Even though I live in Florida, this last summer in Cocoa was particularly warm. I know that the entire country was hit with extreme heat waves in June specifically, when temperatures in Oregon and Washington reached 115 degrees for nearly a week. There were numerous deaths attributed to these high heat indexes because many people in that region live without air conditioning and only utilize heat for indoor climate control. It was heartbreaking reading about stories from people who couldn’t get an air conditioner no matter where they drove in their state. Every hardware store and HVAC company was out of air conditioners from the sudden surge in demand. Thankfully I have a good heat pump in my house in Cocoa. I managed to survive this past winter by using the cooling features on the heat pump. Now that it’s November, I have switched to using the heat mode on the heat pump. The weather has been a mixed bag of uneven temperatures. One day it will drop down to 48 degrees at night, and the next day it will be 84 degrees instead. I only hate it when I feel like I am finally acclimated to cold or hot weather and then it suddenly changes and makes a 180-degree turn again. Although it’s likely to get colder as the winter season progresses, we might still have some warmer weather on and off. Sometimes we drive past Merritt Island until we get to Port Canaveral and then get out of the car to watch the pelicans and seagulls flying over the Banana River, just south of the Cape Canaveral Space Station. I have fully embraced my life in Cocoa, Florida.