March 6, 2025 - Vero Beach City Marina, Vero Beach, Florida

We had a leisurely morning and Kip made pancakes for breakfast.  It is cold and windy today, but not as windy as yesterday.  We both showered and I bought a bag of ice for the cooler and two ice cream bars for our nightly snack.

We took off for a walk to town.  We window shopped at downtown Vero Beach, had coffee and a croissant, bought Kip a new pair of shorts, checked out the beach, and stopped to look at the Driftwood Resort.  This Resort was listed on the National Registry in 1994.  Waldo E. Sexton (1885-1967) built the two buildings which comprise the Driftwood Inn and Restaurant in 1935.

Many of the shops in this part of town are high-end stores, so we took the bus to the other side of the bridge to see if they had an old town area.  There wasn't an old town area, but we did find a Publix.  We had about a half hour to shop, so we took the opportunity and got groceries.  Kip figured we had time to get back to the bus stop, repack the groceries, and be ready for the bus.  We pushed the cart out toward the bus stop, and the bus was arriving!  We didn't want to wait an hour to catch the next bus, so we ran with the cart, grabbed the bags and three 12-packs of pop, and fell into the bus.

The bus dropped us (and our groceries) off at the marina.  We had a few crackers, read for a while, tried to nap.  We left the boat again around 4:15 to go to the outdoor music event by the Riverside Theater called "Live in the Loop."  It was a nice walk, but we arrived around 4:35 p.m. - way too early, so we walked toward the water and found a park called Veterans Island Memorial Sanctuary.  We crossed a bridge with a brick walkway, and we were impressed.  It was beautiful.

We walked back to Riverside Theater, set up our chairs, and the people started to arrive.  The band was called "Hot Sauce Moon", and they were playing songs relating to Mardi Gras.  We stayed until their first intermission and then walked back to the marina.

We had orange chicken with rice for supper.  As I began this entry, Kip was doing dishes.  The water pump started to act up, and Kip found water all over the floor where the pump is.  He is working on it now.  As Carlo would say "A boat is a hole in the water you throw money into."  With the co-captain's assistance, Captain Kip fixed the leak in the hose that was corroding the water pump causing it not to work and soaked up the water, so it hopefully won't happen again.  

But never fear, we will still have our ice cream before we go to bed!

Wish us luck!