March 28, Day 276 – In Vero Beach

We slept late and then had a lazy Sunday morning. We were thinking about heading out, but after checking weather (rain and wind predicted) decided to stay put today. We did, however, switch the positions of the boats. The generator exhausts were facing each other, so we moved Monk's Vineyard to the port side of Second Star.

After rearranging the boats, we decided to take a walk to the ….. what else …. boat show that was a few blocks away. Fortunately, we didn’t find a single thing to buy. After that we walked the 3 or 4 blocks to the beach front and associated stores and restaurants. There was an arts festival in the park so we strolled through that and then to the beach. We stopped at Nino’s Pizza for lunch and had very yummy pizza with more than enough left over for a second meal. We finished walking through the town (lucky for us most of the shops were closed on Sunday) and then back to the marina. Very pleasant walk and it didn’t even rain on us.

Back at the boat Gerry napped and Linda read. Later, Gerry worked on the itinerary again and Linda did research in the guide books and on the computer for possible stops and associated attractions. One thing we have decided is to try to watch the space shuttle launch scheduled for April 5. If it goes forward as planned, we should see it. If not, we’ll just move on. We are also going to the MTOA (Marine Trawler Owners Association) rendezvous in St. Augustine, FL in mid-April. After the rendezvous we are going to take a couple of weeks and make a side trip on the St. John’s River. Little by little we are filling in the schedule with the time we would have spent in the Bahamas.

It finally started to rain around 8:00. It is supposed to rain through the night and most of tomorrow. If so, we will probably stay here another day.

On our walk to the beach we passed through a park area with very interesting old trees

..... many with low hanging moss

The town had several painted statues of turtles. This one was entitled Lawyer. Thought it was pretty cute considering I used to work for the courts. This little lawyer turtle had his law books, cell phone, the scales of justice and, of course, tie and suspenders.

Here's the jungle turtle ... painted with elephants, monkeys, tigers, etc.

Here's Gerry beside the International Turtle. It had paintings of the native dress and flags from countries all over the world (Note to former co-workers: maybe this could be the logo for the Court Interpreter Program)

A little boy building a sand castle just out of reach of the waves ... at least for now

A shot of the boardwalk and beach

This is the Ocean Grill. It received high marks in the guide books, but there was also mention that it was pretty pricey. We settled for pizza instead.

On the way back to the boat we walked through the older neighborhoods. This modest home had very nice landscaping. It seemed strange to see so many flowers ... it's only March (well almost April).