it is heavily patrolled. However, their 3,155-foot nature boardwalk (not dog friendly) sounds intriguing. So we packed up the frisbee, a few rubber balls with the flinger (to save our throwing arms) and a picnic and headed to Canova Beach, only 15 minutes from our campground, on the Space Coast. The parking lot was pretty small, but adequate for a weekday, late afternoon visit. This 9.1-acre community beach has a good-sized stretch of beach for ball chasing with most dogs and their owners, friendly. It says dogs must be on leash, but saw the gamut of people either abiding or ignoring the rules. We fall into the latter category and have a strong opinion on this one. What is the point of bringing Fido to the beach if they have to be attached to you at all times? I’d just bring her to a dog park if that were the case. The reason people bring their canine friends to the beach is for some swim time and a little ball chasing. Knowing Sadie’s disposition (she is the sweetest dog you’d ever wanna meet),

we choose to use our own discretion in times like these, that is if no one is enforcing the rules. It’s the other dogs we worry about, hoping their owners have the common sense to also use their discretion wisely.

We set up our beach headquarters right in front of a 15-story tall Radisson Suite Hotel, offering us the option of shade or sun. Many of the hotels were built in the 70’s and appear pretty dated, including the Hilton Resort next to it.

All-in-all, a great afternoon watching Sadie enjoy the refreshing water and meeting other dogs. She definitely tends to overdue it, forgetting she is now 8, not 2. Hopefully the waves weren’t too much for her as we tried to time our ball throwing between them. Jeff and I enjoyed some frisbee time as well and must say, for not having thrown a frisbee in a long time, we did pretty darn good. Throughout the day, it was mesmerizing to watch a flock of pelicans flying so effortlessly high above our heads. This boasted my curiosity as to why they do this. I found out that birds fly in a circle to take advantage of what’s known as “thermals”? Thermals (a warm column of air like an updraft) help give the bird lift, so by flying in circles it helps them expend way less energy than flying straight, sometimes 60% to 70% less. Fascinating and completely makes sense!

Lingering at the beach close to sunset, by the time we returned to our campground, all that was left was a sliver of dusk and a

moon close to full. It was so nice to have the advantage of no bugs so that I could finally enjoy some evening time OUTSIDE. As the night wore on, it became apparent that Sadie overdid it as she’s being a bit slow to get up. Tomorrow will give her plenty of time to rest at the air-conditioned trailer while we tour Cape Canaveral.