Southern Camping Trip 2024 / Day 23

 Highlands Hammock State Park

Sebring, Florida

February 22, 2024

Marc-  Today we headed East to Vero Beach to visit my cousins who live there and to enjoy a really nice area.  In order to get to the Coast you need to cross the prairie that exists in the center of this part of Florida.  The majority of the area we crossed consisted of cattle ranches and very flat open land. Early on we encountered a re-enactment of horses and wagons on the highway participating in the Florida Cracker Association's annual Cross-state ride.  Their goal is to keep the old Florida Cracker pioneer ways alive.

Crackers are early Florida farmers and cattle ranchers.

Our first stop in Vero Beach was the City Marina to see if it had changed since our visit last year (and we stayed there on the Lucy III in 2020 - it's a beautiful marina in a beautiful town) and to obtain information on any used boat part dealers.  There has been talk of the City rebuilding the marina for many years now.  Nothing has changed.  Next we had lunch at Squid Lips restaurant in the neighboring town of Sebastian. The restaurant is located at the end of a long pier that extends out into the Indian River (part of the Intracoastal Waterway).  The food and the view were excellent.  We watched young dolphins and pelicans fishing while we ate.

One of four dolphins.

Pelicans

My cousin Armand and his daughter Michelle at Squid Lips Restaurant.

Vero Beach Mooring Field.

This tugboat looks a lot like our friends Will and Kathleen's "Rosie".

White Ibis at Vero Beach Marina.

Reddish Egret at Vero Beach Marina

Muti-colored lizard near dinghy dock.

Gray Squirrel back at the Campground.

Bear display at Campground (St. Patrick's Day is coming).

Sue's quilt blocks (night work).

Sue- Today's quilt shop visit was in Sebastian at Sweet Time Quilting.  The store is in what was a bank.  The drive throughs for the ATM machines are still there.  The two ladies working there were so nice.  They showed us a few things their $14,000 long arm machine could do.  They called it a toy, and they clearly enjoyed using it.  There were a number of quilts hanging up, some of them with extensive embroidering, and there were so many beautiful fabrics.  They get an A to A+.

The sailboat blocks above are hopefully going to make a queen sized quilt for the boat.  The pattern is for a lap quilt, so we need to do some math to figure out to make it queen sized.  

The tablerunner in patriotic colors that we're making and we showed in the blog last week is not done because we need more fabric for the border and back.

I don't remember how the ladies said they made this!