Biking Along The St. Lucie In Stuart, Florida

I finally was able to get out on my bike yesterday afternoon and pedal along the St. Lucie River here in Stuart, Florida. Stuart is surrounded on three sides by the St. Lucie, and biking along it is sheer pleasure. About a mile from my sister Susan and my condo, you can turn into one of Stuart's older neighborhoods and bike along the river, with mostly newer McMansions along the river and older homes, mostly from the 1920s, throughout the rest of the neighborhood. Stuart, I'll have you know, was named Best Small Coastal Town in America by USA Today in 2024. That was the year Susan and I took back our Stuart condo after renting it out for 15 years. The following year, Stuart dropped to 7th place in that top 10 list. I had no idea our return would drop the quality of life here so drastically, but this year, happily, Stuart rebounded back to number 2 on the list. We definitely have been trying to keep a lower profile. And it helped. Only Pismo Beach, California beat Stuart out for number 1. And yes, that is me posing at a park in a very upscale riverside neighborhood just to the east of downtown Stuart.

Once you bike through that older neighborhood along the St. Lucie that I mentioned, you reach Shepard Park, where I took the photograph on the right. Shepard Park is where Stuart's Riverwalk begins. It curves out into the St. Lucie, going from one side of the park to the other, leading to a still older neighborhood, with homes from the late 19th and early 20th Century. Once you hit the Sunset Bay Marina, the Riverwalk goes past piers where almost 70 boats are docked, and then past the Sailor's Return Restaurant, the location of my favorite outdoor patio, which has a great view of both the river and those yachts. Once past the Sailors' Return, you cross Dixie Highway (Dixie is not politically incorrect here in Florida) and then bike uninterrupted along the Riverwalk past Hudson's on the River, next to which is Harlow's Hideout, an outdoor Tiki Bar where this past November a 4-foot-long juvenile alligator entered the bar around happy hour and hung out under a chair. Sadly, it was removed by the police even though it was not causing any trouble at all. Cruel. Next, you pass Flagler Park and then reach downtown Stuart.

The boardwalk ends at Colorado Avenue Park, just to the east of downtown, and seen in the photograph on the left. But you can still bike through the neighborhoods along the river all the way to the bridge leading from Stuart to Sewall's Point, an upscale community bordered on the west by the St. Lucie River and on the east by the Indian River. From there another bridge leads to Hutchinson Island and Stuart Beach, where you can get breakfast, lunch, and even a beer at the Seaside Cafe and relax while you gaze at the ocean. Who needs Pismo Beach, anyway, right?

Fort Pierce, Florida - Superyacht Service Center To The World?

Fort Pierce, Florida was first settled in the 1860s and has a cute downtown with historic buildings from the late 19th and early 20th Century. It also has the Port of Fort Pierce, which handles an average of 350,000 tons of commerce annually, mainly through the export of citrus and the import of cement and aragonite. The port is a bit of a scruffy area, truth be told, which makes it all the more unusual that it is now the home of Derecktor Ft. Pierce, the first shipyard specifically designed for superyachts, and equipped with the world's largest mobile boat hoist, allowing for the lifting of large yachts needing service or refit. Fort Pierce, to be honest, is not my idea of a superyacht town. I was thinking about this as I was crossing the bridge over the Indian River from Hutchinson Island yesterday afternoon and caught a glimpse of the yacht seen in the photograph above. This superyacht is no doubt worth many millions of dollars and must cost a fortune to operate. I can just imagine it cruising in off the Atlantic and pulling into the Port of Fort Pierce for servicing, perhaps an oil change and a new filter. Do the owner and his guests just hop off the boat, hand the keys to the dockmaster, and then head to the nearest watering hole for a libation while waiting for the work to be done? The two nearest bars happen to be the Tipsy Tiki and the Funky Cuda Bar and Grill, which I suspect are just as colorful as the names imply. There is always the Bottoms Up Public House or the Pickled Restaurant and Bourbon Bar, if you want to get a bit more upscale, but they are both downtown and probably too far a walk for the one percent crowd. Hopefully the service people won't find anything else that needs to be done, like they always do with my Hyundai Accent, or the yachters might have to stay over at the Fort Pierce Motel 6. But no problem - crossing the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and the South of France can wait. This will be a true adventure. 

A Baseball Update: Reality Is A Bummer

Granted, it has only been three weeks since the Major League Baseball season has begun, but my South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox, currently have a record of 6 wins and 13 losses The Sox have lost 8 of their last 10 games and have been swept by both the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays. Of course, Tampa Bay has a pretty good team. Baltimore not so much. Needless to say, the White Sox have the worst record in baseball so far this season. After three weeks, is it too soon to panic? Yes! But I am panicking. The White Sox television announcers, Steve Stone and John Schriffen, still seem optimistic - they feel it is just a matter of getting the bats to come around. But to me, this season looks pretty much just like last season, when the Sox lost 102 games, which was much better than 2024, when they lost 121 games and set a record for the worst team in the history of Major League baseball. I am beginning to think I should never have bet my retirement savings on the Sox to win it all. Live and learn, I guess.

In any case, yesterday the weather in Chicago was pretty nice, and the boys in the Sox dugout looked pretty laid back and happy, as seen in the photograph on the right that I took from the Sox broadcast on MLB.com. But in the end, the Sox lost to the Tampa Bay Rays 5-3. On the other hand, the White Sox's North Side Rival, the Chicago Cubs, have 9 wins and 9 losses, a .500 record, although they are still in last place in the National League Central (although a mere 1.5 games out of first). Early days for them. As for my adopted hometown team, the Colorado Rockies, they have a record of 7-12, tied for last place with the San Francisco Giants in the National League West. But surprisingly, they actually beat the Houston Astros yesterday by a score of 3-2. Over the last 10 games the Rockies are 4 and 6, which is not good but better than the Sox. My main takeaway is that all 3 of these teams are currently in last place in their respective divisions. Will things turn around for these ballclubs? The Cubs will certainly be contenders. As for the White Sox and Rockies, I hate to say wait until next year, and so I will just think it.

Portrait Of A Pelican

I recently took the photograph on the left of a pelican sitting on the post of a pier underneath the bridge leading to Hutchinson Island, just to the east of Stuart, Florida. Years ago, I would take photographs of what seemed like dozens of pelicans crowding around fish cleaning stations, where fishermen would cut up their catch and toss the leftovers into the water. The pelicans would then quickly scramble after those yummy treats. These days, at the marinas, bridges, and boat launching spots along the Indian and St. Lucie Rivers that I have visited, I have not run into any fishermen cutting up their catch like I used to. I have no idea why. Perhaps I am just looking in the wrong places or at the wrong times. However, I have to wonder if this might be due to water quality issues reducing the number of fish in the area. Lake Okeechobee is highly polluted by agricultural runoff from sugar plantations, and when the lake level gets too high, that polluted water is released into the St. Lucie River and down to the Indian River Lagoon, which can cause fish kills and algae blooms, reducing the fish population. Fewer fish for the fishermen, forcing those pelicans to give up trying to get fish the easy way and instead cruise the shorelines looking for fish. And why doesn't the state stop the pollution of Lake Okeechobee? Because, of course, the plantation owners donate big money to the state's politicians, who have no intention of giving up the gravy train by doing the right thing. The same old story.

The 114th Anniversary Of The Sinking Of The Titanic

Exactly 114 years ago today the RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, resulting in the death of 1,514 people. The photograph above is the last know photograph of the ship, taken by an Irish Jesuit priest named Francis Browne as it was leaving Queenstown, Ireland, its final stop before crossing the Atlantic. Browne sailed on the Titanic for the first leg of its journey, from Southhampton to Cobh, then known as Queenstown. A wealthy couple he befriended offered to pay his fare to New York, but after requesting time off, he received a telegram from his superior telling him to return to Dublin immediately. Most of the photographs in existence showing life aboard the Titanic were taken by this priest. Many factors led to this disaster - excessive speed despite warnings of icebergs in the area, an untrained crew, not enough lifeboats, the lack of 24-hour radio watch on distress frequencies, etc. But in the article that accompanied the photograph, I learned two very interesting facts. One was that the fourth funnel on the ship was just for show. The designers felt the ship would look more impressive with four. Those same designers also made a fatal error. The ship had 15 watertight bulkheads and could remain floating if all four forward compartments were flooded. However, although the watertight bulkheads went above the waterline, they did not go all the way to the top, and once the 5th compartment was flooded, the water would spill into all the others, kind of like an ice cube tray. After the Titanic disaster, many reforms were introduced to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, but not before those 1,514 lives were lost.

Just Another Sunday In Palm Beach

I took a drive through Palm Beach, Florida this past Sunday. And why not, since it was a pleasant, sunny afternoon after almost a week of rain. I took the photograph above at the corner of South Ocean Boulevard and Worth Avenue, showing tourists posing for photographs in front of the Palm Beach Clock Tower, a local landmark constructed in 2010 to mark the start of the Worth Avenue Shopping District and to commemorate the former site of the Palm Beach Pier, which was torn down in the 1960s after a series of hurricanes damaged it. This photo also shows a convertible flying both a blue "Trump 2028" and a red "Trump Was Right About Everything" flag. I watched as people passing by on the sidewalk would get into the car to be photographed by the proud owner. This on the day that peace talks between the U.S. and Iran to stop the war Trump started fell apart. The mind boggles. The beach itself, by the way, is mostly gone due to the severe erosion caused by last week's storms. Perhaps Donald Trump will donate the money to restore it. Trump is, after all, a proud resident of Palm Beach and obviously still Palm Beach's favorite son, despite everything. Go figure.

Perusing The Downtown Palm Beach Gardens Fine Art Festival

I stopped by the Downtown Palm Beach Gardens Fine Art Festival to look around a bit yesterday afternoon. This festival originally took place in West Palm Beach at CityPlace, along Rosemary Avenue, but due to the construction of two high-rise office towers, the festival moved to "downtown" Palm Beach Gardens, Florida last year. There was a lot of nice art on display at this year's festival, including watercolors, oil and pastel paintings, sculptures, and photography, and I thought the photographs at the booth in the photograph on the left were especially good. 

Although the art was very nice, the festival is now much smaller than it was at CityPlace, where it was a major annual event. Downtown Palm Beach Gardens is actually a suburban outdoor shopping center, and there were few trees and little tropical landscaping where the event took place, unlike at CityPlace, where the lush grounds and Mediterranean and Venetian style architecture create a really special ambiance. And I have to say, there were not that many people there yesterday, which must have been disappointing for the artists. Hopefully the festival can move back to CityPlace after those office towers are finished. I checked online and it says those two buildings will be completed in 2027. However, that is just next year, and so far, I have not seen any kind of structures rising from the construction site. I suppose it is possible to construct two high-rise office buildings (one 22 stories and one 24) in a year and a half, but I am not holding my breath. I say move the festival back to CityPlace next year and to hell with the construction. Just give art goers hardhats when they walk down that particular block.