Day 66 in Stuart - a remarkable old downtown

We left Lucky Us about 10:15 am

for a walking tour of downtown that lasted nearly 4 hours since we enjoyed it so much. As a city, Stuart is 99 years old, but that part of the local history mainly dates from the railroad. We made a wrong turn and ended up Crossing US #1 and going directly about 2 blocks to the middle of the old downtown.  It is a wonderful mixture of old and new buildings that all fit together. Although as we crossed the main road, we did see this sign trying to sell an entire (small) city block.

The downtown was busy and more like a local, working downtown, i.e. no souvenir stores. Yes, there were plenty of restaurants, bars and coffee shops, but as the Admiral discovered, there were quite a few clothing, novelty and art/antique stores.

I loved this sign! At the same time it seemed strangely out of place. There were plenty of people who were old enough to have been Hippies, but I never saw anyone with a pony tail or braids, etc.

Lately, most of the Florida towns that we have visited are the "World's" something, and indeed, Stuart claims to be the Sailfish Capitol, which is celebrated in this sculpture.

The curly tailed lizard on the square paving block is nearly 10 inches long. We saw quite a few of these lizards today (mostly smaller).

We also visited the local museum, which we had thought would take only a few minutes to view since it was in a small restored, wooden store with living quarters in the back. However, we had not anticipated the nice lady who insisted on giving us her own personal tour. She had grown up here and was well versed in the local history. In additon to fishing and early (train related) tourism, there much logging and harvesting of pineapples. Also, there was a period  after WW II when the area produced huge quantities of mums. Well, that's undoubtedly more than you wanted to know about Stuart.       We stopped at the Riverfront cafe, and we both had a great salad  that was topped with a fried filet of Dogfish.  A new variety of fish for me, but we both loved it. 

Going back to the marina, we took the correct route of about a half mile on a boardwalk along the waterfront park. Notice that the the Admiral was kind enough to let me carry her purchases.

About 3:00 pm, we took the electric scooters and headed off to West Marine and the movie theater, which are both a little over 2 miles away. We saw "Despicable Me-2". The second batch of popcorn was much better than the first, but the whole movie was quite enjoyable. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at Publix Grocery just as the rains hit. The worst rain was while we were inside, but our bright yellow slickers were definitely needed on the ride home...

Tomorrow is a travel day of about 4 hours as we will turn North into the Atlantic IntraCoastal Waterway and begin a long journey to New York City and beyond...