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| This guy is just unbelievable |
We are still in Fort Pierce. We really like this town. There
is always something going on; always people walking around taking in the
scenery. Always wonderful breezes off the water.
Saturday is the Farmer’s Market with arts and crafts booths. They have fresh local cheese, local fish and meat, lots of vegetable stands, flowers, and prepared foods. Lots and lots of characters at the market. The music was good. These guys might look like old folks but they can really play!
This guy was walking around the market with a fox he raised since a pup, or whatever you call a baby fox. Rusty didn't even notice and the fox didn't particular care that Rusty was hanging around.
This morning (Sunday) we got up and discovered a car show in
the parking lot. Dozens of Corvettes ranging from old to new all decked out for
us to look at. Kermit was thrilled.
Saturday is the Farmer’s Market with arts and crafts booths. They have fresh local cheese, local fish and meat, lots of vegetable stands, flowers, and prepared foods. Lots and lots of characters at the market. The music was good. These guys might look like old folks but they can really play!This guy was walking around the market with a fox he raised since a pup, or whatever you call a baby fox. Rusty didn't even notice and the fox didn't particular care that Rusty was hanging around.
Music at the tiki huts on either side of our docks. Last
night was a neat duo that sounded like Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Sundays are
reggae days.
We discovered a restaurant called Captain Jax Sandbar that serves Chicago style food because the owners are from Chicago. We can't wait to have a hot bait sandwich!!
Wednesdays there is a little market with fresh food and music that sets up at noon and stays all day.
We discovered a restaurant called Captain Jax Sandbar that serves Chicago style food because the owners are from Chicago. We can't wait to have a hot bait sandwich!!
Wednesdays there is a little market with fresh food and music that sets up at noon and stays all day.
Boat repairs continue apace:
- Repair the railing – We bent it in St. Charles Mo
when got the fender line caught on a cleat as we pulled out of the marina;
ZZTop and his cousin tried to repair it with a blow torch and chisel; this guy
seems to know exactly what he is doing. Still it was daunting to see the
railing gone. It is odd that such a small piece of metal makes me feel safe up
there.
- Toilet still not fixed. Guy coming back tomorrow to blow more air through it. In meantime we only have front head. Good thing we have two – we have one to spare. Need a pump out soon..
- We tried to get the upholstery done but no go. I guess the couch and chair are a bigger project than it looks. At least we know how to remove the panels to the couch. We couldn’t figure that out before.
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| Rusty in the car on the drive to NC |
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| Rusty at Martha's house |
Rusty enjoyed sleeping in the bed with me, that is for sure!! He can't do that in the boat.
While in North Carolina, Kermit called and asked us to visit a boat in New Bern, about 2 hours away from Greenville NC. So all of us, Martha, Dieter, and Rusty, got in the car and off we went.
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| Martha and Dieter |
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| Rusty and Dieter at the restaurant for lunch |
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| Martha and Dieter |
After lunch we walked the dogs around town, stopping to visit a nice dog store and see the corner soda fountain that first served Pepsi.There is a neat church, Christ Church, with a graveyard since 1700s. The big oak trees make this a quiet space for contemplation. There is an archeological dig of the first church on the north corner. Not ever church can claim an archeological dig.
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| The dog store - New Bern is very dog friendly |
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| Cool graveyard at Christ Church |
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| Their "thing" is bears. |
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| Christ Church, New Bern |
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| The boat we went to New Bern to see |
We saw a really beautiful boat, a 2007 4150 Cruiser Aft Cabin in perfect shape. It has Volvo 370hp diesel engines and a great layout. A bit too rich for our blood but we think fondly about that boat often.
On the way back through back roads Martha pointed out tobacco
drying barns set back from the houses in the trees. These old buildings are not
used much these days for tobacco drying so many are falling down. I found this
description of tobacco barns: “Likelydating from the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the log structuresare classic examples oftobacco barns of North Carolina’s Old Belt.Standing roughly 20 feet in height, the logs appear to be pine withhalf-dovetail corner joinery. Spaces between the logs were chinked using woodslats and red-clay mud. Logs with chinking were necessary because they retainedheat in the curing process. Later, perhaps in the 1950s, corrugated metal wasadded to one of the barns to aid in heat retention. Other exterior featuresinclude a galvanized metal roof and shed roofs to shelter activity areas.Interior appointments include exposed old growth log walls and horizontaltier-poles from which sticks holding tobacco leaves were hung for drying.”
Tobacco used to be a really big crop in eastern North
Carolina. Perhaps less so these days since cigarettes are much less popular.
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| Little family graveyards pop up in corners of properties |
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| This barn didn't make it past the last storm |
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| This is a tobacco barn |
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| The little white building on the right is a pump house I think |
We also saw these cute little dog houses made of brick.
Funny to see brick dog houses in front of a beaten down home. Later we learned
these are not dog houses but pump houses covering the family well. Sometimes a
family can have several of these little houses when a well goes dry and is
replaced. Why not make the pump house look cute, I guess. I didn't get a picture because the little houses are small and we were going fast. I should have stopped the car but I didn't.
Marissa came on Friday night and went back to Washington DC
on Sunday. Martha has a cute new dog named Dieter. We had a dinner party on
Saturday night with Martha’s friends Larry, Marilee, and Liz. Dinner was delicious
– pork tenderloin with bean salsa and quacamole. MMMmmmmm…. It was so great to
see Marissa. I miss her a lot. At least she is closer now that she lives in
Washington DC. We will stop there on our way north.
I stopped in the dive shop to say hello to some of the
regulars that I met on previous trips and some new friends. A bunch of us participated
in a PADI class on Wednesday for PADI Project Aware. Martha did a great job.
Everyone learned something!!These are Sarah's birds. They are wearing harnesses with leashes. If they can do it then Rusty sure can wear a harness!
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| Marilee with one on each shoulder. She looks calm. |
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| I have one bird on each shoulder. I was nervous. Notice the new haircut? |
Speaking of birds, I think I am hard on critters. One day we noticed a lizard got stuck in the garage door and died a long agonizing death. The next day I noticed a bird smashed into my car grill. It wasn't pretty. But I had to have a picture of it!The return trip to Fort Pierce was very exciting. I left about 7:30am which would put me in Fort Pierce at about 6:30pm. I can deal with that. But I was being optimistic. Stuff happens, right?
Rusty’s front leg was really bothering him and he couldn’t walk well at all. I stopped at Walmart to get him some ice. I packed the ice in zip lock bags and placed them under him and next to him so his left leg was kept cool. I was hoping this would reduce the swelling.
A little later I got a flat tire which set me back about 3
hours. Fortunately AAA came promptly and the nice fellow put the donut spare on
for me. Fortunately also I was only 2 miles south of the Savannah airport where
I switched the car for a Mazda sedan. The good news is Rusty could get in and
out of this vehicle much easier than the Dodge Journey. Too bad though. I liked
that Journey. It had one of those keys that doesn’t need to be put into the
ignition. Just being near the car allows you to push the start button and off
you go. That is a handy benefit to someone like me who loses keys a lot. As long
as the key is in the car or in a pocket we are good to go! |
| Switching cars at the Savannah airport |
After all that excitement it rained during the last few hours after arriving in Florida. I got home about 10:30pm and dropped into bed. I was pooped.
After all the jumping in and out of the car, and the excitement with Dieter, Rusty’s legs clearly hurt him. I took him to the vet after returning back to Fort Pierce. I noticed a lump on his port (left) front elbow. The vet was concerned that it was a sarcoma of some kind and wanted to take x-rays. I agreed to the x-rays but said I would stay with him. I didn’t want to leave him alone in a kennel. Nothing good can come from that.
When she took him back for blood tests, she had another vet look at him. After taking a sample of the lump they decided it was another one of those fatty tumors. No x-rays required!! YEAH!! She gave him some pain relievers that totally knocked Rusty out for the next 2 days. We stopped giving them to him when he stopped being able to navigate the steps at all. His limbs looked like rubber, like he had no control over them. It took a day or so but he is back to normal.
The vet suggested we get him a harnass so he doesn’t pull from his neck any more. This way he won’t choke himself. I think if we ever get another dog we will use a gentle leader like Martha uses for Dieter or have the dog wear a harness right from the beginning. But we hesitated before for Rusty since he was so old and used to a collar. But getting him in and out of the boat, especially when we are at floating docks, is very complicated. We use a life jacket because it has a handle and Kermit has to manhandle him up and down the stairs. I ordered a special kind of harness that has handles at the back and butt ends. Kermit can use two hands to lift him evenly instead of taking a risk on the life jacket being strong enough. It will be delivered to St. Augustine in the next week so we will pick it up when we arrive.
This week we visited with Bunny and Evan a lot. They are great fun. They took us to dinner at The Quilted Giraffe for great steak dinners. We all ordered sirloin steak but that didn’t look like any sirloin steak I ever saw. It looked and cut like filet. It was so tender and tasted like a dream. MMMmmmmm… it was wonderful.
Bunny and Evan got us passes for their swimming pool. We owned a property in that complex for three years and never went in that pool. It is lovely. It would be great for laps but all we did was bob around and chat over margaritas. Life is tough!!
On Friday I joined Bunny at Notre Dame Catholic Mission for Sarah’s Kitchen. Bunny goes every Friday and supervises a bunch of volunteers who make a meal for homeless folks that is served on Friday night. We made beef stew. Actually we doctored up canned beef stew with extra meat, canned and fresh carrots, and a veg base. I chopped onions, peppers, garlic, and zucchini then took on a box of potatoes to be turned into potato salad for a child care class later in the week.
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| Bunny has a blue apron, which means she has been volunteering for over a year and knows what she is doing. |
While we were doing that Evan repaired my bike! It hasn’t driven that nice since I picked it up at the bike shop.
Bunny loaned us her car so we could return the rental. On
Saturday Kermit and I took the bikes over the bridge to Hutchinson Island. We
went swimming and watched the families taking boats out of the boat ramp.
Kermit hates heights so in hindsight this wasn’t the best way to get there but
it is always good to exercise and get out of the boat.
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| See Kermit walking his bike up the hill? |
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| Here is Kermit walking his bike over the hill |
Kermit discovered an Anytime Fitness that we visited a few times. Our muscles appreciated the workout.
We think the boat repairs will be finished on Monday 4/29/13. We plan to leave here on Tuesday, weather permitting, to head north. We want to be in Amelia Island at the top of Florida by May 15, 2013 to meet up with Judy and Michael in One September. We are getting some of the group together to run up the East Coast. Sareanna will join us around that time too as will Jim’s Joy. It should be fun!
We think we will come home to Ohio in mid-September. Everyone says we have plenty of time. But we want to stop in NC to see Martha and the gang at Blue Region Scuba and we want to stop in Washington DC to spend some time with Marissa. We are at least a month or two later than we thought we would be. But that is why you should never have a schedule with a trip like this.
To our boating friends in Ohio, we are very glad your boats are going back in the water!!
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