While we were at Treasure Coast in Fort Pierce, we didn’t run around doing a lot of sightseeing for several reasons.  First because we’ve been here several times before, second because of the situation with Chooey and third, due to a minor problem with the condensate drain for one of the three AC units, Rob spent a lot of time up on our roof trying to resolve that issue leaving little time for sightseeing.

After several trips to a nearby Home Depot for various bits and pieces from my favorite (no, not really) plumbing aisle, he eventually did resolve the issue. Ah, yes, even being homeless, there’s always somethin’!

We did take a drive into Port St. Lucie one morning and had breakfast at the Berry Fresh Cafe so I could use the free breakfast birthday coupon that I had received via email.  They do have a Big Breakfast special – two eggs, red bliss potatoes, grits or tomatoes, bacon, toast and coffee for $6.49. Not a bad deal especially when you have a free breakfast coupon!

It was funny as we were driving down I-95 to Port St. Lucie, we passed the sign in the photo on the right. Nearby there were several cows grazing but to be honest, I couldn’t tell which ones were new and which ones were used!

I didn’t mention this in my post about Chooey but on the way to the vet, Rob had just finished saying that the tire pressure monitor was showing that the tire pressure on the passenger side rear tire was low and commented that sometimes that tends to happen.  No sooner were the words out of his mouth when we heard a funny noise. Everything still seemed fine until about a mile later, lo and behold we heard that awful noise indicating a flat.

Rob was able to maneuver over to a side road where he took off the flat which had a dime sized hole in the middle of the tread and was able to mount the spare – within 20 minutes we were back on our way again. Maybe Chooey was trying to tell us something but it certainly wasn’t a good time for that to happen.  The tires which weren’t that old had originally been purchased at BJ’s and luckily there was one not to far away.  Since Rob didn’t want to have 3 old tires and 1 new, he decided to get 2 new rear tires.  Ah yes, that was an expensive and trying day to say the least!

On Monday, December 16th, we took a ride over to Fort Pierce Inlet State Park.  Entrance fee was $6.  Since we knew that we wouldn’t be there more than an hour we expected that we wouldn’t get our money’s worth but went ahead and paid it anyway.  It was a beautiful day although pretty windy and a little chilly (by Florida standards) but we enjoyed a quick walk along the beach anyway before returning to the car.

Driving on, we stopped at a few other parks – Avalon and Pepper Park and walked out to see the beach.

Eventually we stumbled across Round Island Riverside Park in Vero Beach.  There are two sections to the park – oceanfront and the west or island side.  We didn’t realize until we drove into the island side parking lot that we had been here before.

After we parked the car, we walked across a bridge to get to one of the trails.  When we were here before (not sure when but it was pre-blog days) we saw several manatees as we walked over the bridge, but this time there weren’t any – perhaps the water wasn’t warm enough for them yet.

A short distance down the trail there’s an observation platform where we started talking to two couples – one from Townsend, MA who now live in Vero and the other couple who were visiting them from Leominster, MA.  During the conversation, they suggested that we take the boat tour out of the Manatee Center in Fort Pierce exclaiming that it was very informative and educational so we would learn about the Indian River Lagoon and its history.  After talking to them for a bit we proceeded down the trail to the wooden observation tower. Not sure how high it is but we had to climb up about 4 flights of steps – there’s a pretty nice view of the lagoon from the top.

On Tuesday, December 17th, we were invited over to Jim and Ann’s beautiful home  in Vero Beach for dinner. I offered to bring a dessert so I decided to make a cherry cheese pie which was a traditional dessert that I would serve every year when we hosted our family Christmas dinner.   Except for baking brownies, I hadn’t done much baking yet in the combo convection/microwave so I was a little nervous about how it would come out.  Oh well, if it didn’t work out, there were always grocery stores on the way to their house.

As usual, it was a scrumptious meal – salad with a ginger dressing, seared scallops with cabbage, bacon and apple and roasted potatoes. Who would think that scallops and cabbage would go together so well? But it did and Ann cooked the scallops perfectly.  And fortunately the pie turned out okay.  We could eat at this restaurant everyday!  Thanks again, Jim and Ann for being the perfect host and hostess, the wonderful evening and the delicious meal!

During our conversation, they had told us about a Capt Bob’s air boat tour which they have taken several times and highly recommended.  Hmmm, now we had two suggestions but only two days left…what to do?

Yours truly was having a bad hair month (gotta love this humidity) so I had made an appointment for Wednesday afternoon to have my hair cut at a place Ann had recommended so doing any type of boat tour was out of the question that day.

On Thursday morning, I called Capt Bob’s but they weren’t doing any tours until Friday (the day we were leaving) so we decided we would take the 2 hour Indian River Lagoon tour out of the Manatee Center at 1:30 pm.

Arriving there about 12:30 pm, we bought our tickets ($23 regular price, $20 for seniors) then walked a few blocks over to where we would eventually board the boat named “Gator”.  Nice area with a short boardwalk along the water, right next to the Fort Pierce City marina with plenty of park benches.  Only problem was the zillions (well, maybe not quite that many) of birds flying over head – pigeons, seagulls, pelicans and who knows what else! Almost felt like an umbrella was required for protection!  Luckily no splats occurred!

It was a beautiful day – sunny, bright blue sky and comfortable temps although once out on the water, we were glad we had brought sweatshirts as it was a little cool.  Captain Barry “Chop” Legé was about 10 minutes late and during the first part of the tour,  he was eating his lunch.

Was it a beautiful day for a boat ride?  Most definitely.  Did we learn a lot from the tour?  Mostly not.  He didn’t talk about much of anything and when he did, his words were so muffled despite the microphone you couldn’t understand what he was saying. As you can see by the photos at the end of this post, it was nice seeing the lagoon from the water and we did see some dolphin and a manatee from a distance but other than that, we weren’t impressed and wouldn’t recommend this tour – at least as we experienced it.

By now it was around 3:45 pm but we decided to take a ride across the bridge over to the south side of the lagoon since we didn’t remember ever being on this side before.  We stopped at Jetty Park which is where the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean meet and was directly across from Fort Pierce Inlet State Park and walked out on the jetty. For a quick look at the inlet the free jetty is much recommended over the State Park!

Looked like some pretty fierce surf and currents at the head of the inlet – must be a rough ride for boaters! Despite the late hour, there were quite a few fisherman out on the jetty with hungry pelicans by their side.

After that we headed back to the hacienda where we sat outside for a bit. In between all of our activities, we would put Sparky in his jacket and harness so he could chase the anoles.  Too funny watching him!  He didn’t like walking with the jacket on so he would take a few steps, dragging his stomach on the cement and then just fall over on his side.  Wish I was fast enough to make a video of him toppling over!

So that was it for our 10 day stay in Fort Pierce, a fairly quiet and enjoyable stay.

On Friday morning, we prepared for our departure, leaving Treasure Coast about 10:45 am.  Our next destination was Riverbend RV Resort in Labelle, FL.  More on our trip in our next post.

Reminder – once you enlarge one of the photos, you can use your arrow keys to scroll to the next picture – no need to click on each photo to view it.