Part 2 - Lunch, baseball, and the beach
Helen served a buffet lunch, to be eaten beside her swimming pool.
Bill's toast to the lunch.
Cynthia
Helen
Karen
After lunch, Karen and Jim went to Space Coast Stadium in Viera to see a Washington Nationals spring training game.
This is the Nats' last spring in Viera.
Jeff Kobernus hit one. The following week, he was "released" by the Nationals.
The next day we went to the beach across from Patrick Air Force Base.
The two large gulls in the water at the right are Great Black-backed Gulls, second winter plumage; the other three gulls in the water to the left are Herring Gulls, second winter plumage. It takes large gulls two to four years to obtain their full adult plumage. The birds with the orange bills are all Royal Terns, those with white foreheads still in winter plumage, and the one with its wings raised in the center of the photo is a Royal Tern already into breeding plumage, with the all black head. The two smallest birds with the black bills and black eye patches are Forster's Terns, also in winter plumage.
Great Black-backed Gull, second winter plumage
The flying bird and the two gulls at the right are Herring Gulls in their second winter plumage; the gull in the left foreground is a Herring Gull in third winter plumage; and the gull at the extreme left with the all-white head and gray wings is a full adult Herring Gull, already transitioned into breeding plumage. The bird splashing in the left background is another Royal Tern in winter plumage.
Air Force craft frequently fly over the beach on their way back to the base.
This is a Spanish-built C-212 Aviocar.
The black helicopters seem to have no markings whatsoever.
This one looks like a Sikorsky HH 60G Pave Hawk.
A closeup shows a red laser at the bottom, a head sticking out of a mid-cabin window, and an apparently empty cockpit (but the pilot would be sitting on the right side, which we can't see).
The aircraft didn't seem to frighten this little boy.
After John arrived on Wednesday, we all had a much-delayed Thanksgiving dinner, followed by Parcheesi.