Friday, December 1, 2017

Thanksgiving, Birthdays and Jensen Beach

We had a busy second week on the East Coast celebrating Thanksgiving and both our birthdays. We have also checked out several local restaurants, possible places to settle and the nearby beach. We really like the area and think it has a lot of the things we are looking for in a place to settle.
We are only 30 miles north of Jupiter where our friend Mary Lou lives. She had no real plans for Thanksgiving, so she invited us for a traditional holiday feast of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and more. Nanc made butternut squash soup and a salad to round out the feast.  We had a great day getting caught up and hearing about her trip to several Western national parks. Our next move is to Jonathon Dickinson State Park where we will spend the holidays with Mary.
One of our requirements for the place we will settle is good, locally owned restaurants. The first one we found was the House of Brews where they have 69 brews on tap and hundreds of different bottled beers for sale to go.  They also have a nice wine selection which is rare in brew pubs, which made Nanc happy.
One thing we like about Florida over the Southwest is that the evenings stay warm after the sun goes down. This makes sitting outside very comfortable. The Banyan Bar is the outdoor part of Crawdaddy's and on this evening we were treated to some live blues.
Another great place is the Dolphin Bar and Shrimp House. It is right on the water and has great happy hour food specials. In the lobby they had something I have not sat in for years, a barber's chair. 
Another requirement met. Hutchinson Island and the beach is only 10 minutes away. Unlike the beaches near Naples, they offer free parking and access to a nice wide ocean beach.
Our birthdays, mine on the 26th and Nanc's on the 28th, turned into several days of celebration. I sure was happy that all my favorite sports teams were winners over the weekend. It started on Friday when Pitt upset Miami, then Pitt won a couple basketball games. The Pens snapped out of the funk and on Saturday the Prexies won the WPIAL football championship. Finally, on my birthday the Steelers won a close game over the Packers. Nanc cooked one of my favorite dishes, perogies with hot peppers, for dinner.  A true western Pennsylvania tradition. I had a great time and I'm sure happy not to be 70 anymore.
For Nanc's birthday she chose to check out a few local shops that are within walking distance of the RV park. While she shopped I went to another great local watering hole, Lures. The outdoor bar is on the sidewalk, very neat. It seems to us that people in this area are very friendly and welcoming. At every place we have been someone has struck up a conversation with us. Another reason we like the area. After she was done shopping the birthday girl joined me at Lures for happy hour.
She chose Crawdaddy's for her birthday dinner. How neat is this we can get actual Louisiana food right here in Jensen Beach. While it may not be as good as Abbeville, they have crawfish etouffee. jambalaya, shrimp creole and raw Louisiana oysters.
As you can tell we like the area and have checked out a couple condo developments. We have looked at them on the Internet and driven by but have not been inside any of them. This is supposed to be a time just to find an area we like, so we do not plan to buy this year.

BLOG HELP
I have used google Picasa to do pictures for the blog for years. It is easy to use to edit pictures and post them on the blog. Picasa always automatically downloaded all my pictures from the computer. This week that did not happen when I downloaded pictures from my phone and camera. Any help would be appreciated.

2 comments:

Bobbie and Jim said...

Oh, please, may I have NanC's pierogi recipe??? I love pierogis but haven't had many since I was a kid with my Polish mother.

Doing It On the Road(Part II) said...

Perogies with hot peppers, sounds good!