Doug & Jan; Day Dreams Adventure Continues: January 2022

We had hoped and planned to be able to stay on Day Dreams at the St Petersburg Harborage Marina for 3 months while looking to buy a house. This Safe Harbor Marina has an odd dockage system-no advance reservations and no waiting list. We were the squeaky wheel to the Marina Dock Master. I really think it comes down to who you know and we were lucky in that regard because Ed on Slowdown did put in a few good words on our account. We called often and finally got the OK that we would have a slip when we arrived. When we called the morning of our arrival, we were told that the boat in our slip was supposed to have left but had engine problems and could not move so they were going to put us in slip D-21 on the same face dock, side tied, just behind our reserved slip and when that boat finally left, we would move up. Well, we stayed 3 months and never had to move which was great because we had plenty of room and good neighbors.

We met with our Realtor, Tyler who we had met last winter while we were visiting for a day from Longboat. He works for Sotheby's out of the downtown St Pete office. We went over our must haves and our desired locations. There was not much inventory at the moment and the prices are continuing to rise. We looked at 2 houses and we didn't like either. He did get us a bit excited about a house that may go on the market soon that he will be listing.

We had to drive back to Jacksonville and get our Van that we left @ Ortega Landing. We rented a car from Enterprise but the closest franchise was closed so Ed drove us about a half hour to the next closest Enterprise Dealer. While back in JAX we stopped to see Larry who was recouping from a knee surgery. After picking up our Van and dropping off the rental, we drove out to Queens Harbor where Bette & Al live, enjoyed a delicious dinner that Bette lovingly prepared and stayed the night with them.

Once back to St Pete, we did a lot of recon with our bikes, looking at neighborhoods and trying to expand our search. We have decided we really want to be walking distance to downtown and on the north side. We did expand our criteria to include the Crescent Lake area, where there is a beautiful park around the lake with pickle ball & tennis courts. We know we want a single story house with a big front porch and of course we have to have a garage for Doug's workshop. We have time and we are not going to rush and get something we will regret later.

For Christmas, we drove to Esther's in Punta Gorda and celebrated the holiday with her and also helped her with some chores. She is in the process of recuperating from her second total knee replacement in less than a year and she is doing awesome.

We aren't able to see our Godson, Paul & Jess's little one Hudson grow in person but Jess & Paul are great at sharing pics & videos. The footprint Christmas tree plate is our Christmas present from Hudson.

St Petersburg's Downtown continues to thrive and it was nicely decorated for the holidays. On New Year's Eve, we hopped in our dinghy for a sunset cruise and then checked out the newly finished pier. There was live music and lots of Christmas lights. We stayed in the harbor and watched the 8:00 PM Fireworks show put on for the young kids and us older kids who didn't want to stay out for the midnight show.

We were very happy to have friends in the area. Our good friends, Sue & Don on KK Invictus, were docked at Treasure Island on the beach side about 20 minutes from us. We visited them there and we walked over to the beach where they had cool sand sculptures. Martha & John on Mary Louise II were here at Harborage Marina along with Ed & Cheryl on Slowdown. We also met our neighbors Fritz & Joyce on a sailboat. The laundry room is a great place to chat & meet people. I met Sue who with her husband Mike have a new to them, Outer Reef and are hoping to do the loop. They are from California and are not very familiar with boating in Florida & the East coast, so we were able to help them and we enjoy their company. We enjoyed dinners out with all these fun couples throughout our 3 month stay. I also walked with Martha often, while we sampled coffee/tea drinks from all the different Coffee Shops in downtown. Starbucks is still my favorite-it's dependable, good & consistent.

The COVID Pandemic continues with a new strain that is even more contagious. The 2 strains that are causing a huge rise in cases are Delta & Omicron. The U.S. is seeing a record # of cases and Florida has a 900% increase. A positive is that the people who have been fully vaccinated are not getting seriously ill and needing hospitalization. The unvaccinated of which we have 40% in the U.S. are the ones being hospitalized and dying.

The city of St Pete is so biker friendly-we love it. There are miles and miles of designated bike trails. We rode 11 miles round trip to Boyd Hill Preserve south of town. The Preserve has 8 miles of trails within it but we didn't do them yet. We also rode our bikes to Mazzaro's Italian Market north of town, that Sue & Don insisted we visit. We met them there, had lunch and then had a blast shopping. The place was packed which didn't make us feel too comfortable with the rise in COVID cases but we wore our good 3 layer masks with filter and got out safely. It's an amazing place that has been there a long time.

Bike ride w/JR to St Pete Beach

At Crescent Lake, as I mentioned, they have great Pickle Ball courts so we did bike there and play. It's not as much fun with singles, when playing doubles-you don't have to work as hard. The park also has a paved walking trail all the way around the lake-I think it is a mile loop.

St Pete always has something going on-lots of festivals, the weekly farmers market, concerts and an annual boat show. Of course, we are not going to miss a boat show when it's right in our neighborhood. There were all different sized Center Console boats with a variety of big motors on their stern. They did have a big tent with vendors which we always enjoy walking through and seeing what new gadgets are available. The weekly Farmers Market is always well attended with many craft booths, food trucks and some actual nice produce. They also have live music performances. We splurged and bought tickets for The Bacon, Burger & Beer Festival in the Vinoy Park. It was OK, not our kind of music but the food was good. We did buy tickets for 2 indoor concerts that Don & Sue were going to attend but when each event got close, Doug & I decided that they were too risky due to the increase in COVID cases. We are enjoying our time here and it reinforces that our decision to settle here is the right one.