Full Moon -
New Smyrna Beach
White heron doing a balancing act.
Friday thru Sunday 1-9 thru 11-09
Very nice WX again this AM. We walked to Canal St. for breakfast at Jason’s Corner and then out the North Causeway bridge to the fishing pier at the west end of the draw bridge, about 2 miles from the marina. This is the bridge the ICW passes beneath coming south into NSB. We had arranged for a rental car and the guy from Enterprise picked us up about 1:00 PM. After we finished with the paper work we drove the nifty little (red) KIA to the local Walmart (poor) and Publix (pretty nice) where we shopped for some provisions. Publix is a nice chain of grocery stores in this area. We really appreciate the portable GPS that our son Matt gave us last year, even in a new and unfamiliar area we just fire it up and press few buttons to select a shopping or restaurant destination, and a gal’s voice commands us where to turn, how far it is and what time we will arrive - SWEET.
Back at the marina we set up our bikes and locked them to the rack at the office so we could be ready for a nice ride in the morning. At that point it was time for dinner so Polly just added the leftover chicken we had, to a Caesar salad kit we got at Publix and dinner was served. It was delicious and, NO pots or pans to be cleaned up!
We enjoyed our breakfast so much yesterday that we walked “up town” again to Jason’s Corner this morning, and again, it was great.
There was a hot air balloon festival being held at the local airport and we saw the balloons rising into the clear sky as we walked from the marina. We planned to ride our bikes out for a closer look later today. After breakfast we strolled through the weekly farmers market that sets up just off Canal Street every Saturday. We were blown away by the variety and freshness of the produce and ended up buying a bunch of vegetables and fruit (right from growers) as well as some freshly caught shrimp being sold by a father and son who operate their own boat. Our Saturday evening dinner menu was now all set.
After Polly stored the things from the market we hopped on our bikes and headed out of town toward the airport. Apparently the balloon thing was just a very early morning affair because there was no sign of anything balloon related. We continued on north along Rt. 1 until we found a road that ran along the airport boundary and eventually connected to other roads that allowed us to completely circle back toward New Smyrna Beach without much exposure to Rt. 1, which carries a good bit of high speed traffic.
When we finally had to cross the busy road, we spotted a Dairy Queen and that reminded us that our breakfast had been pretty well used up by the 10 or so miles we had pedaled. PMB had a hot fudge sundae kind of thing in a waffle bowl and RCB had a small vanilla cone and a hot dog. So much for our healthier life style, aboard the boat.
By the time we were back at the boat and cleaned up, it was time to check out the classic car show that was to be held along Canal Street. Every couple of weekends NSB has some kind of event that is held along the fancied-up section of Canal Street – they close off the 5-6 block section to traffic and turn the entire area into a pedestrian mall. This week it was old cars – about 200 of them were parked all along the street and on some side streets. The beautiful wheels ranged from very old antiques to restored muscle cars. After an hour of browsing we returned to the boat and grilled up our fresh shrimp for dinner.
Sunday morning brought another beautiful day, so we biked across the causeway and out to the end of road where we discovered New Smyrna Dunes Park. The park occupies the entire tip of land that makes up the south side of Ponce Inlet to the ocean. The park features an elevated wooden walkway that loops around for 1 ½ miles following the shore line of the ICW out to the inlet and returning by way of the ocean shore back to the park office where we left our bikes.
There are also some short board walks that lead to elevated overlooks and even a few that have steps down to the ocean beach. The beach can also be accessed by cars and SUV’s from streets within the town area – many groups were fishing in the surf with their vehicles parked nearby. We encountered a number of other walkers as we toured the dunes and of course, Polly has to say hi to everyone, in particular a man and two women who were stopped along the walkway. When we returned to the marina from our 8 mile (plus 2 mile walk) bike ride we decided to go to town for a sandwich. As we were leaving the boat, Polly thought she recognized a couple walking near our dock as the people we saw at the park – sure enough it was them. We chatted for nearly an hour and a fast friendship developed. Sue and Steve Morris have a sailboat on a lake where they live in Idaho, but grew up in the Philadelphia area and are wintering with a sister in NSB. They visited us aboard FLIGHT for drinks the next evening and we promised to get together again when we returned from our upcoming car trip to Marathon where we will have some time with granddaughter Libby and her parents. We wrapped up our day with left-over tortellini soup for dinner, aboard FLIGHT.
Very nice WX again this AM. We walked to Canal St. for breakfast at Jason’s Corner and then out the North Causeway bridge to the fishing pier at the west end of the draw bridge, about 2 miles from the marina. This is the bridge the ICW passes beneath coming south into NSB. We had arranged for a rental car and the guy from Enterprise picked us up about 1:00 PM. After we finished with the paper work we drove the nifty little (red) KIA to the local Walmart (poor) and Publix (pretty nice) where we shopped for some provisions. Publix is a nice chain of grocery stores in this area. We really appreciate the portable GPS that our son Matt gave us last year, even in a new and unfamiliar area we just fire it up and press few buttons to select a shopping or restaurant destination, and a gal’s voice commands us where to turn, how far it is and what time we will arrive - SWEET.
Back at the marina we set up our bikes and locked them to the rack at the office so we could be ready for a nice ride in the morning. At that point it was time for dinner so Polly just added the leftover chicken we had, to a Caesar salad kit we got at Publix and dinner was served. It was delicious and, NO pots or pans to be cleaned up!
We enjoyed our breakfast so much yesterday that we walked “up town” again to Jason’s Corner this morning, and again, it was great.
There was a hot air balloon festival being held at the local airport and we saw the balloons rising into the clear sky as we walked from the marina. We planned to ride our bikes out for a closer look later today. After breakfast we strolled through the weekly farmers market that sets up just off Canal Street every Saturday. We were blown away by the variety and freshness of the produce and ended up buying a bunch of vegetables and fruit (right from growers) as well as some freshly caught shrimp being sold by a father and son who operate their own boat. Our Saturday evening dinner menu was now all set.After Polly stored the things from the market we hopped on our bikes and headed out of town toward the airport. Apparently the balloon thing was just a very early morning affair because there was no sign of anything balloon related. We continued on north along Rt. 1 until we found a road that ran along the airport boundary and eventually connected to other roads that allowed us to completely circle back toward New Smyrna Beach without much exposure to Rt. 1, which carries a good bit of high speed traffic.
When we finally had to cross the busy road, we spotted a Dairy Queen and that reminded us that our breakfast had been pretty well used up by the 10 or so miles we had pedaled. PMB had a hot fudge sundae kind of thing in a waffle bowl and RCB had a small vanilla cone and a hot dog. So much for our healthier life style, aboard the boat.
By the time we were back at the boat and cleaned up, it was time to check out the classic car show that was to be held along Canal Street. Every couple of weekends NSB has some kind of event that is held along the fancied-up section of Canal Street – they close off the 5-6 block section to traffic and turn the entire area into a pedestrian mall. This week it was old cars – about 200 of them were parked all along the street and on some side streets. The beautiful wheels ranged from very old antiques to restored muscle cars. After an hour of browsing we returned to the boat and grilled up our fresh shrimp for dinner.Sunday morning brought another beautiful day, so we biked across the causeway and out to the end of road where we discovered New Smyrna Dunes Park. The park occupies the entire tip of land that makes up the south side of Ponce Inlet to the ocean. The park features an elevated wooden walkway that loops around for 1 ½ miles following the shore line of the ICW out to the inlet and returning by way of the ocean shore back to the park office where we left our bikes.
There are also some short board walks that lead to elevated overlooks and even a few that have steps down to the ocean beach. The beach can also be accessed by cars and SUV’s from streets within the town area – many groups were fishing in the surf with their vehicles parked nearby. We encountered a number of other walkers as we toured the dunes and of course, Polly has to say hi to everyone, in particular a man and two women who were stopped along the walkway. When we returned to the marina from our 8 mile (plus 2 mile walk) bike ride we decided to go to town for a sandwich. As we were leaving the boat, Polly thought she recognized a couple walking near our dock as the people we saw at the park – sure enough it was them. We chatted for nearly an hour and a fast friendship developed. Sue and Steve Morris have a sailboat on a lake where they live in Idaho, but grew up in the Philadelphia area and are wintering with a sister in NSB. They visited us aboard FLIGHT for drinks the next evening and we promised to get together again when we returned from our upcoming car trip to Marathon where we will have some time with granddaughter Libby and her parents. We wrapped up our day with left-over tortellini soup for dinner, aboard FLIGHT. 
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