We'll just take a quick walk around....

Saturday, May2nd, was Founders Day in Melbourne Beach. It's a day full of fun activities, music, food, arts and crafts down at the local park. Last year it was a total wash out...it poured all morning and storms just kept rolling in...so they finally just called it quits and everyone went home. This year however, made up for it. The weather was beautiful. A little cooler than average and sunny, clear skies all day and into the evening.

I had great plans to get up and go down early in the day to check things out. Josh and the Electric Car group were there with a tent; so I thought I's top by to see them and check out the arts and crafts. A couple of my friends had booths. Welll...that plan never materialized...the day slipped away from me...and suddenly it was almost 5pm. We were watching a variety of sports events on TV...the Kentucky Derby, golf, basketball, which was fine, but it was such a nice afternoon/evening I hated to be inside. I suggested to John that we go "take a quick walk around" the park. He was a little reluctant, because while we both knew we'd see a lot of people,  we also knew there was a good chance most of them would have been enjoying a few beers over the course of the afternoon. Not that it's a big problem...but if you're NOT drinking and everyone else IS...sometimes it gets a little annoying. hahah
After a little hesitation, he agreed. So we went down and got there as most of the booths were closing up. We strolled through the park and walked out onto the pier.

Back in the 70's we used to ride our bikes down to pier to watch the sunset. Can't tell you how many beautiful sunsets we enjoyed there.

 John worked at the restaurant  right near the corner...so Martha, our friend(s) and I would stop to say Hi on our way to the pier or the park.
We paused on our way out to the end  to have someone take our picture.

Then we figured we'd slowly walk through the park one more time and head home. This time around we started running into all kinds of friends. The thing is...on Founder's Day everyone comes out for the celebration. The kids have a blast running around the park and playground and older people (like us...hahah)...stop and chat with everyone along the way. The town itself has a population of 3175 people...which doesn't include all the people not technically in the city, but in the Melbourne Beach area. So...it's easy to see how you could spend the whole evening talking to one person after another...hahah

We ran into neighbors, people from the library, and lots of old friends. More than once we said..."Well, we're going to head out" only to stop again a little further along to chat with someone else. Our last stop to talk to some friends we've known since Jr. High School; we ran into a good friend's  son. We knew Austin's dad was in town for the weekend; but we had been unable to get in touch with him. Chuck has been working in Shanghai for months and was home briefly. I have to give him credit...he was not worried about checking his phone for messages, etc. He figured, he was in town and people would find him. He wasn't going to spend all his time trying to make sure he got around to see everyone who wanted to see him. So...we were very happy to run into Austin on our way out...and find out that Chuck and a group of friends were actually at the street party. We turned around and managed to find Chuck and friends in the crowd.

(John was one of the people who had been trying to message him...but figured Chuck knew   where we were ...if it worked out we'd get  to see him...  so I'm glad it did)
The "street party" was scheduled from 5 (or 6) to 8pm. In past years it went later...but a couple of years back some of the crowd had a little too much fun...and there was a big fight...so town officials decided 8pm was a safer bet...hahah. The band...some locals, including a father and son...was great! They played a lot of songs from the 80's...my kind of 80's...not the top 40 stuff. People were dancing and it was a lot of fun. I'm so glad we stayed.

good friends from Winter Park/UCF in town to see Chuck

hamming it up for my picture

All in all...it was exactly what a good  hometown party should be. The weather was perfect (cooler than the week before...and not as hot as May can sometimes be in Florida). The music was great, all the locals were there,everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves...and no one got out of control...hahaha. We finally did leave at dark...happy that "our quick stroll around the park" turned out to be such a fun time.