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!!!! 

Yorktown, Williamsburg, Jamestown, Hatteras Island and Ian

We really enjoyed our time in WashPA but it was time to head home to Stuart. Our plan was to stay in Williamsburg, VA for a week then to Hatteras Island for another week before a quick couple day sprint to Florida. As we learned during our 12 plus years on the road, plans don't always go as expected.

We were last in the Williamsburg area in 2007, our first year on the road. We wanted to get a couple stamps in our national parks passport and just relax after our busy time in WashPA. Our first stop in the Colonial National Historical Park was Yorktown Victory Monument. The resolution to build a monument celebrating the October 19, 1781 surrender of Cornwallis to George Washington was passed by Congress 10 days after the event. That said, the cornerstone of the monument was not laid until October 18, 1881, one hundred years later.

The capital of Virginia was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg in 1699. It was moved to its present location, Richmond, in 1780. Many of the 18 century buildings survived and in 1926 a reconstruction, funded by John D. Rockefeller Jr, began that preserved the buildings that are Colonial Williamsburg today. This is the Governor's Palace.  

Duke of Gloucester (DOG) Street is lined with old shops and taverns. 

Burton Parish Church was opened in 1677.

More building along DOG.

Carriage rides are available for those who wish to really step back in time. You can walk all the streets to see the buildings, as we opted to do, or you can buy a ticket to tour them. We enjoyed Williamsburg and were pleasantly surprised to find several very good local restaurants.

The third historical site located here is Historic Jamestowne, where, in 1607, the first European settlement to survive in North America was built. The Tercentennial Monument was built in 1907 to honor the 300th anniversary of Jamestowne. It is 104 feet tall, one foot for each of the original 104 settlers.

We all know the story of Pocahontas and John Smith's claim that the daughter of the Powhatan chief Wahunsenaca saved his life. 

Inside the Memorial Church which was constructed in 1906 over the site of the earlier church depicted by the frame. 

The memorial Church.

Replicas of mud and stud buildings constructed by the settlers. It was a common construction method used in the area of England where the settlers came from. Archaeologists determine where the buildings were located by finding the post holes in the ground.

John Smith was the president of the council of the colony. He believed in policies of rigid discipline, strong defenses and that all must work and farm to avoid starvation. 

Jamestowne cemetery. There is a museum with the remains of many of the settlers who died and were buried there. 

There is a lot of history in this area that is easy to explore using the Colonial Parkway that connects all three on a road with no commercial traffic. It is well worth a visit.

Our next stop was our favorite vacation place when we lived in a stix and brix, Hatteras Island. We got to cross the new jug handle bridge that was built on the sound side to avoid an area near Rodanthe that was often closed by waves covering the road.

This was 2010 before the jug handle bridge was put in. We had to drive through ocean overwash.

Doing what I like to do when we are here. As you can see the weather when we got there was wonderful. Sunny skies and warm temperatures. The fishing was not as good as the weather.

We stayed at our favorite place, the Outer Banks Motel in Buxton. You can see by the lack of people why we love this place. We stayed here many times before going on the road.

This spring they did beach replenishment so it is much wider than it has been in a long time. This is more like it was 40 years ago when we first came to Hatteras.

You can see how close the ocean was last year. The two cottages at the motel often had waves breaking under them.

Shrimpers in the early morning. 

Nanc enjoying the beach. You can see what I mean about so few people on the beach.

Hatteras Island sunsets.

They say the sunrise is also beautiful, but I rarely get to see it.

We got up Thursday morning, went to breakfast and to see the lighthouse which is closed for some work. 

The post marks the spot where the lighthouse was before they picked it up and moved it 1900 feet away from the ocean in 1999. I expect that within the next few years the post will be in the water.

I do like the backup camera in the Tucson. I always feared I would back into the lighthouse.

By the time we got back to the motel the sand in the parking lot was getting deep. There were big waves and high winds from Hurricane Ian that was doing terrible damage to Florida. When we heard it was going to be a tropical storm as it passed Hatteras we decided to pack and leave that afternoon.  

The sand blowing across the road on the way off the island. We left without a plan but knowing we would be in the storm as we headed south. We decided to stay in Fayetteville for the night and then two nights as Ian, now a tropical storm, would be coming our way. We were safe in a hotel and far from the ocean where the road was under water on Saturday, our original departure day. On Saturday morning we drove about 50 miles in the rain and then it was clear sailing all the way to Stuart. We did see some damage and flooding along I-95 so we were happy we clanged our plans.

We were hoping this hurricane season was behind us, but as I get ready to post this blog we are getting prepared for Nicole another tropical storm or possibly hurricane, heading our way.  Hopefully, it won't be too bad. Stay safe out there everyone.