Tuesday 10th March
Arrived in Cocoa Beach and we have not been able to get a reply from the person from the ADV rider forum who invited us here for the rocket launch, after a coffee and a session on Starbucks free wifi there was still no reply. We did find out however that it would be better viewing from a town called Titusville and also a lot cheaper. Motels in Cocoa beach were $140 a night and $50 at Titusville. It's a little more remote than cocoa beach but it's clean and comfy and a little bit of peace and quiet after Daytona won't go a miss.
We did our laundry at the motel and the machines have eaten yet another sock, that's the 3rd sock to go missing.

Wednesday 11th March
Arrived at Melbourne beach to meet Bob and Jude who invited us for lunch a while back, checked our emails etc and someone else had offered to put us up in cocoa beach for the rocket launch but we were already paid up at a motel so could not make use of their generous offer. Also Bob and Jude said we could of stayed at theirs too. I should of listened to Marcia when I booked the 3 nights here as she had said "only book a day and see what turns up". But as everywhere seemed to be filling up I decided to book the 3 days.
Bob and Jude took us for pizza and then for a ride around scenic parts of Melbourne beach. We spent the rest of the day with them drinking beer and chatting and hope to meet up with them again later in the year in North Carolina.
When leaving I managed to turn out of their drive on to the wrong side of the road we were chatting to each other about our day while I was travelling head on towards a pick up truck. I realised immediately and pulled on to the correct side of the road feeling like a twat and waving apologetically to the trucker, it's so easy to slip in to auto pilot especially now I'm feeling more comfortable riding on the wrong side of the road.

Thursday 12th March
It's HOT to dam hot 86°F 70%Humidity today, I'm looking forward to going somewhere a little cooler. And it's winter, we have met so many people that only live here in the winter and move up north for the summer as its just too hot and humid.
As we had to wait till this evening for the rocket launch at 22:45
We took a ride to Playalinda Beach which looks out on to the Cape Canaveral centre away on the distant horizon. It was hotter than hell so we did not sit on the beach for long. On the way back we had an encounter on the road with a young alligator and managed to get a small video of it as it ran off across the road. We were both quite surprised how quick it could run on its stumpy little legs and quite glad of the direction it chose to go. There was a short ride off road through a wild life reserve that we decided to try but it was a waste of time and not worth the $5 we had to
pay, we've seen more wild life just riding around the roads of Florida.

Friday 13th March
We had a great ride to day it started out quite hot but cooled down the further north we travelled. We road through Tallahassee but could not find anywhere to stay so headed off towards Pensacola and found a cheap motel in a tiny little town called Bristol.

Saturday 14th March
We were both bitten to pieces in the night. Not sure by what but the antihistamine cream came in handy.
It had rained very heavily through the night but it had stopped by the time we were ready to leave and for me was perfect riding weather.
It was quite a long ride to New Orleans and we had not booked anywhere to stay which turned out to be a mistake as not only is it still spring break it's also St Patrick's weekend celebrations and everywhere is all booked up. We had stopped 30 miles before New Orleans In a town called Slidell at Starbucks for a coffee and wifi to try and find somewhere but we're not very successful. There was rooms left at a cheap motel around the corner that when we tried to book on line it would not accept payment, so we jumped on the bike and rode to it. It did not look very inviting to say the least and when I went in to enquire about a room the price had gone up from the $42 up to $79. Needles to say I said no thanks. There were also a few rooms about 50 miles out of town so we headed off. We were both tired and not keen on riding much further. Then Lady Luck smiled on us yet again I spotted a sign for a luxury motel and pulled up out side Marcia ran in to see if they had a room and in a couple of minutes she poked her head out the door smiling and said I need your passport we have a room, the last one and at a reasonable price.
We managed to book 2 nights so we would be able to ride in to New Orleans for the day.
Once settled in we both fancied a drink and it just so happened that there was a bar adjoining the hotel with live music and cheap booze, happy days.

Sunday 15th March
It was a cloudy start to the day but still warm so we took a trip to New Orleans for breakfast accompanied by live jazz. An all you could eat buffet in the market square of the French quarter, with some strange sausages that Marcia thinks we're aligator. We saw a motorcycle parked near a cycle parking bay and decided to park next to it when trying to park the bike we met a very interesting character who had a stall next to where we were parking, he first warned us that we might get a ticket if we parked there so I asked if they were likely to tow it away or anything he said " that no it would only be a ticket" so I decided as they would have a tough job sending it to me to park it there with the other bike he then offered to watch over our bike for us.