Friends, Family, Food and Music

When we bought our place in Stuart in January of 2019 our plan was to winter here and travel in the RV during the summer. We looked forward to friends coming down to escape the winter chill and enjoy the great local restaurants and music venues. We did have a few visitors in 2019 and early 2020. But, like everyone else, Covid put an end to almost all travel so we were not getting company and we sold Opus. This year has been a lot more like our original plan with many visitors, some stopping by for a day and others staying for a week. 

Kathy, Nan, Nanc, Dave, George and Jim at Terra Fermata (one of our favorite music venues) in January. We met all of them at Betty's RV Park. George and Nan bought a place in Stuart about the same time we did and Dave and Kathy will soon be ending their fulltime RV life and settling down in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Georgie came down from WashPA at the end of January, so it was back to Terra Fermata.

Another evening we went to the Lyric Theater, a local music venue that has some well know acts. Livingston Taylor and Tom Chapin put on a great show. 

We took Georgie to Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, It is a drive through zoo where you get a real close look at most of the animals. That said, despite the name I did not get any good pictures of the lions. The birds were very neat.

Animals of the African savanna. The rhino and giraffe both had young ones that were recently born.

Antelope and bovine like animals.  

Anyone who knows Georgie knows she has a HUGE collection of giraffes at home. This was a chance for her to get up close and personal with one. 

We went back to the Lyric for a fantastic show with Samantha Fish and Eric Johnson. Having the Lyric is another reason we like our new home.

We saw that our sister-in-law Suzann was going to be in Orlando so we contacted her and she and her friend John drove down for a day visit and to check out Stuart. We had a nice visit showing off Stuart.

In February someone was having a birthday and they were not happy about the BIG number so we had a birthday cake made without any zeros. Happy B-Day Nan!!!

Rick and Denise came down for a long weekend of food, fun and music. We went to Stringers for a great meal.....

.....and music by Dottie Kelley, one of favorite local blues singers. It was a great time with Nanc and Denise joining in for a tune.

We got a call from our brother-in-law Keith to let us know he was flying to DC to move his son Brian to Arizona. While there, he wanted to spread Michelle's ashes along her favorite place, the Potomac River Walk in Alexandria.

We were able to get a flight to join him and pay our respects to Michelle. Nanc bought some flowers and we spread ashes at several of her favorite spots along the river trail. It was a sad time, but we felt it gave us some closure with Michelle's passing. 

Keith and Brian left for Arizona Saturday morning and we did a bit of exploring of Old Town.  We spent three nights in Alexandria. The first day was so warm I wore shorts, The next it was a long sleeves and jeans day and the last day it snowed, bbbbrrrr! We found a couple neat restaurants and Laporta had great food and music.  

In early March Mike and Sherri flew down for a long weekend. Our first stop was lunch at Gaunabanas in Jupiter. We had to wait for a table so we had plenty of time catching up with them.

We also took them to Stringer's for an evening of food and music by Dave Goodman, another great local musician.

Mike has never seen a rocket launch so we went to Sandsprit Park where we would have a clear view across the water. While we are 100 miles from Kennedy Space Station, we have seen many launches from here in Stuart. This one was a big disappointment. All we saw was that squiggly bit of contrail above the clouds. We did hear the sonic booms as the two booster rockets came back down to land on a barge.

Compare that to the launch we saw in January. The puff on the left is the boosters after separation. Oh well, that means they will have to come back down next year.

More music in Stuart with Shaw Davis and the Black Ties at the Blues, Brews, Bourbon and BBQ Festival. 

We were joined by our neighbors Morgan......

.....Cookie and Mark. Of course we get together with them and other neighbors every Wednesday for Happy Hour. That started during Covid when we had six friends socially distanced and now we sometimes have over 15 people.

Fifty Sundays a year Stuart has the Rockin Riverwalk with live, free music. This week was totally packed as Burnt Biscuit was playing. We were close enough to hear them but it was so crowded we could not see them.

Another week! another guest. Our long time friend Gail, whom Nanc worked with 50 years ago. 

A new visitor! So, of course we went to Terra Fermata to hear the Honkies. 

We did some exploring and got to see this mama and baby manatee. They are such wonderful animals that are endangered because of polluted water and fast boats. Last year over 800 died in Florida.

We did a beach day, Nanc and Gail ventured off looking for shells and I did some fishing. This was just the beginning of the sea grass invasion we are having.

We had dinner at one of our favorite places, Nostalgia, a Greek and Italian restaurant. 

On that Sunday it was back to the Riverwalk. This week's band was Mighty Flea Circus who we had never heard before, but who we will check out again some time soon.

As you can see, we have been really busy sharing our new hometown with friends and family. This was more like what we expected when we bought a place in the Sunshine State. We were very happy to see all of them and look forward to them coming back next winter. 

We also have done a couple home improvement projects that I will be writing about in the future. 

Next week we are heading back to Punta Cana, DR for a few days of pampering at Secrets Royal Beach.

LIFE IS GOOD!!!!