Our First Visitors

After three weeks of scrubbing, polishing, buffing and just generally getting our new stix and brix in order we were finally ready to share our home with friends. We expect that living in warm, sunny Florida will make our new home a popular stop for our up north friends and the many people we have met during our nearly twelve years on the road who winter in Florida.

It is appropriate that our first visitor would be Georgie who made a personal mail delivery. Palm Beach International Airport is only 40 miles down I-95 from Stuart so it is an easy drive. It didn't take long for Georgie to figure out she did not need the coat and slacks down here. 

Of course, going out to dinner and listening to music is among our favorite things to do with Georgie. The first evening we went to the Fresh Catch which is just down the street form our condo for food and music. We had no sooner ordered our drinks and the lights went out. Unfortunately, the musician did not have an acoustic set and the lights never came back on, so this is the picture of Nanc and Georgie drinking in the dark.

Since the power never came back on we hopped in the CRV and went to Duffy's, a Florida sports bar chain that is another favorite of ours. Here are the ladies with those bright smiles to light the place up.

Nanc has been working me so hard that we had not been to the beach since we moved in. Having company made a visit to the Atlantic a priority. We did learn that we are only 20 minutes from the beach even during the very busy winter season.

We did a bit of the shelling stoop along the beach. We found some nice ones and I even found a couple sharks teeth, something I had never done before.

The birds were very willing to pose for a picture. Some of the beach looked like old coral.

We went to Jensen Beach so the ladies could do some shopping.  Sadly, or in my case gladly, we were too late and they were closed. Nanc did find this giant crawdad that wet our appetites for some of those Louisiana mudbugs.

Another day we went to Casa Giuseppis, a great little Italian restaurant just down the street from our place. The singer was doing old time Italian favorites. The bartender told us he had performed at Mar-a-Lago but we liked his music so we won't hold that against him.

On Saturday we hit the Stuart Arts Festival. These metal pipe sculptures were very neat.

The weather was perfect so we had a great time checking out the 200+ vendors. Downtown Stuart has a lot of great restaurants, shops and special events like this festival.

Saturday night we went to Shimpers in Port Solerno and you are not going to believe what happened, the power went off! Fortunately, we already had our meals that we enjoyed under the light of our cell phones placed on a glass. We sure hope this lights out thing is not a regular happening.

Sunday we did a pool day. The ladies soaked up the sun and I finally got to swim in the condo pool. Very nice!!

On Sunday we drove to Jupiter for the jazz society jam, but I had to check out the Robert Kraft crime scene that is being investigated by a special CSI - NFL unit:-)

As always the music was great. This week's special guest was once again Jerome Degey on guitar.

As usual the jam session was very lively. On violin is Eric Bindman, sax Phil DiRe, guitar George Lilly, and Rick Moore on the piano. 

We had a grand time listening to the jazz at the Double Roads Tavern in Jupiter.

Georgie had an afternoon flight back to Pittsburgh so we visited Palm Beach to see where the 1% shop. Worth Avenue is the Rodeo Drive of South Florida. There were actually models walking the streets modeling outfits that were available in the nearby shops. We passed, but Nanc did like a pair of $1450 high heels.

The trees were in full bloom. As you can see, there were not many people out shopping.

This store sold only kids stuff so the little ones will be properly prepared for the 1% lifestyle. I've seen a lot of men my age with that sweater on your back look and have been thinking dumping the t-shirts and adopting that style, NOT. 

Even the dogs are pampered here with this beautiful tile dog bar. We had a great visit with Georgie and had a chance to show her our new hometown. Having guests in the condo is much easier than having them in the RV.

More friends, George and Nan, stopped over to see our new place. We met them at Betty's a few years ago and the day we were out looking at condos back in December our paths crossed again. They bought a place about five minutes for ours so we already have friends living in Stuart.

I saw on Facebook that my cousin Missy and her husband Marty had arrived in Port St Lucie to visit Marty's sister Teresa and her husband Jay, so we invited them over. We had a great visit and dinner at the Dolphin Bar in Jensen Beach. It's great that we now know two couples who live in the area.

As I write, we are at Betty's RV Park in Abbeville, LA for a month. It was a little strange moving stuff back into Opus for the trip, but the RV still feels very much like home, even if it is now our second home.