Day 188 – 193
As I mentioned earlier, we wound up staying at Fort Pierce City Marina for five full days, rather than the two we’d originally planned. Thank you, strong March winds! On St. Patty’s Day we walked (were blown) around downtown Fort Pierce, which was just two blocks from our marina. We stopped at Café Azteca Mexican restaurant and sat outside at one of their bistro tables that was protected from the wind. We each enjoyed a humongous, top-shelf margarita while we people-watched. The weather was sunny and warm, just accompanied by gale force winds!
During our stay in Fort Pierce – an area we both really like and do recommend as a great Looper stop – we did a lot of walking, drinking, and eating. Imagine that! One afternoon, Steve walked to a nearby barber for a haircut and then texted me he was stopping off at Sailfish Brewing Company for an afternoon beer on his way back to the boat.
For the last week or so, my intestinal tract was not at its best. Some days I felt fine and others I didn’t want to leave the boat. Just when I thought it was time to catch a ride to the nearest urgent care, my symptoms would subside. Steve did very well at being patient with my roller-coaster health.
Of all things, I received a Clay County, Florida, jury summons in the mail! Good grief… How was I going to swing that in this new vagabond lifestyle of ours? In this goofy new Covid-19 world, the summons was requesting I get online and join a Zoom meeting the morning of 03/19/21, at 8:30 am. That would be fine except for the very iffy internet service we almost always encounter nowadays. I knew the chances of even connecting to a call like that – let alone keeping it up – would be slim. So I called the juror help number at Clay County and explained my plight. The girl I spoke with was very understanding and said she would mark my absence as excused. Hooray! I was thrilled with how easy that was. 😊 Hopefully, neither of us will receive another jury summons while we’re still traveling.
Another evening, I took a chance with my iffy GI tract, and we walked back to Café Azteca for an early dinner. Fortunately all went well and we had a good meal, even though I brought about half of it back to the boat as leftovers, since the serving was gigantic.
One morning I walked over to the west side of the marina complex and found a craft-fair type setup. I strolled around the grounds, but found nothing I couldn’t live without, which is good since we have very little room for anything new in our tiny home. I did feel sorry for the vendors frantically working to design elaborate, make-shift tethering systems for their tents and tables, at the mercy of all that wind!
We finally completed pulling all our 2020 tax information together to send to our CPA, Gerald Clark, up in Arkansas. That chore kept getting put off or lost in various stacks of paperwork before we just bit the bullet and completed it. In the meantime, I had also completed two charity crochet projects – two full-size afghans – to send off to my charity group, Warm Up America. (I’ve really gone whole-hog with this crocheting.) One morning I tried to request an Uber ride to the USPS to mail off our taxes and afghans, but was unsuccessful, so I switched over to Lyft, which also came back with “no cars available at this time – please try again later.” We’ve noticed that the further north we’ve gotten here in Florida, the fewer the Uber or Lyft rides have become, for some reason. I rode with one Uber driver about a week earlier who told me that – for some unknown reason – a large portion of drivers in southern Florida quit the industry at the first of 2021. That made for more work for those who stayed on, but due to driver scarcity, Uber is having to raise their rates for rides, which is causing more people to stop using them. Kind of a Catch 22, it seemed to me… So, the morning I needed to go to the USPS, I wound up calling an honest to goodness taxi ride. How novel! Refreshingly, the taxi driver arrived 15 minutes earlier than Uber drivers had been arriving, plus his fare for a round-trip (including waiting for me in the USPS parking lot) was noticeably less than Uber or Lyft! Granted, his vehicle wasn’t as nice as most Ubers I’ve taken (older Toyota Camry that was due for a cleaning inside and out), but it got me safely where I was going and back, which is the main thing. My taxi driver was an older gentlemen who I first mistook for Bernie Sanders! He wasn’t wearing woolen mittens, but his white hair was wild and stuck up all over the place. He was wearing not one, but TWO, Covid masks, and talking a mile a minute. He was chock-full of information he readily shared. Whether that information was relevant or not, he repeated it multiple times in pretty much the same sentences, which was a bit unnerving, considering he was behind the wheel of the car in which I was riding! But, to be completely fair, he took me straight to the post office, waited for me, and brought me back without a hitch. And his constant talking helped make the time fly!
On Saturday, 03/20/21, the wind was so bad that we could barely walk, let alone hear ourselves talk or even think! The weather was playing tricks on us, though, as it was clear and sunny and gorgeous out, if you didn’t mind constantly tensing every muscle in your body in order to stay upright. We walked over to Sailfish Brewing Company for lunch, where Steve ordered pizza and I ordered a Caprese Flatbread that they must’ve had to plant, grow and harvest the tomatoes and basil for, as Steve was almost completely finished with his pizza before my lunch finally arrived(?) Not sure what was up with that, but it was delicious, so I was appeased.
Steve walked up on Saturday morning to the weekly Farmer’s Market, only to find it wasn’t happening. I’m betting it was because of that ridiculous wind!
Late in the week, Steve sat for almost three straight hours planning a new travel route for Legacy, as his original plan was literally “blown” off course! Planning these routes is not the easiest thing, as a tentative route must first be established, then multiple calls must be made to multiple marinas (if we’re not going to anchor-out) to check transient slip availability and then make reservations for the specific dates planned, if space is attainable. Steve will get something all setup for the next four to five days, then a danged cold front will blow through, forcing us to stay wherever we are until it passes, which means changing all of the previously-made plans and reservations!
Our last night in slip C84 at Fort Pierce City Marina, we walked over to 2nd Street Bistro for dinner. I ordered a delicious Veggie Stack, which was literally a stack of sauteed vegetables (squash, zucchini, Portabello mushroom) with melted cheese on a Brioche bun. Very tasty AND healthy! Steve had grilled, smoked salmon, which was equally delicious. One of the things we’ve noticed about dining at all these restaurants with outdoor seating, is that we’re often asked to don a face-mask to enter the restaurant, only to be led to an outdoor table where we are allowed to remove our masks to enjoy our meal. But then, when we go to leave – even though we’re outside and our exit is also outside, we’re expected to don our masks again to leave the premises(?) What logical good can that possibly do? SO crazy and frustrating. Our oldest daughter told us that since the mask mandate in Arkansas was lifted on 03/31/21, far fewer people are wearing masks, and even WAL-MART has removed their “mandatory face-covering” signs. Hallelujah! She said it is so freeing to be able to BREATH when walking around Wal-mart now. However, down here in Florida, we’re still very paranoid. Masks are definitely expected and some shops are actually still closed to inside patrons, and restaurants closed for inside dining.
Position: N 27° 27.035, W 80° 19.283
Total marina nights: 177